Paul & Sue Hazelden
- Go -

Introduction

Until April 1999, Paul managed to play Go most weeks.   He played at the local club, which conveniently met in Guildford.   These days, he occasionally manages to get to the Bristol club which meets on Wednesday evenings in Clifton.

Go is the simplest and yet the most difficult board game yet devised.   It originated around 4,000 years ago in China.   It is now very popular across most of Asia, and is increasingly played all over the world.

 

How to Play

How do you play?   Each player has a supply of pieces, all the same, called ‘stones’.   One has black stones, the other white.   They play on a board marked with a 19x19 grid.   They take it in turns to place one stone on one of the intersections, and at the end of the game the player who has surrounded most intersections entirely with his stones is the winner.

And that, very nearly, is the entire game.

The other rules?   A stone, or connected group of stones, which is entirely surrounded by the other player’s stones, is captured, removed from the board, and counted as territory by the capturing player.   You cannot commit suicide.   You cannot repeat the same position on the board twice in a game.   And that is the lot, until you get to the really obscure rules about how to score very unusual positions.

So you simply take it in turns to place stones on the board - they never move.   Occasionally you may capture a few stones.   And when neither player wants to place any more, the game is over.   A weaker player is given some stones on the board to start off, so even in an uneven game each player has a fair chance of winning.   The handicap system is really effective, so you can get a good game no matter who you play - one of the biggest advantages over games like chess where a strong player will simply wipe the board with the weaker player, who does not learn from the experience.

 

Why Play?

The game is fascinating from a number of perspectives.

• There is pure joy in the wonderful complexity which arises from such simple rules.
   
• The game requires a rare combination of logic and feeling.   You discover logic and feeling working in harmony, not in opposition to one another.   Aspects of the game can be worked out with total precision, but even the greatest experts depend on their intuition.
   
• In a strange way, it is a game of co-operation, rather than conflict.   You play with another person, not against them.   Neither player controls the direction of the game.   You do not seek to destroy the other player or gain an absolute victory as in chess.   You aim only to score a few points more than the other player.   If you aim to inflict a humiliating defeat on them, you will usually lose.
   
• The game is a mixture of battle and dance, conflict and harmony.   You have to defend your territory and destroy the other player’s territory.   You have to play close to your other stones for safety, and far away from your other stones for territory.   Each player develops their own style, but the one secret of success is to discover the correct balance between all the conflicting demands in each situation.   They probably say this of a number of games, but it really does take a minute to learn and a lifetime to master - except that even the professionals who spend all their lives playing never get close to mastering the game.
   
• And, finally, there is a real physical pleasure in playing the game, especally with a good quality set - a thick board and heavy, solid stones.   The click on the stone on wood becomes incredibly satisfying.
   

 

Links

There are many web sites which promote the game.   Here are just a few.

• The Guildford club
• The British Go Association
• The personal site of Jan van der Steen