Friday, January 13, 2006

Playing Go


Playing Go, originally uploaded by mister anchovy.

This site is all about the game of Go. We think of Go as a Japanese game, but it was likely invented in China, and is very popular in both countries as well as in Taiwan and in Korea. I've been playing once or twice a week for close to 20 years, and I still have so much to learn. In fact I'm off to play a few games tonight. My opponent has really been on his game lately, so I'm going to have to really bear down and play well to win.



Do any of you play?

4 comments:

Wandering Coyote said...

I've never heard of this! It looks complicated.

mister anchovy said...

maddenly, beautifully complicated....think of the board as a universe that each player occupies by placing a stone on the board in turn....each player attempts to surround more territory than the other....it is really a lifetime study.

Wandering Coyote said...

See, the way you describe it, it sounds so simple. Kinda like swarming, eh? But I get what you mean about it's being complicated, too.

mister anchovy said...

You need to get the most value from every stone you play...imagine you are building a bridge...you want to do is with the least amount of steel...now imagine, somebody wants to stop you from building that bridge...if you didn't use enough steel to be secure, you're done....if you use too much, you're too inefficient. Go is a game of compromises....you only have one move at a time and you can't do everything. The best moves force your opponent to respond...we call that sente, as opposed to a move that doesn't require a response, which we call gote. You build potential (called aji) and try to reduce the aji of your opponent (aji keishi). The game is poetic, philosophical, cutthroat, logical, artistic, and more......