So You Want to Play Go?

By Jonathan Hop

Go is an ancient Chinese strategy game invented over 4,000 years ago and played by millions of people worldwide. It's a two player board game with a few simple rules. You can be up and playing with a partner in under fifteen minutes. Go has a long and rich history and now that it's reached the shores of America, more people want to learn more about the game.

So, do you want to play Go?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Hop
• Release date: May 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476357362

Jonathan Hop

Jonathan Hop is a 4 dan amateur and studied at the Yu Changhyuk Go Dojo in Migeum, South Korea. He has been playing Go for 9 years and plans to spend many more years delving into the mysteries of the board.

Book preview

Dedication

Jin Chen

January 3, 1987 – January 26, 2009

I’d like to dedicate this book to one of my best friends, Jin Chen who passed away suddenly in 2009. Jin was a regular at the University of Michigan Go Club and we became good friends through our mutual interest in Weiqi. Jin was always upbeat and funny and he taught me to be a more positive person. He was a bright spot in everyone’s day, and was an intelligent, hard working man. Jin was an employee of Microsoft, a first class Weiqi player, and an all-around great human being. I will always hold a spot in my heart for him.

My fondest memories of Jin are when we went to Go Congress in 2008. I roomed with him along with another friend, Zi Wang. We would spend all night playing Weiqi, reviewing and laughing about games we played. Jin had a wonderful sense of humor and was a friend to everyone. Jin always had a big smile on his face and a joke ready for any occasion; he was oftentimes the life of the party.

What I will never forget is that Jin taught me to believe in myself. He was always ready with kind words and real honesty, and always reminded me that in anything I did, I would have to first trust myself. Maybe he never knew it, but there were many qualities he possessed that I truly admired, which is why I am dedicating this book to his memory. My heart goes out to his family. I will never forget you Jin.

Foreword

So You Want to Play Go? Most Western players know this game by this name which is how the Japanese call it. We use the name Go because it is the Japanese who first introduced it to our neck of the woods. However, the game was invented in China and I would like to honor this tradition by using the Chinese word for the game. As such, I will be calling the game Weiqi (pronounced Way – Chee). However you want to call it, there are more and more people just like you who are discovering this great game and want to learn as much as they can. When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time. No matter your player level you can have a great time playing Weiqi and meeting new people. In that way, Weiqi is its own microcosm across the entire globe. Weiqi is a wonderful game in that there is no ceiling, no barrier to a player’s potential. There is always something to learn and room for improvement. With that in mind, I designed this book series so that you can progress as far as you want. I wrote this series for another reason as well. When I first started, I had nothing to help me except the advice of stronger players and professional game records. I am thankful for those experiences, but I felt that books would have allowed me to learn at an even faster pace. When I finally did obtain Go books (around when I was 5 kyu and had some money for it), I was dismayed to find that the books failed to explain things in a way I understood. The methodology behind Go books written in Korean or Japanese center on lots of examples and did not adequately spend enough time on the basics, as a beginner would want. Many of the books I did consult were advanced and beyond my ability to understand. This book was written for the beginning Go enthusiast as a soft way of being introduced to the Go world. Follow the series and you’ll find yourself gaining the skills you need to strengthen yourself and become a skilled Go player.

How to use this book:

Every book in this series is a step by step course, giving you the skills you will need at varying levels of strength. We will cover different, equally important topics very thoroughly. Weiqi is like playing a musical instrument or learning a foreign language. It takes time and emphasis on the basics. Once mastered, however, you will find yourself playing beautifully and appreciating the game in ways you never thought possible. Take each chapter one at a time and do not move onto the next one until you have completed the assignment at the end. At the end of every book will be a set of problems to solve, not including any problems scattered throughout. Each chapter will focus on key concepts and provide examples and diagrams to explain these concepts to the extent you’ll need to know them at your level. Don’t be overwhelmed by all the information, take it in a little bit at a time. Read the book when you’re waiting in line at the DMV office, sitting down to lunch, or wherever you feel most comfortable. Look at what interests you, what frustrates you, what gives you nightmares at 3 a.m., but make sure you look at sections that are interesting to you. Always remember, have fun! It’s not like anything really hangs in the balance when you play Weiqi, so try and relax. Enjoy learning and you’ll find that these concepts will come easy to you.

A note about use of Japanese:

As I said before, Weiqi is very old, and like most ancient things, goes by many different names. In Japanese the name of the game is Igo (Go for short), which is simply the Japanese pronunciation of the characters used to write Weiqi. In Korean it is called Baduk (pronounced Ba-dook). As mentioned previously, I choose to maintain the name of the game as Weiqi because the game was invented in China and I think maintaining its original name is important. However, since Weiqi was popularized through the West’s relationship with Japan, most western players will refer to the game as Go and also use Japanese terms. In this book we use English terms whenever possible, but will acquaint you with Japanese terms because they are very much en vogue within the Weiqi community. Please read the section on Japanese pronunciation if you are unfamiliar with it. Do not feel flustered, upset, or turned off because you see a foreign word. We provide their meanings an-d pronunciations so that next time you go to your local Weiqi club you will sound as cool as everyone else.

About the Author

Hello! My name is Jonathan Hop and I am a graduate student in Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan. I am also an AGA 3 dan. You may be wondering how I came to know and love Weiqi. It begins in a way that I’m sure most Weiqi players can relate to: I saw Hikaru no Go. As you may know, Hikaru no Go is a story about a young boy named Hikaru who is possessed by a thousand year old spirit of a professional Weiqi player named Sai. It is available in both animated and comic book form. The story was written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. To put it bluntly, the show entranced me and I instantly became a Weiqi fanatic. What initially attracted me was the intense attitude the characters in the show had for the game. The second thing that pulled me in was how different the game was. I had never seen Weiqi before. It looked rather simple. The game is played on a board, with two sets of pieces, black and white. Play proceeds when both players place a single stone on the board for every move. But then as the shapes unfolded I was amazed at the game’s complexity. After watching the first few episodes, I grabbed a friend of mine and we headed straight to the coffee shop where the local Weiqi club met.

My first game was a total disaster. My friend, Dephanie, is Chinese and she knew more about the game than I did. My stones got captured, I had no territory, and all in all I totally lost. None of that mattered in the slightest to me, however. After that first game, something clicked inside me and I was hooked. Another friend, Connie, joined our group, but she was much better than me or Dephanie. Even though she gave me a large handicap, she still trounced me. After spending a few evenings at Borders getting destroyed by my friends, I decided that I was going to have no more of it. I was going to get better.

My first problem, though, was how to actually get better. I went to the bookstore yet found no books. I looked online but I did not really see anything that was geared towards me. There were books for advanced players or on specific topics that I did not recognize. I shrugged my shoulders and said to myself: Maybe you could just play and learn. How hard could it be? Little did I know. I then searched online and I started playing games on the Kiseido Go Server, a place where you can play Weiqi with other players from around the world online for free. One summer I spent most of my spare time playing Weiqi, at least 5 games a day, and after some time my rank skyrocketed. The more I practiced and the better I became, the more active I was in Weiqi activities in college. I still played with Connie and Dephanie (although at that time they were wont to play, thanks to my newfound prowess) but I also joined up with the University of Michigan Go Club. This was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Once I joined the Weiqi club I got to meet a lot of different players, many of whom were students but many who just lived and worked in the area and wanted to play on a real life board. The club was well organized and run by Eric Jankowski, now a graduate student in Chemical Engineering. The club ran tournaments, workshops, and above all got all of the sloth-like Weiqi players out of their caves and into the café. It was here that I learned to play Weiqi by being knocked down and beaten up by stronger players. Keep in mind, despite the fact that I was maybe 11 kyu when I first joined (which means you are no longer a beginner), most people in the club were at least six ranks higher than me, but more often than not eight and above. I was, so to speak, lowest on the totem pole. However, no one lorded their position over me. Instead I got the benefit of playing good players and getting reviews of my games.

Aside from our club, I’ve also participated in the U.S. Go Congress, which is a mix between a national tournament and a Weiqi festival, where people from around the country meet to play, to learn, and to socialize. The Go Congress is held at a different venue every year. The first year I went it was held in North Carolina, the second was Pennsylvania; and the third in Oregon. I must say, every Go Congress has been an absolute blast. The day begins with the U.S. Open, a huge tournament subdivided into different sections based on participants playing ability. Everyone within each division would play a game a day over the course of a week. At the end, those with the best game records were declared the winner and got shiny trophies. Aside from the tournament, a host of professionals from China, Japan, Korean, and Europe come to visit to teach and review games. It provides a great opportunity to meet people from all around the world whom you already share something in common.

I wrote this not only because I wanted to offer beginners a comprehensive introduction to the game, but also because Weiqi and the people connected to it became an important part of my life. Weiqi made me face myself in a number of ways, and it also made me learn to concentrate and to work towards a goal. Before, I had been aimless and unmotivated. I did not work hard at my schoolwork, I did not work hard at sports, nor did I work hard at, well, anything else really. However Weiqi inspired me to strive to be the best I could be, to give as much effort as I could give and then some. Being skillful at the game became a prize and I was willing to sacrifice for it.

I realized this when I began to recollect just how I studied to get better. As I mentioned earlier, I did not find books that were geared for beginners. What I did to study was play. But besides playing, I also looked at the records of professional games. I did not know the names of any professional players, so I looked up Hikaru no Go on the internet, and found the name Cho Chikun, a 9 dan professional from Japan, on a site with all of the games that were played on the show. I downloaded an entire collection of his games, got out my Weiqi board, and went to work. I do not think I need to tell you, but professional games are quite complicated and advanced, and usually incomprehensible to even intermediate level players, let alone a beginner. But that did not deter me. I went over the games, move for move, and experimented with what I learned in my previous games. Sometimes it