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Weiqi Go Baduk

The Go is one of the oldest board game in the world. Its true origins are unknown, though it almost certainly originated in China.

A Goban

A chinese tale say that two dragons were fighting for knowing the one who was the most powerful. And then, they created the game of go (Weiqi in chinese). and this happened around 4000years before J.C.

At the end of the third centuary in China, the go was integrate as one of the three holy arts (The calligraphy, painting and music)

Calligraphy Painting

The go was imported in Japan in 735. The game was played by samourai as military strategy training and by the japan buddhist monk because it is not a game of hazard.

Buddhist monk playing go

In 1590 a tournament is created to name the best player of Japan with the title of Honinbo. The other players are ranked with the newly system of "dan". 1 to 9 « dan » like for martials arts.

The first descriptions of the go in Europe are around 1700

Two players, Black and White, take turns placing a stone (game piece) of their own color on a vacant point (intersection) of the grid on a go board : the goban.

The purpose of Go is to conquer a larger part of the board than your opponentThe game is decomposed in 3 phases : the Fuseki (Opening), The Chuban (Middle game) and the Yose (Ending game).

A starting game

Stones

The goban (Board)

A finished game on computer

The classical board is a 19x19 grid, but the game is also played on 9x9 or 13x13, usually for beginners.

A stone is played on an intersection and alone have 4 liberties.

Liberties

A chain of stones is made by the succession of stones of the same color but not in diagonal.

When a stone lose its last liberty (A), it is captured and removed from the board. this stones are prisonniers for black and 2 points for white.

The most important rule, the notion of life and death : "Tsumego"Based on the concept of liberties, a group of stones is "alive" that is to say it is not taken as prisonniers by the opponent, when you can't fill in the last liberty of the group.

Here you can’t fill in at the same the two distincts liberties, White is said to be « alive »

White to play

ALIVE

Example : Simple case White or black to play

Two « eyes » = Alive

Black to play

DEAD

DEAD

One « eye » = Dead = prisonniers

At the end of the game, When the two players pass because there is no points left on the board they score the numbers of free intersections in their territories and the opponents prisonniers are put in his territory. And of course the one who have more points win.

Black prisonniers

A finishing game (Yose)

There is a lot of concepts assossiated with the go and his vocabulary in japanese like (Miai, semai, aji, ko, tsuke...)For example the notion of shape is very important : The shape of the group of stones of the same color can be, good or bad, light or heavy.

Example :

Bad and Heavy shape Good and light

shapeGood and heavy shape (Not flexible)The main purpose of a good shape is to allow the group of stones to

stay connected and to have the possibility of create an « eye ».

When your level is plus or minus equal to your opponent, the game is played without handicap.When the difference is equal to 2 levels or more, the game is played with handicap proportionally to the difference of level.

9H, strong gap between the two players.

Small handicap

For the professional gamers, A tight game is won by 0.5 to 5 points and an easy game is won by 15 to 30 points.

For now the best go program is around the level of a beginner.

For example in 2000, in a competition of go programs, the best one (Mark boon) lost a game with 15 handicap versus a professional go player. A lost game of 15 handicaps is plus or minus equal to lose by more than 200 points.

The go is a game which is defying the mathematic calculation. The best computer program for chess is better than the stronger human player. But for the go the best computer program is barely a beginner.

For some people the game of go is like a mirror of your character. Some likes to manipulate to have influence, and some likes fighting and have direct territories.

La Joueuse de go ; Shan sa, 2001

Hikaru no go ; Anime and Manga on the go