A Quick Introduction
"Just one game," they said, and started to play -- that was yesterday.
-Traditional Chinese Proverb What is Go?
Go is a board game from ancient China played with black and white pieces on a 19x19 gridded board. It is very popular in China, Japan, and Korea with several million of its players residing there. Second to Xiangqi (Chinese Chess), it is said to be one of the most played board-games each day. Edward Lasker, an International Chess Master, once said, "the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go." At the same time, It took 19 more years for a computer to topple a reigning human player in go (AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol) than it did for Western chess (DeepBlue vs Garry Kasparov). Studies of the brains of strong players show the level of thinking used in playing go to be over the thinking used in many other games, particularly in its involvement of both the left hemisphere of the brain, which is thought to deal with calculations, and the right hemisphere, which deals with a sense of beauty and intuition. Most games only trigger the left hemisphere. Other studies on the game have shown the delay of dementia and other mental diseases for those who labor over it. It is also particularly good for developing the minds of young children. There are professional systems in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan where people who have trained all their lives in the game compete regularly in tournaments and for titles with great amounts of prize money. The top players have many fans, much like performers of popular music have in the West. However, go was not introduced to The West until recently. It is not well-known here but that is changing. There are a number of go clubs and associations in America and Europe, but the spread of go in these regions is not yet as full as it is in the Far East. Hopefully, its development in these regions will continue into the future. But, above all, go is a fun game which rewards every ounce of effort which is put into it. It is well worth a lifetime of study and it is also a fine hobby by which to meet others with. |