Arthur Smith

“ However, if the players, fearing each other, merely fence in parts of the board without regard to each other’s play, a most uninteresting game results, and the Japanese call this by the contemptuous epithet “Ji dori go,” or “ground taking Go.” I have noticed that beginners in this country sometimes start to play in this way, and it is one of the many ways by which the play of a mere novice may be recognized. The best games arise when the players in their efforts to secure territory attack each other’s stones or groups of stones, and we therefore must know how a stone can be taken. ”

“ Most of the higher officials of the government, and also the officers in the army and navy, are skilled players. The great daily newspapers of the capitals have a Go department, just as some of our periodicals have a department devoted to Chess, and the game is very much played at the hot springs and health resorts, and clubs, and teachers of the art are found in all of the larger cities. Go has always retained something of its early aristocratic character, and in fact, it is still regarded as necessary for a man of refinement to possess a certain skill at the game. ”

“ That the Japanese could find pleasure in merely watching a game that is so abstract in its nature and so difficult to understand is evidence of the fact that they were then a highly cultivated people intellectually. We find nothing like it in this country except in the narrowest Chess circles.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century Go attained such a high development that there appeared a series of expert players who far surpassed anything known before. Of these the most famous were Honinbo Sansha Hoin, Nakamura Doseki, Hayashi Rigen, Inouye Inseki, and Yasui Santetsu. ”

“ As a rule it may be said that two average players of about equal strength will find more pleasure in Go than in Chess, for in Chess it is almost certain that the first of two such players who loses a piece will lose the game, and further play is mostly an unsuccessful struggle against certain defeat. In Go, on the other hand, a severe loss does not by any means entail the loss of the game, for the player temporarily worsted can betake himself to another portion of the field where, for the most part unaffected by the reverse already suffered, he may gain a compensating advantage. ”

“ When handicaps are given in Chess, the whole opening is more or less spoiled, and the scale of handicaps, from the Bishop’s Pawn to Queen’s Rook, is not very accurate; and in one variation of the Muzio gambit, so far from being a handicap, it is really an advantage to the first player to give up the Queen’s Knight. In Go, on the other hand, the handicaps are in a progressive scale of great accuracy, they have been given from the earliest times, and the openings with handicaps have been studied quite as much as those without handicaps. ”

“ In other games such a graduated system of classifying players would be scarcely possible, but among good Go players it is feasible, because the better player almost invariably wins, even if he be but slightly superior. If the difference in skill could not be equalized in some way the game would become tiresome, as the weaker player would almost always be able to foresee his defeat. The stronger player, therefore, allows his adversary to place enough stones on the board as a handicap to make the adversaries approximately equal. ”

“ When we think that it would take twenty-seven years to play ten thousand games at the rate of one game per day, we can get some idea of the Japanese estimate of its difficulty. The difficulty of the game and the remarkable amount of time and labor which it is necessary to expend in order to become even a moderately good player, are the reasons why Go has not spread to other countries since Japan has been opened to foreign intercourse. ”

“ It is something like perpetual check in Chess, but the Japanese, in place of calling the game a draw, compel the second player to move elsewhere and thus allow the game to continue. In an actual game when a player is prevented from retaking a stone by the rule of "Ko," he always tries to play in some other portion of the board where he threatens a larger group of stones than is involved in the situation where "Ko" occurs, and thus often he can compel his adversary to follow him to this other part of the field, and then return to retake in "Ko." ”

“ Passing from these words which describe the commonest moves in the game, we will mention the expression "Te okure"—literally "a slow hand" or "a slow move," which means an unnecessary or wasted move. Many of the moves of a beginner are of this character, especially when he has a territory pretty well fenced in and cannot make up his mind whether or not it is necessary to strengthen the group before proceeding to another field of battle. ”

“ There, if a black stone is played at F 15, although it is played on an intersection entirely surrounded by white stones, it nevertheless lives because the moment it is played it has the effect of killing the entire white group; that is to say, a stone may be played on an intersection where it is completely surrounded if as it is played it has the effect of completely surrounding the adversary’s stones already on the board. ”

“ After Black’s twenty-ninth move at N 17, No. 4 could still escape by means of P 15, but giving it up brings more territory elsewhere than is there lost. It is a favorite device of strong players to apparently abandon a position to their adversary after first preparing it so that eventually it may live, or so that it may afterward aid in surrounding one of the adversary’s groups. The abandoned position often reawakens to life if the weaker adversary allows his surrounding group to be itself surrounded and taken before the capture of the abandoned position has been completed. ”

“ The game of Go belongs to the class of games of which our Chess, though very dissimilar, is an example. It is played on a board, and is a game of pure skill, into which the element of chance does not enter; moreover, it is an exceedingly difficult game to learn, and no one can expect to acquire the most superficial knowledge of it without many hours of hard work. It is said in Japan that a player with ordinary aptitude for the game would have to play ten thousand games in order to attain professional rank of the lowest degree. ”

“ The Japanese seem to have regarded the classification in degrees as an absolute standard of measurement. Nevertheless, it must necessarily have varied from time to time, and in the course of centuries the standard must gradually have risen.
Players of high rank who are challenged by the improving players of the lower grades will instinctively desire to make it more difficult for the new players to attain the higher degree, because their own fame, which is their highest possession, depends upon the result of the game ”

“ Next to the corners of the board the sides of the board are easiest to defend, and territory is more easily formed along the sides than in the center, and in an ordinary game the play generally proceeds from the corners and edges to the center. The importance which the Japanese attach to the corners is shown by their saying "Yo sumi torarete go wo utsu na," or, "if the four corners are taken, cease playing." Against a good player it is next to impossible to form territory in the center of the board, unless it is based on one of the sides or corners. ”

“ To Honinbo Sansha, the director, was given 350 tsubo of land (a tsubo is as big as two Japanese mats or tatami, and is therefore six feet square) , and an annual revenue of 200 koku of rice (a koku is a little more than five bushels) . Men of the best intelligence could now dedicate themselves to the education of students and the further development of the game, freed from the cares of earning a livelihood. In both respects the institute was eminently successful. Its graduates were much more skilful than the previous generation of Go players living in the land. ”

“ If, on the other hand, we have a situation as shown in Plate 3, Diagram ii, a black stone may indeed be played on one of the vacant intersections, but when it is so played the white group is not completely surrounded, because there still remains one space yet to be filled, and the black stone itself is dead as soon as it touches the board, and hence it would be impossible to surround this group of white stones unless two stones were played at once. The white stones, therefore, can never be surrounded, and form an impregnable position. ”

“ Necessarily the collection here given is a very small one, but if any reader of this book becomes so much interested in the game that he desires to study other examples, he will doubtless find some Japanese acquaintance who can supply him with further material, as the Japanese literature of the game contains large collections.
The most important kind of problems are those in which the question is how to kill an adversary's group, or how to save one's own group when threatened. It is also often very important to know how a connection between two groups can be forced. ”

“ It has, however, been shown by Honinbo Dosaku that this move gives the first player no decisive advantage, and I have been also told by some Japanese that the reason that this move is regarded as impolite is because it is a wasted move, and implies a disrespect for the adversary's skill, and from what experience I have had in the game I think the latter explanation is more plausible. At all events, such a move is most unusual and can only be utilized by a player of the highest skill. ”

“ But let us suppose that a black group at the end of the game is found to be hopeless and also completely surrounded with the exception of one point. The question arises, can the Black player demand that his adversary play on the vacant space in order to kill this group, for, if he could, it is obvious he would gain one “Me” by so doing. The answer is, he cannot so demand, and his adversary is not bound to play on this point, and the hopeless or abandoned stones are removed without further play. ”

“ It is advantageous for the losing player to abandon such a group as soon as possible, for, if he continues to add to the group, he loses not only the territory but the added stones also. If the circumstances are such that his opponent has to reply to his moves in the hopeless territory, the loss is not so great, as the opponent is meanwhile filling up spaces which would otherwise be vacant, and against an inferior player there is a chance of the adversary making a slip and allowing the threatened stones to save themselves. ”

“ This objection is more apparent than real, and as one’s knowledge of the game grows, it becomes apparent that the first stones must be played with great care, and that there are certain definite, advantageous positions, which limit the player in his choice of moves, just as the recognized Chess openings guide our play in that game. ”

“ Therefore, when the main game is nearing completion, the players survey the board in order to locate the most advantageous end plays; that is to say, positions where they can gain the greatest number of "Me." In calculating the value of an end position, a player must carefully consider whether on its completion he will retain or lose the "Sente." It is an advantage to retain the "Sente," and it is generally good play to choose an end position where the "Sente" is retained, in preference to an end position where it is lost, even if the latter would gain a few more "Me." ”

“ It is not so easy to see that the black stones at L and M 18, N, O, P, Q and R 17, N 16, and M and N 15 are dead, but against a good player they would have no hope of forming the necessary two "Me," and they are therefore conceded to be dead; but a good player could probably manage to defend them against a novice. It is still more difficult to see why the irregular white group of eighteen stones on the left-hand side of the board has been abandoned, but there also White has no chance of making the necessary two "Me." ”

“ While in Japan Go has attained such a high development, largely through the help of the government, as has been shown, it seems to be decadent in its motherland of China. The Japanese players assure us that there is no player in China equal to a Japanese player of the first degree. In Korea also the game is played, but the skill there attained is also immensely below the Japanese standard. ”

“ Honinbo Sansha established at the time of the foundation of the Academy a method of classifying the players by giving them degrees, which still exists, although no longer under the authority of the State. When a man attained to a certain measure of skill in the game he received the title "Shodan," or, of the first degree. ”

“ As soon as one player gets a position of the kind his opponent often takes a similar position on the next move in order to balance the advantage gained by his adversary; this is something like castling in Chess.
9. E4.
10. C 10. If White did not occupy this point, we might have the following continuation:
B. C 10 W. C 7
B. C 13 W. E 7
and Black has the advantage, because White's stones at C 7–E 7 can only get one “Me” on the edge of the board, and later on must seek a connection with some other group. By constantly harassing such endangered groups territory is often obtained. ”

“ He will be able to distinguish whether the danger is real, and whether it is, therefore, necessary to reply to his adversary's attack, or whether he can afford to ignore it and assume the "Sente" in some other part of the board. He will also be able to perceive when an adversary's group is vulnerable so that it will be profitable to attack it.
The collection of problems which I have given in this book are rearranged from Korschelt's work, and they were in turn taken by him from a Japanese treatise called "Go Kiyo Shiyu Miyo." ”

“ In regard to the time required to play a game of Go, it may be said that ordinary players finish a game in an hour or two, but as in Chess, a championship game may be continued through several sittings, and may last eight or ten hours. ”

“ Chess and Go are both in a sense military games, but the military tactics that are represented in Chess are of a past age, in which the king himself entered the conflict — his fall generally meaning the loss of the battle — and in which the victory or defeat was brought about by the age of single noblemen rather than through the fighting of the common soldiers. ”

“ PROBLEMS
After the student has become familiar with the rules and the methods of play, and perhaps has played a few games either with another beginner or with a Japanese master, the impression left on the mind is likely to be that the game is too vague, and that there is too wide a latitude of choice of positions where stones may be placed. ”

“ For use in this country the board need not be so thick, and need not, of course, have feet, but if it is attempted to play the game on cardboard, which has a dead sound as the stones are played, it is surprising how much the pleasure of the game is diminished. The author has found that Casino chips are the best substitute for the Japanese stones. ”

“ On the average a game of Go consists of about two hundred and fifty moves, and we might say that about twenty of these moves belong to the opening, about one hundred and fifty to the main part of the game, and the remaining eighty to the end game. The moves which may be regarded as belonging to the end game are those which connect the various groups of stones with the margin, and which fill up the space between the opposing groups of stones. ”

“ These stones are called “Joseki.” As a matter of fact, these separate analyses or “Joseki” differ slightly from the opening of the game as actually played, because it is customary in opening the game to skip from one corner to another, and the moment a few stones are played in any corner the situation in the adjacent corners is thereby influenced. It is due to this fact also that in their treatises on the “Joseki” the Japanese writers do not continue the analysis as far as we are accustomed to in our works on Chess. ”