Since many years Go (weiqi, baduk) is a popular game among businessmen in the Far East (China, Korea, Japan). Nowadays Go game keeps getting more popular also in the other regions of the world. Go is the game, which will help you develop your mind.
Go game – the most common questions
What is Go?
Go is the oldest board game on the world.
Why playing Go?
1. To develop logical and strategical thinking;
2. To develop skills of making decisions at a certain time;
3. To improve at evaluating the risk and possible profits;
4. To be better in adjusting the local situations into the global scene;
5. To learn humility and patience;
6. To have fun;
7. Summarizing, Go is the perfect game for businessmen and entrepreneurs. But basically everybody can get benefits from playing Go.
How many people play a Go match?
The normal Go match is played by two players. They play against each other.
- Read more | Pair Go - Team Variant of the Game of Go.
Is Go difficult to learn?
Go has very simple rules, you can learn how to play Go in a few minutes.
- Read more | Learn how to play Go.
Is Go complex?
Despite the very simple rules, Go has an extremely big number of possible variations. It’s possible to play more various Go matches than the number of existing atoms in the Universe!
Is Go solved?
Go is not a solved game.
Who is the winner of a Go match?
The player who surrounds more territory and captures more stones than the opponent.
Is it difficult to win a Go match?
To win a Go match, you need to play better than your opponent. The better your opponent plays, the more difficult for you to win.
Is it possible to win a Go match for a beginner against the master?
A person who just started to play Go has no chance to win a Go match against any advanced Go player.
How big is the Go board?
The normal Go board consists of 19 lines crossed with another 19 lines, so that there are 361 intersections (points) on the Go board. However, it’s possible to find Go boards for beginners, which consist of 169 intersections (13x13) or even 81 intersections (9x9).
How many moves does it take to play a Go match?
It’s possible to play very short and very long Go matches. When one player resigns, the match can finish anytime. But to finish the Go match while counting territory, the players will probably need to play about 200-250 moves. There are some Go matches played, which are finished before the 150th move (and the territory is counted). But there are also Go matches with more than 350 moves.
How much time does it take to play a Go match?
Most of Go matches played on the amateur Go tournaments take about 1-2 hours. However, there are some blitz Go tournaments with a time limit of 10 minutes per player (if the player uses 10 minutes, he loses by time). On the other hand, there are also some professional Go tournaments like e.g. Kisei, where in the finals each player has 8 hours time limit!
Is it possible to make a draw in a Go match?
No, it’s not possible to make a draw in a Go match. The player who plays as the second one, gets 6,5 points on the start. The smallest unit on a Go board is 1 point. So, the closest result of a Go match is a victory or defeat by 0,5 point.
How old is Go game?
Nobody knows exactly how old Go is but in most of sources it’s claimed that Go game is over 4000 years old.
- Read more | History of Go game.
Where does Go game come from?
Go game comes from China.
Why Go is called Go?
Although Go comes from China, Go has been showed in the ”western world” by the Japanese.
There are two names of Go in Japanese. One is 囲碁, which can be pronounced as ”Igo”, the other one is 碁, which can be pronounced as ”Go”. The 2nd name became more popular in Europe and got rooted in many of the European languages.
How to pronounce ”Go”?
Go should be pronounced with the phonetic ”o” (similar to ”o” in a word ”hot” in British English).
Are there any different names for the game of Go?
In the ”western countries” it’s also quite common nowadays to use the Chinese and Korean names for the Go game, besides the Japanese one.
It’s possible to call the game of Go as ”weiqi”, which refers to 围棋 - it’s the name of Go in Chinese.
And it’s also possible to call Go ”baduk”, which refers to 바둑 in Korean. While speaking about Go, some non-Go players might connect the Go game to ”Pokémon Go”, ”CS:GO”, programming language ”Go” or even ”Go-Go dances”.
So, if you want to be on the safer side that you are not accidentally misunderstood by the person you are talking to, while speaking about the Go game, you can also use names such as baduk and weiqi.
What is the meaning of Go?
Translating directly from Chinese, we can explain Go as the ”Surrounding board game”.
”Wei” - 围, in Chinese means ”to surround”. ”Qi” - 棋, in Chinese means ”board game”.
There are some funny situations connected with the Chinese translation of Go, because in many sentences in Chinese, ”wei” - 围 can be omitted and the meaning of the sentence doesn’t change. However, in many online translators and dictionaries ”qi” - 棋 is translated as ”chess”.
So, if somebody doesn’t know Chinese and uses the online translator to translate the Chinese materials about Go, he might get confused about what board game the materials really are.
