“A One-Stone Jump is Never Bad”

- Wei-Chi proverb

Yesterday Doq challenged me to a game of GO.  Doc lives in Carbondale, Illinois, and I live in New York.  While there are many options for online GO, nothing can compare to the aesthetics of playing on a wood board with stones.  Thusly, Doc proposed we play on our respective boards, take pictures, then share them on Flickr.  So, he and I will play a move (or a few) per day, take pictures, then post to sets. 

I’m certain that this will also prompt a discussion the philosophy of GO, it’s proverbs, and techniques.  Way back when this blog was call the Stabby News, I posted a few GO proverbs that help explain the basics. 

Doc has posted a fantastic description of GO and it’s simple principals:

A few simple rules of Go, so you understand what we are talking about here:

1: The goal of the game is to make territory. To do this, you must
use various moves to get your opponent’s stones out of the territory
you have decided to defend while getting your stones into territory
that your opponent has claimed. The player with the most territory at
the end of the game wins.

2: Territory is counted in points. Points are open spaces without
any stones on them. The more stones it takes you to defend your
territory, obviously the fewer points you get to count at the end of
the game.

3: Each stone is worth exactly the same as every other stone. It is
where the stone is placed and which other of your stones back it up
which makes a stone powerful or weak.

4: Each stone counts its “liberties” following the lines leading off
of it to another open point. A stone played in the middle with no other
stones around it counts four liberties. A stone played on a side counts
three liberties and one played in the corner counts two. If one stone
is directly adjacent (via line; diagonals do not count for this) to
another stone of the same color, it is called a group, and then the
group counts all its liberties as if it were one unit. Hence a two
stone group in the middle counts six liberties total (and not four,
because if you count the liberties from the group, you come up with six
lines to another point coming from the group, and not each stone.) It
is rather confusing without an example, but you’ll have to take my word
for it. When a stone has only one liberty left, that stone is in
“atari”, and when it has zero liberties left, it is killed. There are
ways to avoid this fate, and they will be demonstrated in our game.
5: Game play proceeds as follows: Black (which always goes first)
puts a stone down, white puts a stone down. The game continues like
this, going through three relatively distinct phases, until the whole
board is filled either with stones or unassailable territory. At this
point, when BOTH players have passed (because they can’t or no longer
wish to play a move) the game ends and territory is counted.

6: Ko is an infinite fight between stones. Without an example it is
meaningless to talk about Ko, except to say that when Ko is taken, you
cannot immediately replay that same Ko fight. The person who loses a
stone in Ko must play elsewhere first, and then may return to take the
Ko after playing somewhere else first. I will highlight examples of Ko
as they arise on the board.

7: A stone placed into a one point eye (while possible) is suicide, and that is not allowed.

Read more about GO from Doceoptrix Rex here.

Dan’s Set from our GO game

Doc’s Set from our GO game

I have found GO to be both stimulating and relaxing.  While little can substitute human interacting, one of the many lessons of GO is patience.  Playing a long game like this will prove to be both fun experiment, and a learning experience.  No better person for that than the D.O.C.

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