Go Seigen versus Archers of Yue

Go Seigen (Wu Qingyuan in Chinese; 1914 ~ 2014) has a reputation, rightly, of being a go genius. Almost all commentaries on his games, however, relate to the times when he was in the ascendant. Times when he made very few mistakes. This creates a slightly warped view of his long career. He was not so dominant when he began that career. Indeed, he made a plethora of mistakes then. But that is not to diminish him. Seeing the kind of mistakes he made and how he learned to overcome them adds richly to a true appreciation of his enormous talent.Among the very first games arranged for Go when he arrived in Japan at the age of 14 in October 1928 was a series of 13 games in which Go (Wu in Chinese) was likened to Sun Zi, the military genius who helped the kingdom of Wu in their rivalry with the kingdom of Yue. His opponents. a different one in each game but all the rising stars of the Japanese go scene, were the archers of Yue.In all these games, now very rarely seen, Go, as a lowly 3-dan, took Black. In fact, he had Black in nearly all his games until 1933. We therefore get to see how Go mastered the art of having first move in no-komi games. Much of the time he followed Honinbo Shusaku, whose games he studied in depth in China. But we also see surprising new ideas clearly based on his equally avid study of the old Chinese masters.All the games are given here with commentaries in Go Wisdom format, based on comments from pros of the time, including the players themselves. Anecdotal biographies are given for each opponent. A full, indexed Go Wisdom appendix is included, so that the reader can study the games to a depth well beyond that of the commentaries themselves, and also use the concept data in conjunction with data in other Go Wisdom books.Go Wisdom is a new approach is a new way to study used in the most recent GoGoD books produced by John Fairbairn. There are several components. One is that the commentaries (all, as here, based on multiple pro opinions) are given without variation diagrams. Instead, variations are described in the text, using letters on the board as necessary. The idea - in line with the theory of effortful practice for optimal learning - is to force the reader to visualise the variations, both in their flow and their final shape, rather than just glancing at a diagram. A second major component is a large appendix in every book which discusses all the technical terms that appear in each book, and also very many that don't. The idea here is to offer the reader information that he may want but that does not appear in the text. It thus indirectly enhances and broadens the commentary, but through the efforts and thinking of the reader - again in line with best study theory. The third main component is that every technical term in the book is indexed in each book, in the GW appendix. This means that if the reader wishes to study the broader aspects of a particular concept (e.g. thickness or momentum), he can look up many commented examples in the various Go Wisdom books, which tend to be large and so have very many examples. Existing books with the Go Wisdom concept include "Genjo-Chitoku", "Games of Shuei", "The Teenage Meijin" and the various books on commented old Chinese games in the author's Museum of Go Theory project. Read more