GO

碁
Go is one of the oldest and most popular strategic board games in the world. It has been played in Asia for more than 4,000 years.
Some legends trace the origin of the game to legendary Chinese emperor Yao (2337–2258 BC) who had his counselor Shun design it for his son, Danzhu — supposedly an unruly sort — to teach him discipline, concentration, and balance.
In Japan alone, 10 million people play go and nearly 400 professionals make their living by teaching the game and competing in tournaments that offer tens of millions of yen in prize money.
Go is an easy game to learn. You can master the rules in a few minutes, but you can devote a lifetime to exploring its depths and subtleties

Go starts with the simplest of materials and concepts - wood and stone, line and circle, black and white. Yet complex strategies can be devised that stagger the imagination.
Asian executives use it as a paradigm for making business decisions, generals have based their military campaigns on its strategy, and politicians have espoused go principles in their takeover of countries.
Go starts with an empty board, chess with a full one. The object of a go game is to surround more territory than your opponent; the object of a chess game is to capture your opponent's king. Go stones all have the same value; chessmen have different values. The moves of a go game remain on the board until the game ends, providing its players with continuously developing shapes and patterns of black and white stones; the beauty of a chess game's moves is more ephemeral and kaleidoscopic as its patterns change with each move and capture.
Although computer programs now exist that can defeat the strongest chess players in the world, but the strategies and tactics of go are so profound that the best go-playing computer programs are unable to defeat novice players.


adapted from a column by Richard Bozulich

learn to play on the Nihon Ki'in website (Japan Go Association)
http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/lesson/index-e.htm
more at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)
http://senseis.xmp.net/

på dansk hos Københavns Go Klub: http://www.kgok.dk/index.html