http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)#Early_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuri

Whew! got lucky, they overlap, but just barely. My point is that analytical history works better when there aren't parallel versions, or shifting points of view, and for Chess this may be more true, after all not as many people play chess.

1) Go Seigen was certainly impressed enough with old historical games to write a long introduction for Chen Zude's series of 14 books on ancient Chinese games published 2011-2013. And Michael Redmond was certainly impressed enough with the games of Huang Longshi to have his wife translate a Chinese book on the subject into Japanese for the Japanese audience (see this post).

2) The problem with comparing the achievements of ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Polynesian is that the technology developed for each of these cultures was greatly influenced by the needs dictated by the locations of each culture. Different places required different solutions to solve the problems existing in that location. Whereas the location of the game of go wherever and whenever it is/was played in is mainly the same 19 X 19 grid which we still use today no matter which country we play go in.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

From time limits to counting, there are regional differences. Anyway, where was that thread, where Fairburn lamented the lack of narrative in modern Go due to lack of established superiority... I digress.

It's best to ask why you care if modern pros are stronger than ancient pros. If it's an academic argument held over beer at the local go club then carry on. But you're way off if you're asking the question because you're deciding whether to study games from three hundred years ago.

Top level pros from any era are/were strong, far stronger than anyone on this forum. At worst they're a few points off of the pace of today's champions. That's certainly a level I'd be happy to play at. Study any pro games that you want; all study will pay off.

Are you sure?

There exists an astonishing number of revered artists, who sell incomprehensively ugly work (or decent looking serially produced design) with a load of bullshit theory, which goes for profoundness and turns out to be ever the same theosophy on a closer look. That is the art market is diametrically opposed to Go. In Go you can't subsist on bullshit theory - it has to work on the board as well. And I seriously doubt every modern artist is able to paint the hair of virgin Mary like Lucas Cranach and ...

You might agree that upon reading your comment, that even if it is not the case, much of it certainly sounds like uninformed prejudice. The basis of prejudice is on the one hand contempt, but on the other, an unqualified but often undeniable observation. In this case, you observe that much of the language used to describe modern and contemporary art is hogwash. I tend to agree, and would respond with a prejudice of my own: Words are not the artist's forte. Much of what we read about art is not written by the artists themselves, but rather by people whose business it is to promote an artist's work, and bullshit (on a high level) sells.

This does not however counter my assertion that the artists are "reacting to and building upon centuries of tradition." This takes place not by learning the same techniques as their predecessors, but by learning how their predecessors responded artistically to the questions they were faced with. Unlike go, where the basic premise has never changed, art exists in the context of constantly evolving culture, and be it religion, science or advertising that determines their focus, artists cannot just continue doing the same thing.

The context of my comment about artists (added to your quote in parenthesis) is that it is in fact worthwhile for professionals, be they go players or artists, to learn from their predecessors. While you may be right that some artists use abstruse rhetoric to market their work, my impression is that their work does not tend to have been produced within a knowledge-vacuum, but rather that it might just look that way - particularly to those who themselves are unaware of the history of art. People have been calling art ugly since the cavemen started making it.

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Patience, grasshopper.

There seriously went something wrong in the history of the arts when some avant-garde artists tried to blow up the art circus by quite consciously doing anti-art and upon realizing that even this anti-art has potential as a commodity kept doing the same thing without revolutionary pretence. The joke was always on the audience.

And yet, when an audience willingly gazes at an empty canvas, it isn't necessarily foolish, it just isn't interested in art.

Unlike the art market Go is intolerant to pretence, dishonesty, confidence tricks... you can't win during the review. I sincerely believe Go should be advertised like this. Brutal honesty in a dishonest world.

More to the topic: Study the masters old and new. Actually, I believe studying games with unfamiliar fuseki and old-fashioned joseki may be the best opening study. Without the superficial familiarity you are actually forced to attempt to figure out why they did, what they did. I study Takagawa Kaku, when I study at all, these days.

There are still people who study fine art and learn from the masters just like there are people who study the game records of masters of the game of go.

As to studying ugly modern art pieces, you can also choose to restrict yourself to studying game records of kyu players for your inspirations.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

On the other hand, the question of why are there aren't more go clubs with beer and what can be done about this dearth is an entirely practical one.

I wouldn't want beer spilt over my kaya board nor my slate and clams

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

You take your kaya slate and clams to the club? Generous...

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free

If what you're saying is that it's not possible to be a go-charlatan, but it is possible to be an art-charlatan then I'm sure you're right, but the argument does seem to overlook the fact that the skill sets for the two professions are vastly different. Whereas go professionals really don't need to do much besides sit and think, artists need constantly to find new ways to engage the paying and viewing public. Some of these may circumvent making good art, and yes, that is dishonest, but I would hardly call it the rule. Most professional artists (at least the ones I know) do indeed "study the masters old and new," and are interested not in pulling the wool over the eyes of their audience, but in making their contribution to art history and subsisting on it.

It is one of the nice things about go in contrast to art that skill is simple to prove, and that one can not reach the upper echelons without possessing it. This does not mean however that skill is somehow irrelevant to art.

Go players are fond of mentioning that there are more possible games of go than atoms in the universe, and yet all of these variations are essentially the same thing - a sequence of black and white stones struggling to dominate a 19 x 19 board. It has something of an imploding universe to it. This might bring about the honesty of go, because it exists in utter isolation, but other professions such as art do not have this luxury. Their universe, like ours is expanding in all directions, and while there is indeed something pleasant in the way go eliminates so many bothersome parameters, calling that "honest" does not acknowledges its unfair advantage.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I think this is a wonderful point. For me personally, a weak amateur in both go and art, I like to look at the work of professionals, be they ancient or contemporary (are O Rissei and Cho Chikun not ancient by today's standards?), not so much to copy their moves (or brush strokes), but rather to see how they faced the challenges they encountered. Here is a game that I'd like to share that I like quite a bit. What I like about it, or rather what I take from it, is how both players tenaciously refuse to give up on their troubled stones. For me, this was an important lesson despite my inability to judge the correctness or quality of the moves.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I just read this:

"The second quarter of the 19th century was marked by a struggle among the four giants of the go world at that time for promotion to Meijin, Jowa, Senchi, Inoue Gennan Inseki and Hayashi Gembi (1778-1861), who were all 8-dan, vied secretly for the promotion, which carried with it the lucrative headship of the State Go Academy, Jowa's intrigues were the most successful and he was appointed Meijin in 1831, without playing a single game against the others."

-Shuzo Ohira 9-dan in Appreciating Famous Games

Not all is roses in the go world.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Both are active tournament players, so I would say contemporary without a doubt.

Yeah, I know - but they're both from my generation and I sure feel like an old go player

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Patience, grasshopper.