GO

Playing situation on game board for go Playing situation on game board for go (Japanese), also called i-go, Chinese (Wade-Giles romanization) wei-ch'i, Pinyin weiqi, game for two players, probably Japan's most popular board game. Go originated either in India or in China as early as 2356 BC, according to some sources, and was brought to Japan about AD 500. Go is played with 181 black and 180 white go-ishi (flat, round pieces called stones) on a square wooden board (goban) checkered by 19 vertical lines and 19 horizontal lines to form 361 intersections. Each player in turn (black moves first) places a stone on the point of intersection of any two lines, after which that stone cannot be moved. Players try to conquer territory by completely enclosing vacant points with boundaries made of their own stones. Two or more stones are connected if they are adjacent to each other on the same horizontal or vertical line, as are the white stones in group e in the Figure. A stone or a group of stones belonging to one player can be captured and removed from the board if it can be completely enclosed by his opponent's stones, as white is by black in groups a, f, and g and prospectively in groups b and e in the Figure. A stone or group of stones is live (not captured) as long as it is connected to a vacant intersection, as are the black stones in groups c and d and the white stones in b and e. A stone cannot be placed on a point completely surrounded by enemy stones unless it makes a capture by so doing, as white does in group c. Groups of stones are in effect invulnerable if they contain an eye, which consists of two or more vacant points arranged such that the opposing player cannot place his stone on one of the points without that stone itself being captured. The black stones in group d possess such an eye. The black stones in group c in the Figure unfortunately do not possess an eye, however, and a white stone placed on the indicated point would result in the complete enclosure and thus the capture of the black stone group. A player's final score is his number of walled-in points less the number of his stones lost by capture. Go demands great skill, strategy, and subtlety and is capable of infinite variety; yet the rules and pieces are so simple that children can play. Special handicap rules allow players of unequal skill to play together. The game was given special status in Japan during the Tokugawa period, when four highly competitive go schools were established and supported by the government. A Japanese Go Association, founded in 1924, supervises tournaments and rules and ranks players, both professional and amateur. The European Go Federation was founded in 1950. The first annual world go championship was held in 1979, and in 1982 an International Go Federation was established in Tokyo.