Go (Weiqi)
01 · Historical Records
Go originates in China; the "qi" in the phrase "qin, qi, shu, hua" — zither, Go, calligraphy and painting — refers to Go. Zhang Hua of the Jin dynasty wrote in the Bowuzhi: "Yao invented Go in order to teach his son Danzhu, and so give him a pastime for his temperament. In the mid-1980s, under strong support from the state, the study of Chinese Go culture once reached its high point.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
That is to say, Go was invented by Yao for the purpose of educating his son. The Analects also refers to the game of Go, calling it "bo yi", and the Mencius records a Go expert named Yi Qiu. As a traditional game of intellectual contest, Go has a history of more than four thousand years. The Go board consists of 19 equally spaced horizontal and 19 vertical parallel lines crossing one another at right angles, forming 361 crossing points, usually called "points". Nine small dots are also marked on the board; they are called "stars", and the central star is called "tengyuan". Stones are of two colours, black and white, and are shaped as flattened spheres. In official play there are 180 black stones and 180 white stones. The two players each take one colour, opening play on an empty board, with Black playing first and White second, and they alternately place a stone on a point of the board. Once a stone has been placed, it never moves to another point. Alternating in placing stones is the right of both sides, but either side is allowed to give up its turn and make a pass. For a stone on the board, the empty points immediately adjacent to it in a straight line are that stone's "liberties". If stones of the same colour occupy points immediately adjacent in a straight line, those stones are connected with one another into an indivisible whole. If a stone of a different colour occupies a point immediately adjacent in a straight line, liberties do not exist there. A stone that has lost all of its liberties can no longer exist on the board. The structure of Go is simple, yet its content is extremely complex; the principles of the game are vast and profound, its cultural connotation is deep, and it is full of dialectical thinking. Go opens on an empty board, and the course of a game runs from the simple to the complex and from the shallow to the deep through countless transformations; once the game ends the board is empty again, waiting for whoever comes next. This vital process, going from nothing to something, from empty to full, cycling endlessly and changing without limit, gives rise to countless combinations of strategy and tactics and has earned Go the reputation that "no two games in a thousand ages have been the same". Go is not only an interesting competitive sport but also a high-order activity of thought, and its broad, deep connotations have already formed a distinctive cultural form. Go culture takes the learning of skill as its trunk and methodology as its soul; it displays rich and deep resources in many fields — the game itself, psychology, the ethics of players, literary expression, and politics and economics — and embodies the vastness and profundity of Eastern culture.
The nineteen-line board and the star points
Nineteen vertical and nineteen horizontal lines make 361 points, nine of them marked as stars with the central one called the origin of heaven.
Liberties, connection and capture
A stone's liberties are the adjacent empty points; same-coloured neighbours connect into one group, and a group without liberties is removed.
Empty-board opening and no two alike
Play begins on an empty board, stones never move once placed, and the infinite variation has earned the saying that no two games are alike.
The Yao legend in the Bowuzhi
Zhang Hua's third-century Bowuzhi credits the game's invention to the legendary emperor Yao, while the Analects and Mencius both mention it.
The China-Japan supergo and modern revival
State support in the mid-1980s and the China-Japan supergo matches sparked a lasting boom, sustained today by academies and schools.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Since modern times, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou and other cities have been strongholds of Go, while Go academies, Go schools and Go clubs in the various localities form a transmission system in which popularization and competition proceed side by side. The Chinese Weiqi Association is responsible for organizing Go activities nationwide and for dan-rank grading and management, and the Chinese Chess and Card Games Academy (the Chess and Card Games Administrative Centre of the General Administration of Sport) is the protection unit for this project; the China-Japan Go Supermatch of the 1980s set off a Go boom that lasted for years.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Go (Weiqi).
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, faced with the impact of the modern economy and of foreign cultures, the research environment for traditional Go culture originating among the people is deteriorating rapidly, and effective measures urgently need to be taken by the state to rescue and protect it.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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