This is probably a naive question, but…

Looking at the history of go, it seems that for most of the last few hundred years, the Japanese players have dominated, but in the early 1990s, Korean and Chinese players caught up and now dominate the international go scene. At the same time, I have read that there is a difference between Japanese and Korean/Chinese playing styles, with the former favoring more peaceful and territory-focused games, while the latter are more focused on fighting and attacking weak groups.

My question is: Is the domination of Korean and Chinese players at the moment a testament to their general style of play, or is it more due to the fact that Korea and China at the moment have more strong players due to cultural/economic reasons (popularity of games in the country, styles of learning go in school, greater pool of go players to choose from, economic growth, etc.)?

Hi AC,

The long answer is a couple of factors.

Sound bites:

Korea: Mr. Cho Hun-hyun, Mr. Fujisawa Hideyuki, government sponsorship.

China: Mr. Nie Weiping, Mr. Fujisawa Hideyuki, end of an era ⁽¹⁾, government sponsorship.

Other kind folks can provide more in-depth analyses.





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⁽¹⁾ Borderline guideline 2.

My opinion is that styles come from people that win, more than particular countries.

Otake Hideo wins a lot by trying to play beautifully? Then others try to follow his example. Lee Changho starts winning from playing good endgame? Others follow suite and get good at endgame. Lee Sedol starts winning after playing bad openings, but reading well and making things complicated? Others try the same strategy.

AlphaGo is here now with a new style - that seems effective. I imagine people will try to learn from it, and we'll see a new style emerge.

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be immersed

Though I can't remember who it was, someone when I first began playing Go mentioned something about the difference in the "Chinese framework game" vs the "Japanese style of attack and defense." I remember that these two ideas made perfect sense to me and since then, I've always recognized the structure of my games as being more one way or the other. I personally prefer the "Japanese style" which involves a lot of intricate, contact fighting and usually involves a lot of dead stones from both sides. Compare this to a "Chinese approach" where players emphasize creating safe structures and often build large moyos in an attempt to take more open territory. It may or may not be accurate to credit these countries with the different approaches, especially since I've never done extensive research on professional games from said countries in order to contrast. I do find it contradictory that the Japanese rules (territory scoring) are rooted in the objective to control territory whereas Chinese rules (area scoring) originate from the spirit of capturing your opponent and creating a stronger fighting position.

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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...

I don't find this to be true at all. The type of scoring doesn't have anything to do with one's style of play.

An the approaches you're describing don't exist to me at all. I'm not sure where you're getting those from. You don't need extensive research, but you might want to do a little bit.

Agreed. Don't make more of it then I meant. I'm only referring to the fact that territory scoring is about counting up surrounded intersections where as area scoring is about getting your stones on the board and your opponents off. None of this has any practical applications that would differ in game play but I just found it interesting that the scoring methods seem to contradict what I previously said about the two different styles.

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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...

No it isn't.
Its also about surrounding territory. It just counted differently (algebraically its exactly the same).

If you can't understand what I'm saying than just disregard the point altogether. It's isn't vital to the point of the post. But you are in fact wrong

I'm uncertain where so many players get this notion that the game is "about" territory and that acquiring it is how you win. I find this very subjective as I believe that what a player really means to say is "I have had the most success when focusing on the acquisition of territory directly." Because until the game is solved entirely, we won't know what the best game theory is and it makes just as much sense to say that the game is all about capturing your opponents stones, if that's how you want to interpret it. Here's a mindblower (was for me): the objective of the game can be summed up as "the winner is the one to capture the most stones." Obviously passes would be illegal.

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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...

Well, I'd really like to understand what you're saying, because then I could help correct where I believe *you're* wrong


I see now where you got the notion in your rule book...

This isn't true at all -- many times, players never capture any stones at all.
The objective of the game is to control more area of the board (territory + stones) than your opponent. Which, in a way, can be summarized as "the one with the most stones on the board wins" (which is almost like the opposite of your summary). We're sorta saying the same thing differently, but there's a subtle but important difference, I believe.

The game is never about capturing. Capturing is the least efficient method to gain control of the board.

No doubt, we could find plenty of example games where the one with the most captures, actually lost the game. (probably more so in the lower ranks).

Higher level players are probably laughing at us both right now

And they look dumb. You don't need to be Mozart to study music theory. Nor do you need to be a certain skill level in order to understand the finer points of Go

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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...

You must bifurcate the scoring method used from the actual rules of game play. You can play the same game of Go that you know and love simply by stating three things: The liberty rule(s), the ko rule and the basic objective of capture the most stones to win so long as you mention that passing is illegal. What your suggesting is true: that many, many strong players have throughout the ages demonstrated that the most effective way to build a stronger position than your opponent is to place emphesis on un-played areas of the board in attempt to make use of them later (during that period that never gets played out because of the scoring method used which allows players to agree on the result long before the game has ended). But I'm still not convinced. I often have games, depending on how my opponent plays, where I don't make a single move with the intention of making territory directly. Rather, my moves are aimed at challenging the infrastructure being developed by my opponent and granting limited mobility. You can't tell me this is a "inferior" way to think because you are no Go master (nor is anyone living, imo).

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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...

Just to clarify, do you mean that you are not willing to learn from other people since they are not perfect?

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be immersed

Certainly not. I'm only saying that no one can prove what the best method for playing Go is.

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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...

Yeah, I've got no problem separating these two things.


Two of these are right. Obviously its the third that we disagree on...


Ok, I think I see what's going on here... I think you're confusing strategy (method) with objective (goal).

These aren't the same at all. You can aim at attacking without trying to take territory, as a strategy, but that doesn't change the overall goal (objective), of trying to control a larger sphere of influence on the board.

I think your suggested strategy is a perfectly fine one. Its just not the main objective of the game.



the scoring method has no bearing on whether or not surrounded stones should be played out to capture or not.

On the contrary, I'm claiming that the statement "Go is about making territory" is subjective. I say this because surrounding intersections in order to control them is, as you said, a strategy. So to say what Go is "about" as an objective statement we must look within the actual confines of the game and not to the most popular strategy employed (because this is subject to change with time). Saying that it's about surrounding territory would be like saying that it's all about responding to a knight's approach with a one space pincer. Why sum up the entire game according to a theory that's been fabricated by players?






Of course it doesn't. Remember though that using a scoring method is simply another strategy and doesn't relate to the rules of the game.


For the record, I wasn't trying to troll this thread

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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...

It's not a different strategy.

It is not subjective. Objectively, at the end of the game, whoever has the most territory wins. There are many *strategies* for achieving this

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be immersed

So that's one way of looking at it. Another is to say that at a certain point in the game, both players employ a scoring method to deduce who is leading and will therefore win the game if played until completion. It is at this time that both players agree to quit placing stones.

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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...