Go equipment
The equipment with which go is played is steeped in tradition.
The size of the board, stones and bowls, and the materials used to
make them have remained unchanged for centuries. Modern technology
has had little effect on the traditional methods used to make
high-quality go boards. The best boards are still handmade by master
craftsmen who have inherited the art from their fathers. This family
tradition can go back for many generations.
The go board is not exactly square: the standard dimensions are
45.4 centimeters in length by 42.4 centimeters in width. The result
is that the stones slightly overlap in the horizontal direction, but
the advantage is that the monotony of perfect squares is avoided.
The players often add to the effect by placing their stones somewhat
off center. During a game, the players sit facing the narrow ends.
A board's thickness is a matter of taste, but traditional boards
are usually between 15 centimeters and 19 centimeters thick. The
standard height for the legs is 12.1 centimeters, so the height of
both the board and legs will be at least 27.1 centimeters.
The black stones are 2.1 centimeters in diameter and the white
stones two centimeters. The white stones are a bit smaller in order
to compensate for the optical illusion that makes the black stones
appear smaller. The stones are convex in shape and vary in
thickness, according to taste, from five millimeters to as much as
12.8 millimeters. However, the preferred thickness is between 8.4
millimeters and 9.8 millimeters. Fatter stones are unwieldy and
thinner ones somehow do not have a satisfying feel to them.
The finest go boards are made from the highly lustrous,
close-grained wood of Japanese kaya (torrea nucifera) trees. This
yellowish wood is ideal for go boards because its color harmonizes
with the black and white stones, and because it produces a pleasing
"live" click when a stone is resolutely played on the board. Kaya
boards are resistant to decay and the color of the wood becomes
deeper and richer with age.
The quality and the price of kaya boards are determined by a
number of factors, the most important of which is the cut of the
wood. There are different ways of sectioning kaya wood for go
boards, each of which produces a distinctive combination of playing
surface, end-grain and side-grain patterns. The most desirable
boards have straight grains along the surface and the end-grain.
This kind of cut is called tenchimasa. Tenchimasa boards are priced
from 6 million yen to more than 20 million yen.
Masame boards are also highly prized. These boards have a curved
grain at the narrow ends as shown in the illustration at right. This
cut also produces a straight grain along the surface of the board.
The prices for high quality masame boards start at about 2 million
yen and can run to as high as 6 million yen.
One reason for the high cost of these boards is that a tree has
to be old enough for the trunk to have grown sufficiently to make
these desired cuts: a 17-centimeter tenchimasa or masame board can
be cut only from kaya trees that are more than 700 years old. Only
one or two tenchimasa boards and very few masame boards can be cut
from one tree, so they are rare.
At the lower end of the kaya-board scale are the itame boards. If
you look at the illustration, you can see that the surface grain is
irregular. Aesthetically, this is not as desirable as a
straight-grained surface, so their price is much lower, starting at
from around 400,000 yen to about 1.5 million yen. Quite a few itame
boards can be made from a single tree, hence the lower price.
Players who want to play on a beautiful kaya board in their
homes, but cannot afford the high cost of a traditional kaya board
with legs, will often settle for a five-centimeter table kaya board.
These boards are usually made with two or three strips of wood,
skillfully glued together. Care is taken to make sure that the
different strips match, and a beautiful straight-grained surface is
produced. Such boards, a specimen of which is shown in the picture
at top right, cost about 80,000 yen.
Because kaya boards are so expensive, the most widely used wood
for go boards is katsura (cercidiphyllum japonicum). Boards made
from this wood are reasonably priced and are, therefore, the
preferred type for use in go clubs. Recently, wood from trees native
to North America and Indonesia have been used to make reasonably
priced, good quality boards. Although it is not necessary to play on
a wooden board, most go players find that one of the pleasures of
the game is hearing the resonant click produced when a stone is
played on the board.
Black stones are made from slate that is mined in Wakayama
Prefecture. These are relatively inexpensive. It is the white stones
that make up most of the cost of a set of quality stones. White go
stones are traditionally made from clam shells that come from Hyuga,
Miyazaki Prefecture. Just like kaya trees, Hyuga clam shells have
become scarce and expensive. As a result, clam shells from Baja
California in Mexico are now being used to make good quality shell
stones at a fraction of the cost of a set from Hyuga. Since Mexican
shell stones are still fairly expensive--depending on thickness,
prices range from 16,000 yen to about 250,000 yen--most go clubs and
many individual go players use stones made of chip-resistant glass.
As with the boards, the grain of the shell stones is
aesthetically important. It should run straight across the surface
of the stones-the straighter and more close-grained, the better.
Stones are kept in round wooden bowls with lids. The most
expensive bowls are made of a beautiful mulberry wood, found only on
Miyakejima island in Tokyo. A pair of such bowls can cost hundreds
of thousands of yen. Most bowls, though, are made of more reasonably
priced types of wood, such as keyaki, a beautiful yellow wood that
perfectly matches the golden yellow of kaya. Chestnut and plastic
bowls are widely used in clubs.
How go is played
Go is played by two persons on a board with a set of black and
white discs called stones. A full set of stones consists of 181
black ones and 180 white ones. The full-sized board has 19 vertical
lines and 19 horizontal lines. The number of stones corresponds to
the number of intersections on a 19 x 19 board.
The object of go is to gain control of territory, so in many ways
it resembles land warfare. There are border clashes and invasions;
enemy forces can be surrounded and captured; groups of stones can be
cut off, pursued and cornered; there are feints and probes. At the
same time, go has an architectural quality. The player tries to
build well-designed, efficient, strong positions, and good players
tend to arrange their stones in visually appealing shapes.
The rules
Although the 19 x 19 board is standard, beginners are encouraged
to begin their study on a 9 x 9 board. This is the board size we
will use to explain the rules.
Rule 1.The board is empty at the start of the
game. Rule 2. Black makes the first move, after which
Black and White alternate. Rule 3. A move consists of
placing a stone of one's own color on an empty intersection.
Diagrams 1 and Diagram 2 show a typical opening on a 9
x 9 board. In Diagram 1, Black makes his first move at 1 in
the upper right. White plays 2 in the lower left. In Diagram
2, Black plays 3 in the lower right, mapping out a sphere of
influence on the right side. White plays 4 in the upper left,
mapping out his own sphere of influence on the left side.
Elaboration
Once played, the stones will stay where they are until the end of
the game, unless they are captured and taken off the board. (Capture
will be explained in the next installment.) They cannot be moved to
other points. Except for minor restrictions, to be explained later,
you may play anywhere you want, even on the edge or on the 1-1
point.
For a book on the rules, we recommend "Go: A Complete
Introduction to the Game" by Cho Chikun. It may be purchased or
ordered from any English-language bookstore.
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