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The following is an essay that I'm writing entirely for fun. I'm posting it here because its a work in progress and I'd like to hear suggestions on things that need discussed or things that I'm missing. Thanks in advance if you actually read the whole thing.
Go vs Chess
Which is the superior game?
I recently read through an interesting debate that was simply titled “Go vs Chess.” The debate was between two people, one a Go player and the other, a Chess player, where each debater defended his own game. It was an interesting read, however, I had a number of issues with the arguments on both sides of the debate which led to my disagreement with the ultimate conclusion which decided that Chess was a superior game on the basis that it is a fair game while Go is not. I don’t intent to labor into the specifics of my disagreements with the points made in the debate; instead, I will simply begin this essay at the starting point that was overlooked by the debaters themselves. In this I mean that the debaters failed to begin with a concrete basis of measurement. As an avid player of both games, it is my intention to convince the reader that Go is superior to Chess based on one aspect of the two games: Go is a better strategy game than Chess is.
Before one can begin to compare and contrast any two things, one must first decide the basis of comparison. For instance, before comparing apples to oranges, one must ask what is being compared; is it the taste of the fruit? The health benefits received from consuming each one? The ability to grow and therefore rely on each fruit? One must establish this point before beginning to assess the superiority of the things being compared. So for games like Go and Chess, one cannot simply ask which game is more fun, for instance, simply because this is a purely subjective question. Anyone could say that one game is far more fun than the other and they would be correct, but, they would only be speaking for themselves and their own experience. By the same token, we cannot ask which game is more challenging because once again, different people think differently and will find different things more challenging than others. It has been suggested that one can objectively assess the difficulty of each game based on things such as the margin of the skill rating between top players and beginners, or by the amount of time and effort required to reach proficiency. While these arguments may hold validity to an extent, this is not where I would like to settle my case. In my experience, both games are plenty deep enough to offer any human being a lifetime of challenges and there will always be more to learn. In other words, if you’re jumping from a cliff into the water and look on one side and see that the water is 20 feet deep and look on the other side to see that it is 100 feet deep, both sides are plenty deep enough to allow you to plunge into the water without fear of striking the bottom. So while one game may be deeper, neither can be mastered in a single lifetime and therefore the question of superiority cannot be based on difficulty.
Players of each of game will be quick to elaborate on the brilliance and elegance of their game and, when comparing the two, proponents on each side will make a compelling case. Chess players for instance will mention things such as the beauty of the tactics allowed by using dynamic pieces and the “dance” that takes place over the board. Go players on the other hand like to point to things like the relatively few rules which govern gameplay and the utter simplicity of the fundamentals of the game. Rest assured, any avid player of either game can give you an ear full that goes well beyond the examples mentioned here. None the less, both games clearly fall under the definition of a non-themed, zero-sum, perfect information, abstract strategy board game for two people. In my opinion, anything that meets this definition is simply a beautiful thing to behold and arguing over the brilliance of each is like comparing Mozart to Beethoven. One may have been better (by certain standards) than the other but it goes without saying that both were geniuses and the brilliance of their work is evident. Therefore, I will not be basing my conclusion on the merit of elegance.
As mentioned before, it’s been concluded by others that Chess if more fair than Go is. Now, of all things, the fairness of the game is something that I would consider to be highly important. I do not intend to make my conclusion based on this matter, however, it must be dealt with before proceeding because, in my opinion, a game that offers one player a better opportunity to win than the other is simply a flawed game and if it were determined that one game was flawed while the other was not than the question of superiority would be decided without further discussion. Therefore, let me elaborate on the statement that Go is unfair in comparison to Chess. The game of Go, being played in its ordinary fashion, almost always determines a winner and a loser. In other words, draws are extremely uncommon. Compare this to Chess where draws are hardly uncommon at all and are more and more common as the level of play improves. Even to the extent that the world renown Chess champion Bobby Fischer lamented a tragedy of the game which he referred to as “draw death”. By this he meant that eventually, players would become so skilled at the game that they would be unable to beat each other and would draw the game every time. He even went so far as to devise a variation of the game in order to make the game even more challenging. This draw death could be equated to two swordsmen that are so skilled at fighting that neither can slay the other. To use the same analogy, the game of Go would be like a sword fight that has no end short of the death of one of the competitors. Regardless of how long it takes, someone will win eventually. This doesn’t apply so well in practice simple because the game is not an infinite game but rather is restricted by the size of the board and therefore the number of legal moves available.
So the question is asked, how can the game be fair when a player can suffer defeat after playing a fundamentally perfect game? Well, for starters, let’s talk about this idea of “perfect play”. It’s an idea that is thrown around a lot when dealing with different issues of the games and it’s even debated whether such a thing exists. The proponents of Go even go so far as to give it a name which roughly translates from Japanese as “The hand of God”. Regardless of the theories on hypothetical perfect play, it is well understood that no human being is capable of such a thing. In fact, anyone who has ever learned either game beyond the basics will know that’s it’s simply unrealistic to talk about even coming close to playing perfectly. This is demonstrated by the fact that the top players in the world from both games will affirm that they are nowhere near “mastery” of their game and that even their gameplay is rich with mistakes.
So why, you might ask, is it even relevant what would happen in the instance of two players playing a perfect game against one another if it’s so unrealistic? Well, because an advantage is an advantage regardless of what skill level you are capable of. The question of the outcome of perfect play is only discussed in order to demonstrate the consequence of the advantage. All this to say, does one player have even a slight advantage in the game of Go? In order to answer this, I must diverge into the specifics of the game. In the game of Go, you have two players. One takes the color black and the other, white. It is black who has the privilege of the first move and is therefore said to have a distinct advantage because of this. This disadvantage to the white player was long ago recognized as a problem within the game and was remedied by the fact that the game is won by accumulating points. The experts of the game then decided to implement what is now called komidashi which is a Japanese word which translates “compensation.” Komidashi means that the player who plays white, and therefore moves second, begins the game with bonus points already added to that players score in order to balance the advantage of the first move. Rest assured, there has been plenty of technical analysis and estimation from top experts of the game to establish exactly what the first move advantage is worth. While there is a general agreement about the proper komidashi to be used, one thing that seems evident is that it is not a whole number but rather a fraction. The problem with this is that there are no fractional points on a Go board. A player is only capable of accumulating whole points. In order to settle this, it was decided that komidashi would contain a half point on top of the initial whole points given. The theory behind this is that we are uncertain of the exact value of komi and therefore, by allowing a half point, it is unknowable which player has the very slight advantage over the other. For example, if it was decided that komi was worth somewhere between six and seven points, a six and a half point komi would insure that the game is as balanced as it could be and it is un known whether the actually number should be higher than six and a half or lower.
Another added benefit of the half point is that it almost entirely prevents draws from ever happening. This being said, whenever a player wins by a half point, it is actually not uncertain which player exhibited the best play. Does this make the game unfair? If it does than the game of Chess is guilty of the same thing. When you give one player the first move and the other player receives compensation points, you’re giving each player a different advantage to work with (similar to giving one fighter a long sword and the other, a short sword and a shield). Advocates of the game of Chess will argue that the game is perfectly fair because both sides receive an advantage. The player who moves first gets the first move of course and the other player gets information of the former players plan before having to commit to his first move. This is seen as an imbalance but is mostly agreed upon as a fair advantage on both sides. I see no difference between this imbalance and the one offered by the game of Go.
In conclusion, I don’t believe the game of Go is unfair in any way, however, if you are to stick with such an argument, you must also accept that which is present in Chess as well. It should be clear at this point that the two games under discussion cannot be compared on the merit of fairness (either both are fair or both are slightly unfair).
So with everything said, why is it that I consider Go to be superior to Chess? The answer is simple: these are both strategy games and Go allows for a more sophisticated level of strategy than Chess does. Of course, I can’t make a statement like this without setting a standard for that as well. So what is it that determines the level and nature of strategy found within a game? All strategy in all areas of like including boards games, sports, economics, military leadership, or saving money on groceries, are ultimately defined by the options you’re given and your ability to assess and utilize those options. When studying abstract strategy board games, the basic fundamental strategy is to make decisions that expand your own options while limiting that of your opponent. The game of Chess for instance, is won by bringing your opponent to a position in which he has no options left. You might say that the goal of Go is the same but more implicitly. That being said, what makes the strategy of a game rich, complex, elegant and extraordinary is the number of options given to each contestant. No one would deny that both Chess and Go have better strategy than the game of Tic-Tac-Toe. This is because Tic-Tac-Toe is a very “small” game and is decided within only a handful of moves and even the first move of the game only allows nine options which decrease with every move. Chess and Go on the other hand, are far more complex. A game of Chess will average around eighty plays from each side and a game of Go, around 200. More than this, on each and every move of the game until the end, the number of options on each move is vast. Nonetheless, after studying both games, I can safely affirm that the game of Go allows for far more variation than Chess and has many more (exponentially more) possibilities to choose from throughout the entire game. It’s been argued that even though the first move of Go allow 361 different move options, there are only roughly forty to fifty that an experienced played would actually consider. For one, this is far more than allowed in the game of Chess. But even more than this, you’re assuming a certain level of skill by the contestants which is not relevant to the nature of the game. What may be obvious to a top player may not be to everyone and therefore all options must be taken into account. The game of Go starts with 361 options. The game of Chess, Eighteen. I would elaborate on the amount of choices which are presented as the game progresses; however, my point should be clear. There are simply far more ways to approach a game of Go than a game of Chess. All of this to say, the game of Go does a better job at presenting the players with good, competitive strategy than the game of Chess does. Though it is hardly relevant to the argument, it’s worth noting that I have met a number of people (myself included) that have played Chess for years, discovered Go and then put Chess on the back burner in order to take Go more seriously. I have yet to meet a single person that has truly given Go a shot and progressed passed beginner level and then decided to pursue Chess more seriously.
There are a number of things that can be compared between Chess and Go as we have seen, however, when strictly considering the strategic element of each game, it is obvious that Go is the champion in abstract strategic complexity. In fact, I have yet to encounter another board game that I would say even competes with Go in this regard. Simply put: Go is the ultimate strategy game.
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Thinking like a go player during a game of chess is like bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Thinking like a chess player during a game of go feels like getting knifed while you're holding a gun...
Last edited by Joelnelsonb on Sat May 23, 2015 8:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
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