The Game of Go

by Arthur Smith

The Game of Go by Arthur Smith (1870-1929), first published in 1908. This book is intended as a practical guide to the game of Go.

It is especially designed to assist students of the game who have acquired a smattering of it in some way and who wish to investigate it further at their leisure. Go (Chinese: weiqi, Japanese: igo, Korean: baduk, Vietnamese: cờ vây, common meaning: "encircling game") is a board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,500 years ago.

The game is noted for being rich in strategy despite its relatively simple rules. According to chess master Emanuel Lasker: "The rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games, Go, History, Buddhism

233 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Arthur Smith was one of the first Westerners to make a scientific study of the game of Go, and his classic work has never been surpassed for completeness, lucidity, and all-round excellence.

Reviews

[Remy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nifty little guide, I can see why its still around. However, I would call it first and foremost a piece of Go history, and secondarily a decent introduction to the game and its past. Only with few other options available would I advise using this to actually learn to play. Quite aside from the probability that learning interactively is ideal (online or in person), there are also better books around. Should there be no other source accessible to you then so be it, and I definitely do recommend this book for otherwise non-instructive purposes. Many of the historical anecdotes presented within are not so well represented elsewhere.

The main trouble as I see it is all in the layout. A useful diagram is shown, variably following or followed by pages of turn-by-turn commentary. Unless the reader has a board in front of them, they have only two options. Either keep the board in memory, adding moves mentally as you read them, or flip several pages back to the diagram between one move and the next. I'm not saying this is impossible; Go players seem to eventually have phenomenal memory. In fact, in the early 20th century when this was written, it might not have been an unreasonable request for a beginner. Before the "Google effect" really kicked in people were better at these things. I personally found it quite difficult, but that really says more about me than the book.

Regardless, it's worth a read. While the actual instructive bits are tedious, every other part was fascinating and informative.

[Halliday]

There are only two games I enjoy playing: Go and poker. Go because it involves intuition and aesthetics, poker because it involves psychology and group dynamics. Both are games which, rather than distracting from life, teach me about it.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing a book review is a lot like a game of Go. In one of them there are all these intersections of lines upon which you have to place stones in order to surround territory, all the while defending your stones from attacks by your opponent. And the other is a Japanese board game.

Aha, no I'm just kidding. Go is Chinese.

That's about the only trivium on the history of Go that I learnt from this book, which is unfortunate since I only bought it to learn the game's history. Books covering this topic seem to be few and far between, but I did find a website which claimed this particular one contained an extensive discussion of the subject. In fact what it contains is a twenty page translation of some German articles from Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (parts 21–24, 1880–1881) written by Oskar Korschelt, the man who introduced Go to Europe. And by “German articles” I mean academic papers written in German, not “der, die, das”. But obviously we've all read parts 21–24 of Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, so there's little history to be gleaned here.

The rest of The Game of Go features a rough guide to the rules, some frankly impenetrable examples of full games by various levels of Japanese players, and then a bucket load of openings. Much of the text is spent condescendingly pointing out that the book is aimed at beginners, since any Go player with two brain cells to rub together would find everything in it utterly obvious. Yet for all that the author seems to rush through the genuine beginner-level stuff (if I didn't already know the rules of the game I'm not sure I would understand them from the description given in the book) and spend far too long on the illustrative games and possible openings.

The illustrative games in particular seem out of place. Some of them are between players who are actually, you know, good at Go. The annotations for these take pains to point out that the subtleties being displayed would be beyond any beginner. Then there's a game between a rank amateur and a half-decent player, and there the annotations consist mainly of calling the beginner's moves “hopeless”. The tone is sufficiently snarky that I kept thinking the author was British, and had to remind myself that he was indeed American, albeit from the start of the twentieth century when the US was apparently less chirpy.

There are enough mildly interesting titbits in the text to save it from being a pointless purchase. And some of the tips it contains will perhaps be useful when I'm a better player, but given that it apparently takes around 10,000 games for a player to become proficient at Go, I might be a while getting my money's worth.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first book on the game of go which I read; unfortunately for me, in retrospect I believe that it is the worst book on this game.

If not the very worst, there are certainly many many other introductory books on this game which are far superior. For instance, "Learn To Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game" by Janice Kim is excellent [and what I usually recommend to beginners]. And "Go, a Complete Introduction to the Game" by Cho Chikun is also a solid and thorough text for beginners.

I can cut Smith a little slack observing that his text was originally published in 1908, a time when there were precious few books on this game written in English. OK, slack granted. But there is no reason to read this book in the twenty-first century, save for historical and/or curiosity value.

[Fred Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on the game of Go. The history really gives a perspective of how hard the game is.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really thorough. Can be hard to follow in some places. The introduction of named situations would have benefited from more evenly-spaced plates, which means the student has to work harder.

[globulon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty out of date (1908). There are much better introductions to the game now. Additionaly, my copy had a large section bound out of order. There is some interesting material in it though, and he does try to cover some of the aspects of the game that aren't often covered in introductory texts.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not exaggerating when I say this is a game-changer. I read this book and now my friends won't play go with me anymore. Be careful what you wish for, I guess...

[Charmaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

That book is really informative about the game Go. Now I'm eager to play a game of Go! :)