The board game Go is an ancient board game which originated in China well before the first century CE. This board game has deceptively simple rules, but it can take a lifetime to master, leading many people to compare it to chess. In fact, Go is much more complicated than chess, with enormous numbers of potential patterns of play. In English, to distinguish between “go” as in “she is going to the store” and “Go” as in the board game, many people capitalize Go when referring to the board game.
This board game is also known as baduk, igo, wei ch’i, or weqi, depending on the region. While it originated in China, it quickly spread to Japan and later Korea, and became very important culturally in Asia. Mastering and playing the board game Go was a critical part of any well-educated person’s life, and famous Go games were often topics of fervent discussion in intellectual society.
Go is a strategic board game for two players, in which the players battle for control of a grid by placing white or black stones on the intersections of the lines of the grid. In addition to being a game of strategy, Go is also a game of aesthetics. Highly-skilled players see a Go board as a work of art in addition to an interplay of strategy, and a beautiful board is viewed as a mutual compliment for both players.
The rules of Go are fairly simple. Each player is allowed to place one stone at almost any point on the board. The stones can be linked together to form chains, which essentially turn into larger stones. Chains are used to gain control of territory on the board, and players can use chains to encircle stones placed by their opponents to “capture” them, removing them from the board. In the board game Go, the “ko rule” prevents players from engaging in circular moves. In other words, if a play would result in a circular logic pattern where control of a section of the board would simply pass back and forth endlessly, the move is not legal. The game ends when both players cannot make a legal move, and thus must pass consecutively.
By convention, when playing the board game Go, people usually play in silence. Rattling the pieces in their container is considered poor form, although it is allowable to click the stones on the board when making a move. Stones and board are often chosen carefully for best resonance for this very reason, in fact.