research paper about the game "Go"

Jimin Wang

GAM 206

Jonathan Hey

6/1/2018

Final Paper Draft

Go is ancient board game which takes simple elements: line and circle, black and white, stone and wood, combines them with simple rules and generates subtleties which have enthralled players for millennia. Go's appeal does not rest solely on its Asian, metaphysical elegance, but on practical and stimulating features in the design of the game.

Go's few rules can be demonstrated quickly and grasped easily. The game is enjoyable played over a wide spectrum of skills. Each level of play has it charms, rewards and discoveries. A unique and reliable system of handicapping bring many more players "into range" for an equal contest. Draws are rare, and a typical game retains a fluidity and dynamism far longer than comparable games. An early mistake can be made up, used to advantage, or reversed as the game progresses. There is no simple procedure to turn a clear lead into a victory -- only continued good play. The game rewards patience and balance over aggression and greed; the balance of influence and territory may shift many times in the course of a game, and a strong player must be prepared to be flexible but resolute. Go thinking seems more lateral than linear, less dependent on logical deduction, and more reliant on a "feel" for the stones, a "sense" of shape, a gestalt perception of the game.

In Asia, it is often played on a traditional, carved wooden board, with black and white stones made from slate and clamshell, but good affordable equipment is also available. In either case, the patterns formed by the black and white stones are visually striking and can exercise an almost hypnotic attraction as one "sees" more and more in the constantly evolving positions.

The basic rules for Go: 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. Black plays first. If there is a large difference in skill between the players, the weaker player typically uses Black and is allowed to place two or more stones on the board to compensate for the difference. The official grid comprises 19×19 lines, though the rules can be applied to any grid size. 13×13 and 9×9 boards are popular choices to teach beginners, or for playing quick games. Once placed, a stone may not be moved to a different point.

Also, Players are not allowed to make a move that returns the game to the previous position. This rule, called the “Ko rule” prevents unending repetition. As shown in the example pictured: Black has just played the stone marked 1, capturing a white stone at the intersection marked with the red circle. If White were allowed to play on the marked intersection, that move would capture the black stone marked 1 and recreate the situation before Black made the move marked 1. Allowing this could result in an unending cycle of captures by both players. The ko rule therefore prohibits White from playing at the marked intersection immediately. Instead White must play elsewhere, or pass; Black can then end the ko by filling at the marked intersection, creating a five-stone black chain. If White wants to continue the ko (that specific repeating position), White tries to find a play elsewhere on the board that Black must answer; if Black answers, then White can retake the ko. A repetition of such exchanges is called a ko fight.

A player may not place a stone such that it or its group immediately has no liberties, unless doing so immediately deprives an enemy group of its final liberty. In the latter case, the enemy group is captured, leaving the new stone with at least one liberty.[46]This rule is responsible for the all-important difference between one and two eyes: if a group with only one eye is fully surrounded on the outside, it can be killed with a stone placed in its single eye.

And then, I want to talk about the scoring rules for Go. Two general types of scoring system are used, and players determine which to use before play. Both systems almost always give the same result. Territory scoring counts the number of empty points a player's stones surround, together with the number of stones the player captured. Area scoring counts the number of points a player's stones occupy and surround. It is associated with contemporary Chinese play and was probably established there during the Ming Dynasty in the 15th or 16th century. After both players have passed consecutively, the stones that are still on the board but unable to avoid capture, called deadstones, are removed.

Vertically and horizontally adjacent stones of the same color form a chain (also called a string or group) that cannot subsequently be subdivided and, in effect, becomes a single larger stone. Only stones immediately connected to one another by the lines on the board create a chain; stones that are diagonally adjacent are not connected. Chains may be expanded by placing additional stones on adjacent intersections, and can be connected together by placing a stone on an intersection that is adjacent to two or more chains of the same color.

The game appeals to many kinds of minds -- to musicians and artists, to mathematicians and computer programmers, to entrepreneurs and options traders. Children learn the game readily and can reach high levels of mastery.

Because go lends itself to a uniquely reliable system of handicaps, players of widely disparate strengths can enjoy relatively even contests. The game can be a casual pastime for the idle hour -- or a way of life. Michael Redmond, the only Western player to have won status as a top-grade professional player in Asia, when asked why he had devoted his life to go, replied, "Because I love the game."

The origins of go are shrouded in the mists of ancient Chinese history, but the game is thought to have originated at least 2500 - 4000 years ago. It is the oldest game still played in its original form. Some say that the board, with ten points out from the center in all directions, may have originally served as a forerunner to the abacus. Others think it may have been a fortune-telling device, with black and white stones representing yin and yang. A prominent legend holds that the sage-king Yao created the game to teach his rebellious son discipline.

By 400-300 B.C., Chinese scholars such as Confucius were writing about wei-chi (a Chinese name for the game) to illustrate correct thinking about filial piety and human nature. By the 1600's it had become one of the "Four Accomplishments" (along with calligraphy, painting, and playing the lute) that must be mastered by the Chinese gentleman. This kind of sanctified thinking about the game has inspired people to play for millennia.

Wei-chi, also written as wei-ch'i or weiqi, entered Korean and Japanese culture through trade and other contact between countries in the first millennium A.D. In ancient Chinese art, noblemen can occasionally be found playing go.

Weiqi was introduced to Korea sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries CE, and was popular among the higher classes. In Korea, the game is called baduk, and a variant of the game called Sunjang baduk was developed by the 16th century. Sunjang baduk became the main variant played in Korea until the end of the 19th century, when the current version was reintroduced from Japan.

The game reached Japan in the 7th century CE—where it is called go or igo—the game became popular at the Japanese imperial court in the 8th century, and among the general public by the 13th century. The modern version of the game as we know it today was formalized in Japan in the 15th century. In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu re-established Japan's unified national government. In the same year, he assigned the then-best player in Japan, a Buddhist monk named Nikkai, to the post of Godokoro (Minister of Go).

Nikkai took the name Hon'inbō Sansa and founded the Hon'inbō Go school. Several competing schools were founded soon after. These officially recognized and subsidized Go schools greatly developed the level of play and introduced the dan/kyu style system of ranking players. Players from the four schools competed in the annual castle games, played in the presence of the shōgun.

The earliest go players in North America were probably Chinese workers toiling on the transcontinental railroad in the mid-1800s, but if so the game did not attract notice outside the Chinese-American community. Go first came to the attention of Westerners in the early 1900s when a group of German mathematicians and game players stumbled upon it, including Otto Korschelt and Edward Lasker, a cousin of the legendary chess legend Emanuel Lasker and himself a well-known top player. With Lee Hartmann (editor of Harper's magazine) and a few others, Lasker formed the American Go Association in New York in 1937.

So, why does people think that Go if an interesting game and I offer several reasons for this question:

· There is great scope for intuition and experiment in a game of Go, especially in the opening. Like Chess, Go has its opening strategies and tactics but players can become quite strong knowing no more than a few basic patterns.

· A great advantage of Go is the very effective handicapping system. This enables players of widely differing strengths to play each other on equal terms without distorting the character of the game.

· The object in Go is to make more territory than the other player by surrounding it more efficiently, or by attacking the opponent's stones to greater effect. On such a large board, it's possible to do somewhat badly in one area but still to win the game by doing better on the board as a whole.

· Every game of Go quickly takes on a character of its own - no two games are alike. Since a player needs only to have more territory than the opponent in order to win, there are very few drawn games, though the outcome may hang in the balance until the very end.

· PERSONAL PLAY/EXPERIENCE?

· CURRENT POPULARITY/ORGANIZATIONS?

· GOOGLE’S AI GO PLAYER: “DEEPMIND”: https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/18/16495548/deepmind-ai-go-alphago-zero-self-taught

· USE IMAGES of BOARD, PLAYERS, etc. [PRIMARY SOURCES]

· LIST CITATIONS with ANNOTATIONS on WHY YOU CHOSE EACH SOURCE (Just a sentence or two)