The Most Interesting Go Book I’ve Ever Read

I enjoy playing the game of go, and have written a couple of posts about it so far. I have avoided talking about the game much on this blog, because I tend to focus more here on Macs, digital music, books and related subjects. But go is an important part of my life; I play and study regularly, and go is, to me, a game that provides important lessons about life.

The other day, my wife asked me why I enjoy playing go so much. I replied something to the effect that it’s a huge puzzle, and that it teaches many things, such as patience and humility (you lose about half your games, the way ratings and handicaps work), and that it is essentially an endless subject, because no matter how good you are, you’ll never actually master the game. I was surprised to find similar thoughts in a book I bought recently, called Reflections on the Game of Go – The Empty Board: 1994-2004. This book, by Bill Cobb, is a collection of essays about go that appeared in the AGA (American Go Association) publication American Go Journal. It discusses go from a Buddhist point of view; how go contains the Buddhist ideas of emptiness, karma, impermanence, etc.

This book interests me in part because I have long been interested in and studied Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism. (I play on the KGS Go Server under the name “Dogen”; he was the founder of the Soto school of Zen.) Cobb neatly explains the strong influence the game has had on Zen, and elucidates the many Buddhist principles that go expresses.

I had long thought that one could write a book about go with no diagrams: this is such a book. It discusses the attitude of the go player, not his or her moves; it explores the way you play, not how you play. The insights it provides are profound, yet will not be applicable to all players. Cobb discusses the attitude of those go players who care more about creating a good game than winning, something which, in my experience, is not common enough among go players, at least those who play on Internet servers. This paragraph in particular sums up the answer I gave my wife:

As a go player, I have no self other than the self that is constituted by the cooperative activity of playing with another. We both want to be better players. Wanting to win or to beat the other player is subordinate to that greater goal and significantly affected by it. We both want to become stronger players. To do so we must play and that means winning and losing, yet the aim is not to beat the opponent but rather to play better than I have in the past.

Most of the essays in this book are about two pages long; long enough to present a concise point and develop it. Some of the later essays are shorter, and are less interesting, because they don’t develop anything more than simple ideas. But the majority of the book will give go players the inspiration they need to strive to not necessarily play better, but to make their games more honest, more open.

If you play go to win, don’t bother with this book; if you play go, however, for the value it adds to your life, for the opportunity you get to create beautiful games with a partner, then this is a must-read.

Do You Want to Play Go on Your Mac?

I’ve got an article on Macworld today about playing go on a Mac. I discuss software and Internet servers where people can play go, and also line to a site with tons of information about the game. I also review two apps for the iPhone and iPod touch: one for practicing, and the other for playing on the IGS go server.

If you didn’t already know it, I play go. Here’s a picture of me and Takemiya Masaki, my go hero, taken in 1999:

I was very happy to have been able to meet him during the opening game of an important go title match: the 23rd Kisei tournament held its first game in Paris in 1999, between Cho Chikun and Kobayashi Koichi. I got to meet and get a photo with Takemiya Masaki during the first day of the two-day game, and after the game ended, on the second day, when leaving the venue, Cho Chikun got into the elevator with me to leave the building. I was not able to get a photo with him, alas.

My New Go Set

I like to play go. It’s a board game, originally from Asia, that is played on a board with 19 x 19 lines. You take turns placing stones (one player gets white, the other black) on the intersections of the lines. The goal is to create a territory; space delimited by your stones. At the end of the game, you count up the points (intersections) in your territory, and add any stones you have captured (you can capture stones by surrounding them). The person with the highest score wins.

That was a very, very succinct description of the game of go (or baduk, in Korean, or weiqi in Chinese). While the rules are simple, it does get more complicated than that. The game is played professionally, mostly in Japan, Korea and China, and has developed a long tradition of strategy and tactics. You could say that the depth of study is similar to that of chess, though the game’s logic is totally different: while you can kill stones, the goal is to make territory, unlike in chess where the only goal is to kill pieces.

Another difference between go and chess is the ability of computer programs to successfully play the game. While software can beat chess grandmasters, no go software comes anywhere near the level of professionals (though people are trying hard). This is, in part, due to the number of possible moves at any time (at the first move, there are 361 points where one can play, though the first few moves are usually only played on one of a couple of dozen points), but also to the number of moves in a game (games range from 200 to 300 moves).

I’ve been playing go for many years, casually at first, then, in the early days of the Internet I started playing on the now defunct NNGS (No-Name Go Server), a server that connected people around the world. I now play on KGS, where my screen name is Dogen. Unfortunately, I live in an area devoid of go players or clubs, but with KGS I can play at any time of the day or night, and I get to play people from many different countries and styles.

So, for years I had wanted to get a nice go set. I had a cheap folding board with glass stones; fine to play the game, but not aesthetically pleasing. I finally made the investment in a nice set, ordered from Kuroki Goishi Ten in Japan, a manufacturer of go stones, boards and bowls. As you can see in the picture above, those are the three elements of a go set: a board, black and white stones, and bowls to hold the stones.

The board is made from hyuga kaya, a type of tree found in Japan, and is made of four pieces of wood glued together. A board’s price depends, in part, on the number of pieces of wood it uses: the more pieces, the cheaper. The most expensive boards are made of a single piece of wood, and this is very expensive because of the size of the piece needed and the impeccable quality it must have. Next come boards with two pieces of wood, with a joint in the middle. Then come four-piece boards, and then five- to seven-piece boards. The wood used for my board is beautiful; kaya has a yellowish tint to it, and the grain on the top is very straight. In addition, the four pieces of wood are joined at points just under lines, so you cannot even see the joints.

The stones are quite special. The black stones are made of slate, and are really “stones”; they are black, not the usual gray slate people are familiar with, and have a matte finish. The white stones are made from clamshells and have grain on one side. They are smooth and shiny, and contrast well with the black stones. There are three different grades of clamshell stones; from least to most expensive: flower, moon and snow. I chose moon, because the grain is more attractive (on snow stones, the grain is less obvious). They also come in different thicknesses; mine are 8.4 mm thick, which I find quite nice to hold. Many players prefer thicker, heavier stones.

Finally come the bowls. Perhaps the least esthetic part of a set, mine are made of cherry blossom wood, and have a beautiful glowing finish and very prominent grain.

What strikes me most about this set is the overall esthetic quality of the different elements and how they all fit together. The craftsmanship of this material is magnificent, showing that one can own hand-made objects even in our mechanical age at affordable prices. (The entire set cost about $700.)

But I said I don’t have anyone to play with. It’s a shame, but the only use I’ll have (for now) for this set is to play games on the board as I play them on a go server, or to play out pro games to study. I very much enjoy doing the latter, as it is a form of meditation; when one is absorbed in a game, the outside world fades away and one’s concentration peaks. For now, I’m a slightly-better-than-average player, but I’m getting better, through study and practice. Wish me luck!