The design of Go sets is rooted in tradition and has evolved over centuries. The dimensions of the boards, stones and bowls, the materials from which they are made, have not changed for a long time. Modern technologies had little effect on traditional methods for making high-quality gobans. The best boards are still made by hand by skilled craftsmen who take over the craftsmanship from their fathers. Family traditions are kept for many generations.

The Go board is not exactly square. The standard size is 45.4 cm long and 42.4 cm wide. As a result, the stones slightly touch each other in the horizontal direction, but the monotony of the ideal square is destroyed. Players usually increase this effect by placing stones not exactly at the intersection of the lines. Sitting at the board during the game, the player looks at the position from an angle.

The thickness of the board depends on the taste of the owner. Traditional goban has a thickness of 15 to 19 centimeters. standard height the legs are 12.1 cm, and the total height of the goban is at least 27 cm.

The black stones are 2.1 cm in diameter, and the white ones 2 cm. The white ones are slightly smaller to compensate for the optical illusion, as a result of which black seems to be smaller than white to a person. The shape of the stones is complex, the thickness can be different depending on taste, from 5 to 12.8 mm. The most common sets use stones with a thickness of 8.4 to 9.8 mm. Thick stones are clumsy, and thin stones are not so pleasant to put on the board.

Beautiful go boards are made from the glossy, textured wood of the kaya tree (kaya, Latin torrea nucifera). This yellow wood is ideal for gobans because its color harmonizes with the color of black and white stones and because it makes a lively sound when the stone is placed on the board. Kaya wood is durable and its color deepens and deepens over time.

The quality and price of kaya gobans depends on many factors, the most important of which is the cut of the tree. There are many ways to cut a tree trunk, each of which creates its own characteristic pattern of the surface, ends and sides of the goban. The best gobans have a straight pattern on the playing surface and on the ends. It is achieved by a tree cutting method called tenchimasa. These gobans cost from 6 million to 20 million yen.

Masame gobans are also quite expensive. These boards have an uneven texture from the end, as can be seen in the photo below. This cut also provides a direct texture on the playing surface. The price of high-quality masame gobans starts from 2 million yen and goes up to six million.

One reason for the high price of these gobans is the age of the wood. To get a workpiece right size you need to use a tree over 700 years old. Only one or two tenchimasa boards and a few masame boards can be made from one tree. Which is very little.

The cheapest kaya wood gobans are the itame gobans. The picture shows that the playing surface has an irregular structure. From an aesthetic point of view, this is not desirable, as a result, the price is much lower. Starts at 400,000 yen. Several itame gobans can be made from one tree.

A player who wants to play a fine kaya wood goban at home, but cannot afford to pay such a high price, uses a 5 cm thick kaya board. These boards are usually made from two or three pieces of wood, expertly glued together. Fine texture of the surface is achieved by careful selection of the texture of individual bars. Such boards (one of them can be seen in the photo) cost about 80,000 yen.

Due to the high price of kaya boards, boards made of katsura wood (cercidiphyllum japonicum, Japanese crimson) are widely used. Boards made from this tree have a very reasonable price and for this reason they are played in clubs. Relatively recently, for the manufacture of inexpensive boards, they began to use the wood of trees common in North America and Indonesia. Although it is not necessary to play wooden planks players find that they enjoy the game more if they hear the sound of a resonating tree when they place a stone on the board.

Black stones are made from slate mined in Wakayama Prefecture. These stones are relatively cheap. It is white stones that form the basis of the cost of a set for playing Go. Traditionally, they are made from the shells of a mollusk that lives in Hyuga and Miyazaki prefectures (Hyuga, Miyazaki). Like kaya wood, these shells are rare and expensive. Now white stones are made from the shells of mollusks living in Mexico. They are not as rare, but just as well suited. As a result, the cost of a set of beautiful go stones has decreased several times. However, depending on the thickness of the stones, a set of white Mexican clam shell stones can cost between 16,000 and 250,000 yen. Most players in clubs use impact-resistant glass and plastic stones.

As with wood, the surface texture of shell stones is of great aesthetic value. The smoother the lines, and the more often they are located, the better.

Stones are stored in round wooden bowls with lids. The most expensive bowls are made from a beautiful mulberry tree, which grows only on Miyakejima Island in Tokyo. A pair of these bowls can cost hundreds of thousands of yen. More common are bowls made from cheap woods such as keyaki, a beautiful yellow wood that matches the color of the kaya. Chestnut and plastic bowls are most commonly used in clubs.

How to play go

Go is played by two people on a board with a set of black and white round pieces called stones. The complete set of stones consists of 181 black and 180 white stones. On the standard board full size applied 19 longitudinal and 19 transverse lines. The number of stones corresponds to the number of intersections of these lines.

The goal of the game of Go is to capture territory, which creates many analogies with wars on the ground. There is both fighting on the frontier and invading enemy territory, enemy forces can be surrounded and captured, groups of stones can be cut off, pressed and cornered, diversionary maneuvers and reconnaissance are used. At the same time, it is construction. The players try to create good designs, effective and strong positions. Strong players arrange their stones in visually appealing shapes.

Go rules

Although the 19x19 board is standard, beginners are encouraged to start learning the rules on the 9x9 board. On boards of this size, you can begin to explain the rules.

Rule 1. The bet begins with an empty board.
Rule 2. Black moves first, after which White and Black alternate moves.
Rule 3. The move consists in placing a stone on an unoccupied intersection of the lines of the board.

D.1 and D.2 show typical initial moves on a 9x9 board. In Diagram 1, Black made the first move at the top right. White answered at the bottom left. In Diagram 2, Black played 3 at the bottom right, marking the sphere of influence on the right side of the board. White placed stone 4 at the top left, marking his sphere of influence on the left.

Clarification

Once placed on the board, a stone does not move or be removed from the board until the end of the game. We will cover the capture of stones in the following articles. Stones cannot be moved around the board. Except in a few cases, you can walk to any free intersection you like, even to the edge of the board and into the very corner.

Go game. famous players.

Kitani Minoru, along with Go Seigen, was one of the giants of Go from 1930 to 1950. From the beginning of his career, he showed great promise and soon acquired the nickname Kaidomaru - gifted. He became a 1st dan in 1924 and by 1935 had reached the seventh dan, an unprecedented rank in those days. In 1938 he won the tournament for the right to play his last game with Honinbo Shusai. Kitani won five points, and the game was the basis of the novel "Meijin" by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata.

In addition to his success in tournaments, Kitani, along with Go Seigen, improved the theory of Go by creating the "new fuseki strategy". He also did much to develop joseki theory.

But Kitani left his greatest legacy in the form of many of his students whom he trained. After World War II, Kitani founded a school called "Kitani dojo". He combed the country in search of talented youth and attracted them to regular classes at his school. Every day these young people played Go and analyzed the games under the supervision of Kitani and his senior students.

These efforts began to bear fruit in 1971, when one of his students, Yoshio Ishida, at the age of 21, won the Honinbo title from then-reigning champion Rin Kaiho. Rin was born in China and studied under Go Seigen. The next five years were the years of Isis. He won the title of Honinbo four more times and finally took the title of Meijin from Rin, becoming the third Meijin Honinbo of modern times.

Ishida became the first-born of a new type of player that the Kitani school spawned. He was almost invincible, having won 30 games in a row in the qualifying tournament, he was imperturbable under pressure, calmly calculating positions. For his ability to calculate in yose, he was nicknamed "Isis Computer". Rin had it all too, but Ishida was a cut above.

Go rules

Take rule

Rule 4. A stone or a directly connected group of stones of the same color is captured and removed from the board when all intersections of the lines of the board immediately adjacent to the stone (group) are occupied by stones of the opposite color.

D.1. The white stones occupied three of the four points adjacent to the black stone, i.e. three ladies of this stone. In this case, the black stone is said to be in the atari.

D 2. White captures the black stone, occupying the last dame, and removes the stone from the board.

D.3. The result of White's last move. Captured stones are set aside and stored until the end of the game. They will be taken into account when calculating the result.

Stones can be captured both at the edge of the board and in the corner, as shown in the diagram.

Two black stones are connected. They are also in atari. White can capture them with 1.

This diagram shows a connected group of five black stones that can be captured.

Suicide moves are prohibited. You cannot make a move that closes the last dame of your stones. In the diagram on the right, two white stones each have one dame at 1-1. White 1 is forbidden because white stones lose their last dame.

A suicide move leading to the capture of the opponent's stones is allowed. If White plays 1 in the central diagram, then the queen is engaged at the black stones on the right, and at white stone no lady. In this case, the one who made the move captures the opponent's stones. In this case, White captures two black stones.

Tasks

In these three problems, find a move by Black that captures some of White's stones.

Virtual whiteboard

Try to solve these problems on the virtual board. Move the pointer to the point on the board where you want to make the next move, and click the left mouse button.

Analysis of the game about meien. Go game analysis. Fundamentals of the concept of territory. Go game. the history of the game go.. The game of go in south korea.. home -> Articles

Probably, many people thought about how to make a goban at home with minimal cost effort, money, and time. There are actually a lot of options, an impromptu goban can be made from anything, for example, from a piece of old linoleum, plywood, cardboard. But,
such gobans do not look very aesthetically pleasing, moreover, they are short-lived. Despite the fact that I am the happy owner of a board bought back in the times of the USSR, which, by the way, is perfectly preserved, I still have an obsession with making the goban myself. Unfortunately, I do not know when I will have enough time to implement this idea, but I have already decided on the goban manufacturing technology for myself and offer it to your attention.

So let's start with a list necessary tools and materials. I advise you to prepare everything in advance, so that later you do not run around the apartment in search of the most elementary tools and do not come up with a new use for household items.

Materials and tools needed for work:

1. MDF fibreboard.

Dry-process fibreboard: MDF (MDF - medium density fiberboard) is a material with a uniform internal structure that allows milling without chipping, hairiness, opening of internal pores and grinding with sufficient surface quality of the product. MDF boards are widely used for the manufacture of furniture parts, especially furniture embossed facades..

2. Colorless varnish good quality. You should not save on varnish, it is better to buy a small jar of expensive varnish containing polyurethane.
3. Foam brushes or a small foam roller.
4. Small skin "zero".
5. Sharp construction knife.
6. Long metal ruler. A second T-ruler will also help a lot.
7. Pencil, eraser.
8. High-quality permanent black marker pen thickness 0.5mm.
9. Hairdryer.

Project for the production of works (PPR)

1. Cut out a board of the required size from our MDF board. Recommend cut circular saw- then the cuts will be even and smooth. If you plan to cut with a jigsaw, then I have to disappoint you - no matter how hard you try, the edges of the board will be uneven. Some craftsmen advise temporarily attaching a guide bar to stop the jigsaw, but this option is not suitable for us for two reasons: firstly, we do not want to spoil the board with the bar fasteners (there will be traces of the screws), and secondly, even if we fix the bar - the saw cut will still turn out to be uneven, since the course of the jigsaw file is several millimeters, and on a thin board such an error will be striking.

2. The cut blank for our goban must be carefully sanded. For sanding, we use the smallest skin "zero". To avoid too strong removal of fibers in places of pressure with your fingers - fix the skin on a small even block, or on a special grinding block. I like it when the edges of the board are sharp, so we will not process them with a file, for the same reason we only sand the end sides of the workpiece with a bar!

3. We prime the workpiece with the first layer of varnish. I repeat, we do not save on varnish, we always make sure that the varnish is with polyurethane. For a primer layer, it is advisable to add a little white spirit to the varnish - this will make the varnish more liquid and it will better saturate the board. Lacquer should be applied with a foam brush or roller. If you use an ordinary brush, the hairs will inevitably get on the surface of the board. If small bubbles form on the surface of the board when applying varnish, this should not scare you, the bubbles should theoretically disappear on their own, but I recommend that you dry the board a little after painting with a regular hair dryer.

4. Apply the mesh to the goban blank. To do this, with a sharpened pencil, we draw the first line along the entire perimeter of the board (we get a square). Be sure to check the corners - they must be strictly 90 degrees! The formulas proposed by Filin on the forum will help us correctly determine the size of the sides of the square Kido:

Horizontal size: 18 cells wide (d+1mm), plus (0.7d) per side

Final formula:
L horizontal=18(d+1)+0.7(d+1)+0.7(d+1)=19.4(d+1)

Vertical size: the same as horizontal, but add 3 mm already (the goban should be slightly elongated to create a visual effect of an even square)

Final formula:
Lvert.=18(d+3)+0.7(d+3)+0.7(d+3)=19.4(d+3)

d - stone diameter (measured with a caliper)

After drawing the first line, we apply all the rest, carefully monitoring the dimensions. When all the lines are drawn with a pencil, we need to outline them with a black marker (pen thickness 0.5mm). Inaccuracies, errors in the lines drawn with a marker are wiped with a sharp construction knife. After drawing the lines, do not forget to mark the star points, for this it is best to use a stencil ruler. The diameter of the dot should be within 2-3 mm, otherwise it will look too large.

5. After drawing a grid and star points with a marker, you must repeat the procedure
applying varnish 2-3 more times, each layer of varnish must be thoroughly dried. Dry the workpiece in a dry, dust-free place.

6. These are approximately the gobans obtained if you follow the above instructions:

Every day I give brief advice to someone who is going to make a Go board himself, sometimes I buy “incredible boards” or exchange them for normal ones, I have formed a collection of “human and non-human” Go boards in a sense ...

Great idea, don't you think?

I'll tell you straight - the first boards, and often a batch of boards, always go to waste, the money goes there too. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try, doesn't mean...
I propose, turning to the experience of Goam, to turn your attention to:
1. on the idea of ​​the line (this is the first IDEA GO)
2. on the idea of ​​a point (this is the second IDEA of GO)
3. on the combination of these ideas and, accordingly, the dimensions of the line and hoshi ...

Goama intentionally does not give sizes in this article, because the size is secondary, although very important. A board without an idea is much worse than a board without dimensions. So, more…

Poor manual marking is much cheaper than machine marking, but masterful manual marking can be much more expensive.
But then the HAND of the master should be visible. If it IS, then you can't hide it. After that, the question of price may not stand. Someone is willing to pay, for example.
But the idea is the most valuable thing. Even taken on its own.
Even taken from a photo.

One might wonder - why actually a katana, why a sword?
Why, knowing the Japanese passion for technology, was a special marking tool not invented? At least for expensive boards?
And then we will get the correct answer - why. And then you can understand the idea of ​​manual marking, and the idea of ​​an expensive board, and the idea of ​​the Go line. Right? Thus, one can understand what the Japanese master will not tell even under torture.

With pathos:

1. I am no longer interested in the price of a Go board. I don't want to buy based on the price. Now I'm only interested in how the Go board is made.

2. I am no longer interested in what the board is made of. Now I'm only interested in how the Go board is made.

3. I am willing to pay more for any Go board as long as it is signed with reverse side, for example like this - Master First Name Last Name (of this master), again - not just First Name, Last Name, but Master First Name Last Name.

X Do we have money in RossGo for a board made by a Russian master?

I'm afraid that's enough for now Russian manufacturer cannot be expensive.

1. rossmaster saves on material for the time being, reluctantly finding dry material. He does not have a moisture meter and does not carry it in his pocket.

2. rossmaster is not yet able to find the correct line thickness, which is not in the number of millimeters
3. he does not understand the very idea of ​​manual marking, he does not push through the lines after the pencil markup, and the pencil does not clean out with an eraser.

4. he goes line by line, thinking that it is imperceptible.

5. he does not understand what the thickness of the board should be, he does not understand the module of the board and has no idea what the module of the board is

6. A 19 x 19 grid is a rectangle. This rectangle also has its own idea. For example, it must be positioned according to the direction of the fibers.
7. he does not understand the size of the hoshi point and its purpose
8. he will not be able to understand the size of the fields and their ratio, considering this to be insignificant
9. he will "immediately do on the material"
10. he will choose the varnish ill-considered, apply the varnish with the wrong brush, the room will be dusty
11. he doesn't know how many coats of polish he needs
12. he will not be able to fulfill all the nuances of the board, because he never had an expensive board, did not choose it and did not buy it for his hard-earned money

13. Go board must be beautiful

14. the board must be a finished thing, completeness must be visible to the consumer

…What are we actually talking about here?

We are talking about what people in the regions can do if they want to earn money by creating truly valuable products.
This refers to people who have "hands from the right place."
I want to say that a person who is able to produce very good board Let Go not be afraid because there will be no one to buy it.
Will. Although the buyer will be picky, and it will be difficult to surprise him.
He will not succeed in slipping "non-production". You can't give him bullshit.
He won't look at the price, but he will look at what Goama was trying to list. He reserves the right to inspect, but not buy, an imperfect item. He will also look at the fact that he did not list Goam. On what he kept silent about or did not even know, did not guess. But this, for example, will already be on the board.

We believe that Goama announces a competition for a board for Go.

“Go creates an image in the soul. And the particles of this image are all the details of the situation - goban, stones, premises, players, books, etc. Go should not be “a logical game that develops ingenuity”, but something that touches the soul - beauty, the quality of things, the quality of relationships, its very atmosphere” - Alexey Khovanets, Vladivostok.

Second way.

If you were able to organize ten people around you who are enthusiastically practicing Go, then you will already have a good set, it will just appear in you almost by itself. If you organize 100 amateurs, you will have basalt, kaya and Mexican shell stones, 1000 people Japanese shell stones, etc.
This path is not difficult, but it requires some effort, soul and time.

That is, organizing your own Go-club is equivalent to making a good board.
This is another way for people with an average level of well-being. No one will be able to allocate several thousand from their budget for an expensive set, there simply will not be such an expense item, it will simply be “not needed”.
The kit appears from an excess of people and for people who are many around you, HE COMES ITSELF, IT BRINGS YOU GO, if you communicate with this GO, hear its whisper, pass on its whisper to others.
The truth of Goama is that Goama was able not only to imagine such a path, but also to pass it. Even more. Now others can follow the path of Goam.

This is a repost from my journal. There is a lot of information here for those who do not know about go, so do not scold)

Yesterday at IKEA I accidentally saw and realized - this is it. I have long been hatching a place to make the goban itself. Goban is a thick board, even a go platform. Strictly speaking, I only want to make a go board, because the goban looks like this, in the Japanese tradition, all sizes are completely standardized, they play it while sitting on the floor. The most expensive cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, are made from a single piece of a certain type of cayah pine that has been growing for dormouse for years and all that sort of thing - a real "Stradivarius drum". Moreover, in almost literally- one of the most important properties of a high-quality goban is the sound made by the impact of a stone on a board. Clubs use simpler boards.

I already have a board made of pressed cardboard or chipboard at home - on one side standard size 19x19, on the other smaller 13x13. Less than 13x13 is only a tiny 9x9 board, which is used by elementary education for very beginners. But it is necessary that it be cool, that there be a pleasant heaviness of the board, the sound of placing a stone on a tree and other aesthetic subtleties.

In short, note to home masters. Ikea sells a LAMPLIG cutting board on the 1st floor. Instead of the letter A, the letter A is written there with two dots at the top. Judging by the severity, the board is made of glued oak, treated with oil. One side has a 90 degree bend. It costs 600 or 700 rubles.

End view - gluing lines are clearly visible. At home, such a shield cannot be made; they make it in factories, under pressure, with high temperature, etc.

When laying a cardboard board on a cutting board, it is clear that on the sides of the LAMPLIG it is only 2-3 mm wider, in length - 5-6 centimeters is given out:

And here is her working surface How cutting board, with a bent handle and a groove for draining liquid:

I'll take care of her soon. I probably won’t cut it, the sizes are almost right. What to do with the bend - has not yet decided. You can carefully cut it off with a circular saw, or you can put a plank or block under the opposite side, glue or screw it - and there will be a board on the stand!

Our friend made it himself from MDF, and - Western, but ours inserted his photos into his blog for demonstration.

Another development of the theme in Russian conditions. Based on the same source, but made from a furniture board. I didn't find it in stores furniture board to be without features such as large knots, bright drops, etc.

Here I found a video of how a man made a goban for himself, long and painful, but interesting and entertaining:

I foresee something similar in the summer at the dacha.

Go is played by two (there is an option for four players - rengo, where the allies play in one color, a pair for a couple, as well as one-color or "white" Go, where both opponents play only white stones, relying entirely on their own memory). The game is played on a single-color board, lined with vertical and horizontal lines. The game set also includes stone chips (180 white and 181 black) and bowls for their storage. In addition to the large tournament board 19x19, the standards are the "old" board 17x17, the "etude" 13x13 and the student's 9x9. In an informal setting, players can take a board of any size - 5x5, 7x7, 11x11, etc. up to 37x37 - neither the rules nor tactics will need to be changed, although the strategy may change dramatically.

Chips in Go are traditionally referred to as "stones" (Jap. "ishi"). In ancient China, they were indeed carved from precious and ornamental stones, bones, horns, and also made from glass and ceramics. Ancient stones found in burials are almost always green and red or brown, and not white and black, their shape is cone-shaped. Stone bowls were made from ceramics, porcelain, stone, bamboo and expensive woods. The fields were often made of cloth, leather, although wooden and stone boards were also in use everywhere.

Japan is poor in minerals, and local craftsmen have found replacements for ornamental stones in the form of black basalt schist from Wakayama Prefecture and shells of the hamaguri bivalve mollusk (Meretrix lusoria) from Hyuga Shoal (although in the picture above, it seems to me, tridacna - D.S.).

A massive, very thick board-table is also becoming the standard - usually made of kai wood (nut-bearing torreia). It is in Japan that the game acquires its characteristic recognizable golden-black-and-white asceticism.

New materials led to a change in the shape of the chips, and then the entire game set. The stones, which in China were traditionally made with a flat base, in Japan became biconvex, lenticular.



Playing with such convex stones is a special skill, which also serves as an indicator of skill. There is a correct set of movements, including taking a stone from a bowl and a special interception of it with the index (bottom) and middle fingers (top), which allows you to put the stone at any point on the board with one blow without sweeping the others - such a grip and movement, according to the Japanese, resembles sword strike.


In competent execution, all this looks like one movement (Japanese tradition generally pays a lot of attention correct sequence actions, whether it be a tea ceremony, martial arts or Go). A confident, practiced blow with a stone forms a small hole on the goban, in which it remains to stand (the trick is that the kai wood is elastic, and after a while the hole straightens itself out).

The main cost of an elite set for Go is white stones, bowls and goban (basalt costs almost nothing, except for the work of a stone cutter).
Stones are classified by thickness into 7 types - the thicker, the more expensive. The diameter of the black stones is half a millimeter larger than the white ones, since the black color visually reduces the size of the object, and the white stones look slightly larger with equal sizes. In addition, white stones are sorted according to the pattern of mother-of-pearl layers: straight “yuki” are most valued, then evenly curved “tsuki”, and finally, asymmetric “jitsuyo”. On one side of the stone from the shell, the pattern is usually denser, on the other - sparse. Curiously, this Japanese tradition, in turn, influenced China - among the local stones, opal stones are especially valued, whose striped structure resembles a shell. Elite Chinese sets can be extremely beautiful, although these slippery stones are difficult to play with.



However, in China, stones are still made in which one side is convex and the other is flat. Classic material for black stones it is viscous glass like smalt, and for white stones it is translucent artificial marble yunzi; such stones are greenish-black and milky-white in the light.The material for this composite comes from Yunnan province, and the recipe is kept secret. The process of making stones, which the locals called "fused dry stone", dates back to the Tang Dynasty, in the 20s of the pastcentury was lost and rediscovered only in the 60s.

You have to be more careful when playing with them. strong blow stress on flat base is distributed unevenly (the finger presses on the center, and the blow falls on the edge), and the stone may crack. The stones are coated with a special mineral oil that adds shine and depth to the matte surface (our people recommend TNK or Johnson's Baby). The stones in the sets can vary slightly in size, which, however, also gives them a certain charm: Go's aesthetic implies a harmonious balance between the complete similarity of the stones in the set andbarely noticeable differences between each of them individually.
Since the 40s of the XX century, Korea has invaded the Japanese market with faience and viscous glass stones, so successful that Japan completely curtailed its own production of cheap stones, preferring to buy Korean ones for club needs.

Finally, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Taiwanese standard, the so-called. "Inga stones" made of hard rubber - super-vulcanized rubber with a metal weighting core, slightly flattened from the "poles" for better stability, and although they do not look so chic, convenience, strength and low price more than compensate for the shortcomings. Chinese stones are slightly larger in diameter than Japanese and Korean ones, and those, in turn, are larger than Ing ones.
Bowls are traditionally made from rare woods. Ancient Chinese bowls cylindrical shape, with flat lids.

In a later tradition, the bowls become barrel-shaped, in the form of an oblate ball. It is customary to put cut stones into a convex inverted lid.


Japanese bowls are not so steep and slightly conical: their base is slightly wider than the top.Along with classic wooden and souvenir stone and lacquer bowls, there are wicker bowls - made of straw or bamboo, and in Lately and plastic.

When playing according to the rules of Inga, where the total number of stones is important, special bowls are used with a movable measuring mechanism in the lid, which allows you to instantly determine whether all the stones are in place or several are missing: they are easy to distinguish by their characteristic hexagonal shape.

The traditional Japanese goban is still lined with a samurai katana - the master makes a series of parallel cuts into which he rubs very thick paint, after which the surface is polished, so the markings of Japanese gobans are always embossed, "mortise" (photo on the left), and Korean and Chinese - flat, smooth (right).

Stones and gobans of old work are very much appreciated, since recently kaya and hamaguri have become endangered species, and gobans are increasingly being made from other types of wood (spruce, beech, maple), which in Japan are called the collective name "shin kaya" - "new kaya ". However, any goban still remains a piece goods, which not everyone can afford, so most players are content with thin boards or bamboo consumer goods.


Stones today are made from the shells of the same mollusk, only from the coast of Mexico (moreover, even here the craftsmen complain that the quality of Mexican shells is much lower than Japanese ones).


All three countries produce portable Go kits made of plastic with built-in magnets and a sheet rubber field of any size and price category - from pocket ones to large wall-mounted, demonstration ones.
Recently, special relief boards have also been produced, which can be played by blind players and people with impaired vision. At the same time, black stones are smooth, while white ones have embossed marks.


Previously, ordinary chess clocks were used to control time in Go. The player is given a certain period of time for the game, after which the so-called"beyomi": 30 seconds are given for each next move . The player has 5 such gaps, so he can let the flag fall 4 times (that is, overstay the time), on the fifth time the time expires and the game is considered lost. As long as the player spends less than 30 seconds on each move and presses the button in time, he can play virtually endlessly. It is customary to press the button with the same hand with which the player places the stone (the clock is on one side of the board, and one player will have an advantage in time if he gets into the habit of placing stones with one hand and hitting the clock with the other).
Today, tournaments usually use"speaking" electronic clock of the Inga system (in the picture, these are similar to a car), with a voice warning function: when the player has the last 10 seconds left, a voice countdown begins: this tradition comes from the control generally accepted in professional Go, when moves are recorded for the player and his assistant switches the clock (he also warns in a voice that the time is running out).

Rules of the game

If the game is not on handicap, the first move in Go is made by black. This is an old Eastern tradition, according to which the black color of the attackers symbolizes aggressive, bad intentions. The traditional drawing of color is called "nigiri" (from the Japanese "kolobok", "lump") and is based on the game of even-odd.

The player who got the bowl with white takes at random a handful of stones and places them on the board at once, at the same time the player with black places one or two stones next to each other. If black guesses the parity of the stones laid out by the opponent, he is given the right to choose a color, if not, this right passes to the partner.

The first move is usually made to the upper right corner of the board (opponent's left corner) - this "move to the heart" symbolizes the good intentions of the beginner. This is a completely optional old rule, but most players traditionally adhere to it. Next, the players take turns placing a stone on any crossroads of the board, trying to build "walls" and enclose as many empty crossroads as possible on the board. Two stones cannot be placed in one move, but a player can pass at any time - such a pass is also considered a move. A stone put on the board does not move any more and can only be cut down and removed from the board if the enemy surrounds it from all four sides with his stones or presses it against the wall.

At the core gameplay Go is based on three simple principles:

Since the stones in Go are placed not in cells, but at the crossroads of lines, each stone, when placed, borders on a maximum of four free adjacent intersections (on the edge of the board - with three, in the corner - with two). There are no diagonal joints in Go. As long as a stone or a group of stones has contact with at least one free intersection, the stone or group "live", as soon as all contacts are blocked by the opponent's stones or the edge of the board, they "die" and are immediately removed from the board. In Japanese, each such free crosshair next to the stone is called "dame" ("breath"). Putting a stone at a point that does not have "breaths" is prohibited. The environment is the basis of Go, but in fact it is a tactical technique, a threat, a pressure mechanism, and not the goal of the game at all, although it happens that a large group dies surrounded by the enemy (as a rule, when playing equal players, this promises a loss).

2) Building a Fortress.

The stone put on the board does not move anymore (it can only be cut down and removed) and can avoid the environment in the only way - to develop into a large unkillable group. Combined stones can only be destroyed by surrounding them all at once. Each added allied stone increases such a group, it grows, grows loops, tentacles, takes up defensive positions, counterattacks and, if possible, forms closed voids inside itself (the so-called “eyes”), consisting of unoccupied points. An "eye" can have many empty intersections, but if there are no solid separating walls inside it, it still counts as one "eye". A group that has two or more "eyes" cannot die: if the enemy tries to occupy one, such a group has the second, and since "suicidal" moves are prohibited, the enemy as a result cannot attack it at all, even if it surrounds from all sides and lean against the wall. Such an "immortal" group of stones is called a Fortress. The figure shows typical formations in the corners of the board: two double-eyed Black Fortresses (on the left) and one white Fortress (on the right).

3) The division of the territory.

When so many Strongholds form on the board that their walls are touching, and there is no place to build new ones, the opponents actually divide the remaining empty space. This space can be small "eyes" in 2-3 intersections inside the fortresses, winding "corridors" and large "bags" in different ends boards, as well as huge possessions (jap. “moyo”) with watchstones well-placed inside, ready to strangle any invasion (the fact is that it’s not enough to fence the territory, you need to protect it, otherwise the enemy will land troops, build a fortress inside, and the points will pass to him).
At the end, the game breaks up into areas that no longer affect each other. There are no large weak groups that are in danger. This is followed by the filling of neutral points, the exchange of captive stones and the scoring, which determines the winner. Each unoccupied point surrounded by the player brings him 1 point, each captured and killed enemy stone also gives 1 point.
There are situations when two or more groups of stones remain "live" in a state where none of the opponents can make a move on this "section of the front" without fear of being destroyed. Such a situation in Japanese is called “seki” (“barrier”, in the figure on the left), when counting, all the stones in this part of the board are considered live, and the points are drawn.

An amusing controversial moment may arise in the game in the form of a mutual capture of a stone or a group of stones (in Japanese, "ko" - "eternity"; in the figure below). The rules forbid such repeated captures, otherwise they will continue until the stones run out. The player in such a situation can cut down the opponent's stone only after one move, which he must make to any other point on the board, or pass. The enemy must do the same. Co-fighting is a complex tactic when both players choose for "distracting" moves dangerous for the opponent (co-threats), to which he willy-nilly is obliged to respond. In some cases, life depends on the outcome of the ko-fight large groups, but more often this happens at the end of the game, when there is no big advantage and there is a struggle for every point.

The Japanese and Chinese Go rules are slightly different from each other, but the differences relate mainly to scoring and some controversial points. After 1960, several new sets of rules appeared: the AGA (American Go Association) rules, the Ing rules and the simplified Ing rules, New Zealand, as well as the Tromp-Taylor rules. All of them are based on the Chinese scoring system and are characterized by some game subtleties (say, Ing's rules allow "suicidal" moves, which can change the situation when playing some groups).

Previously, only numerical notation was used to indicate moves (13-8, 2-6, etc.), today “chess”, alphanumeric notation is more often used: numbers from 1 to 19 - along the vertical of the board and letters of the Latin alphabet from “a ” to “t” horizontally (however, there is no “i” in this row to avoid confusion due to its similarity to “j”). The graphic record of the game (jap. "kifu") looks like a lined diagram of the board, on which moves are depicted in black and white circles, indicating the number of each.

The circles may not be drawn, in which case the players simply write down their moves and the moves of the opponent with ink of different colors. Both Renju and Go have continuous numbering of moves, that is, the first move (black) is marked as No. 1, the second move (White) - No. 2, etc. No erasures are allowed; if a stone is placed in the place of a cut stone, a mark is made at the bottom of the sheet, say: “123=30” (i.e. move No. 123 is made where stone No. 30 appears on the diagram). Masters and connoisseurs read kifu very quickly, but for a novice player this is a very difficult task, and it is not difficult to understand the very order of moves - the system is intuitively simple, it is more difficult to imagine emptiness in place of stones set later.

Since black moves first, he is considered to have an initial advantage of a few points. This problem became especially acute at the end of the 20th century with the development of Go theory and the emergence of new openings. It got to the point that only blacks began to win in tournaments of strong masters. To even out the balance, the "komidashi rule" (colloquially, "komi") was introduced in the 19th century, according to which, before the start of the game, White is compensated by 2.5 points. Because of the fractional nature of the Komi, there are no draws in Go: in any case, one player will have an extra half point; A draw is possible either in a student game or by mutual agreement of the players. Over time, the rules have been revised several times, and today the komi is 5.5 points in Japan, Korea and China, 6.5 in Korea (recently), 7 in New Zealand and 7.5 in Taiwan, where according to the rules of Inga. “Free komi” is also practiced, when players arrange a kind of “trade” before the game, increasing the size of the komi in turn, until the opponent agrees. The catch is that the player who offered the highest compensation accepted then plays black.

At the board in Go, a master and a novice player can easily converge. To equalize their chances and make the game harmonious, the handicap that a strong player gives to a weak one is called upon. The simplest is the refusal of a handicap, when a strong player plays white with half-point comei or even with a reverse, minus comei. Increasing the handicap comes down to placing handicap stones (two or more). There is a classic handicap, when the stones are placed in strictly defined “star” points, and a free handicap (colloquially “Chinese”), when a strong player gives a weak player several moves forward, while he himself passes each time. An experienced player usually knows his strength and can calculate how many handicap stones to ask a strong player or give to a weak one in order to play on equal terms.
With such rules, it's hard to believe that Go is considered the most difficult game in the world. General principles and tactics of Go are simple and uncomplicated, but require constant rethinking in the course of the game. There are no figures in Go, one stone is no different from another, only the place it occupies and the shape that the stones form matters. However, their collision and interaction reveals the most complex architecture. Assessing the individual and combined potential of one’s own and others’ formations, revealing and realizing it and preventing the enemy from doing it, setting priorities for attacking, defending and capturing new territories are the most difficult tasks in themselves, and, in addition, they also have to be solved simultaneously.

In such conditions, everyone chooses a strategy “by growth” for themselves: beginners start chasing individual stones, more experienced players build outposts, make sorties and start local battles, but real masters think in larger categories than a banal fight in a corner or capturing a single chip, and already on initial stage start global strategic planning. Basically, Go is a game of kingdom building, where everyone builds castles, draws boundaries, and eventually grabs as much "land" as they can.

Unlike chess or checkers, there are no established “winning scenarios” in Go that allow you to play according to the scheme. The level of high creativity, tactical improvisation, which in chess is available only to true masters, a Go player learns already at the stage of catching his very first pebble. Calculation, of course, is also important, but the true understanding of Go lies on the border between conscious and subconscious perception. In the famous anime "Hikaru and Go" there is a scene when the boy is perplexed: "I won! How did I do it?..”

Even in ancient times, during the To dynasty, a high-ranking Chinese official, Osekinin, formulated the Ten Commandments of Go, which convey the essence of the teaching. These commandments have not lost their relevance to our days; they are:

1. "He who strives too hard for victory will not win."

2. "If you invaded the enemy's sphere of influence, be more lenient."

3. "Before you attack, look at yourself."

5. "Give a little, take a big one."

6. "If danger threatens, don't hesitate to give."

7. "Restrain, do not scatter."

8. "When the enemy attacks, be sure to answer."

9. "If the enemy has strengthened, strengthen yourself."

10. "If you are hopelessly isolated, choose a peaceful path."

First, the players divide the territory in the corners of the board, then on the sides, and only after that - the center (no one divides the sky without first dividing the earth). It is very important to recognize when one phase of the game replaces another, to catch the moment when the draft section is over and the groups have gained strength - such a player intercepts the pace (according to Japanese terminology - “gets a sente”) and, with the first move to a free territory, will stake new possessions behind him. It is incredibly important to understand to what extent you can give in to the onslaught of the opponent, and when it is necessary to resist: an abandoned, unfinished situation in a corner or on the side is fraught with the loss of a group or even a fortress, or even an entire possession.

I will describe a case from my practice. I taught a ten-year-old girl who could not grasp the principles of Go and instead of redistributing spheres of influence, arranged endless tactical fights. Imagine, I told her, that there is a delicious cake from which a piece has been cut off for you. You ate some and suddenly saw how your rival climbs into your saucer with a spoon and steals pieces. How to fix the situation? The first answer was, of course, to protect your piece, the second was to eat off a piece of your girlfriend in revenge ... But to cut off another one from the cake big piece it never crossed her mind!
The analogy worked. Indeed, to divide, not to quarrel - this is the principle of Go. Sooner or later, the player realizes that he is losing because of the desire to take the apple core from his opponent. Mastery comes with a deep understanding of the general nature of harmonious constructions, skills of development, optimization of efforts, planning and arrangement, which ultimately extend to any life situation. And when the players begin to share the “basket of apples”, and by the end of the game there are only “apples” on the board, not cores, and the difference is half a gram, this is Go. As a consequence, where chess ultimately produces a kshatriya, an uncompromising fighter and commander, Go brings up a wise ruler and organizer.
.
[End follows]
(c) Dmitry Skyryuk