ON November 14, Dan and I began a PBEM game of Go, one of our favorite games. So you know, over the years, whenever we’ve had the chance, we have challenged each other to a game of go. We began playing back in 2003, and admittedly we haven’t had too many opportunities to play against one another. Hopefully our rivalry will continue well into the future.

So anyway, we’ve gone hi-tech with our playing. And because of the wonders of the interweb, we will be blogging about this game, and hopefully others in the future. The idea is this: We both set up a board, at our respective houses, mine in Carbondale IL and his in New York City. We then photograph the board after each move and post it on the internet, along with our comments. The difference between this game and the ones we have played in the past is that our moves will not be quickly made. We are allowed to study as much as we like before making a move, and take as long as we need to make the move. Hopefully, this will ensure that our moves are done with a lot of thought and understanding about the importance of each move. Consequently, our game should improve over previous contests.

Dan will be blogging at his site, the Creepy Sleepy Show, as well, and we’ll keep running commentary of the moves so that people can keep track of the moves and learn how and why each is made.

A few simple rules of Go, so you understand what we are talking about here:

1: The goal of the game is to make territory. To do this, you must use various moves to get your opponent’s stones out of the territory you have decided to defend while getting your stones into territory that your opponent has claimed. The player with the most territory at the end of the game wins.

2: Territory is counted in points. Points are open spaces without any stones on them. The more stones it takes you to defend your territory, obviously the fewer points you get to count at the end of the game.

3: Each stone is worth exactly the same as every other stone. It is where the stone is placed and which other of your stones back it up which makes a stone powerful or weak.

4: Each stone counts its “liberties” following the lines leading off of it to another open point. A stone played in the middle with no other stones around it counts four liberties. A stone played on a side counts three liberties and one played in the corner counts two. If one stone is directly adjacent (via line; diagonals do not count for this) to another stone of the same color, it is called a group, and then the group counts all its liberties as if it were one unit. Hence a two stone group in the middle counts six liberties total (and not four, because if you count the liberties from the group, you come up with six lines to another point coming from the group, and not each stone.) It is rather confusing without an example, but you’ll have to take my word for it. When a stone has only one liberty left, that stone is in “atari”, and when it has zero liberties left, it is killed. There are ways to avoid this fate, and they will be demonstrated in our game.

5: Game play proceeds as follows: Black (which always goes first) puts a stone down, white puts a stone down. The game continues like this, going through three relatively distinct phases, until the whole board is filled either with stones or unassailable territory. At this point, when BOTH players have passed (because they can’t or no longer wish to play a move) the game ends and territory is counted.

6: Ko is an infinite fight between stones. Without an example it is meaningless to talk about Ko, except to say that when Ko is taken, you cannot immediately replay that same Ko fight. The person who loses a stone in Ko must play elsewhere first, and then may return to take the Ko after playing somewhere else first. I will highlight examples of Ko as they arise on the board.

7. A stone placed into a one point eye (while possible) is suicide, and that is not allowed.

These are pretty much the rules to the world’s oldest board game. Any questions? Hearing none, we proceed.