Talk:Go (game)

Capitalization of "go"

NOTE: See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Sports,_games,_and_other_activities

There are occasional, conventionalized variances, e.g.:

• The names of standard chess openings are capitalized (Queen's Gambit, Neo-Grünfeld Defence).[j]
• The name of the game Go is capitalized.[k]

JohnRussell (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi,

I've noticed that this article always capitalizes the "g" in "go" even in cases where it is not being used as part of a proper name or the first word of a sentence. Is this based upon something in the MOS or is it simply common convention? Other game articles, such those for chess, backgammon, checkers, card games, etc., do not capitalize the first letter when the word is being used as a common noun and I think this is consistent with commonly accepted rules for capitalization. So, in my opinion, "I play go" is correct while "I play Go" is not for exactly the same reasons that "I play poker" is correct and "I play Poker" is not.

Is "go" being capitalized because it is a foreign word or for emphasis? If that's the case, then I think it's better to use italics instead such as "I play go."

Is there concern that people will mistake "go" (the game) for "go" (the verb)? I guess that's possible if no context was provided at all, but since the article is about "go" (the game) that seems a little bit unlikely.

I am interested in this because I am currently working on some articles about shogi. "Shogi" is also a foreign word and is also a board game. "Shogi" is capitalized when it is part of a proper name, e.g., the Japan Shogi Association, or used to begin a sentence, but otherwise it is typically not. So, I am trying to understand how it is different from "go". Thanks in advance. - Marchjuly (talk) 01:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Ok, i found some things on this both on the WikiProject Go's Talk Page and in this talk page's archives here and here, but it doesn't seem to me that a solution was found that was acceptable to all. Was a consensus eventually reached? - Marchjuly (talk) 01:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I personally prefer the capitalized version, to distinguish the name of the game from the rather common English word. Reyk _YO! 10:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Hey thanks for the reply Reyk. I can see the merits of that approach. On the other hand, the card game "bridge" is not capitalized each time it is used even though the word is also rather common. - Marchjuly (talk) 10:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Good example. Another (less good though) is "solitaire". Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:24, 4 March 2014 (UTC) p.s. And I think there might be a lot of them. (E.g. "fencing" is both a sport, and a material for fences.)

Sure, but I think people would be more likely to use the verb "go" when talking about the board game than use "bridge" as in "thing for crossing the water" when talking about the card game. That said, I don't feel particularly strongly about it. Just a slight preference for the capitalised version. Reyk _YO! 11:25, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

"Bridge", "patience" and "fencing" are nouns, so they do not interfere with grammatical parsing of a sentence. Context lets the reader immediately know which sense of the noun is being referred to. But "go" is commonly a verb and can cause difficulty in reading and parsing a sentence for those not familiar with it as a noun naming a game. Sure it functions as a noun in specific phrases like "have a go". I think guiding the reader to immediately read "Go, the game" justifies the capitalisation. Tayste (edits) 19:25, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

To me it seems like a pretty weak thing to do. People ought to get over that noun/verb conclusion about one second after they learn that it's the name of the game. 58.250.175.74 (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Just came to the article and the same thought occurred to me. Put me down as anti-capitalis: readers won't get confused, the game is called go, there's no getting round that and capitalising it is non-standard and weird. Popcornduff (talk) 17:32, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Being non-standard and weird are minor problems; confusing readers is a major problem. I think the benefits of capitalizing the word as a visual reference far outweigh the drawbacks, so I'm in the pro-capitals camp. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I think it's unusual to capitalize go. If you are using a word as a noun, then the grammar of the sentence will let you know that the word is a noun because verbs cannot fit into the grammatical constructions that nouns occur in. So, this point is incorrect. (Also, although off-topic, you can use fence and bridge as verbs too and, it's not uncommon to do so.) Rather the real issue is that go is a very, very high frequency word which is used only as a verb (putting aside the deverbal nouns) whereas the noun go is a very low frequency word. That's all it is. The other issue seems to be that foreign words when entering English in older writings (like 100 years ago) sometimes capitalized the words in a more German language-like fashion as marker of foreignness. I think go as Go is holdout of that. For example, here is quote from something written in 1884:

Among those of which adults of all classes..are very fond, the most conspicuous at present are Shôgi, or chess, and Go.

(However, i'm not an expert in this, just my impression reading older books. For instance, sometimes shogi is written as Shogi.) Well, i guess we dont need to continue this marking of foreignness in wikipedia. I wonder if this is an American thing? Do UK folks capitalize go too? The Oxford English Dictionary does not capitalize go. Neither do Webster's or American Heritage although American Heritage does mention that it is often capitalized. – ishwar  (speak) 18:00, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

You think "it's unusual to capitalize go". Have you considered why you think so? As you said, you are "not an expert in this,", it is just your "impression reading older books." In brief, you are not acquainted with the voluminous Go literature, else you would know that this is not at all unusual.

The question of capitalization has a long history (at WP and elsewhere) which I don't wish to get into (not enough time). But I would point out that, first, the capitalization of "Go" is not "an American thing", it is an English (language) "thing". Second, it is not a matter of marking "foreignenss", as the foreign word it comes from is actually the Japanese Igo. For which Smith used "Go". And for sure, many English-spoeaking Go players would prefer "igo", but it seems that many Chinese and Korean players prefer an English term over the Japanese. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:32, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

It's unusual simply because it's not common to capitalize common nouns in modern English. It's the same comment as the others make above. I wasn't saying I'm not an expert in go. I'm not an expert in how the English language generally handles capitalization of foreign words. So, in this respect, it doesn't matter what what the go literature does. It's actually the go literature itself which may be unusual. The English language varies in different speech communities. It may be the case that go is not capitalized as frequently as in the US. It's simply an empirical issue, it may be the same in both Englishes. It also may not be a matter of marking of foreignness. As i said, I'm not an expert in of the frequency of capitalization of foreign words in modern English. However, it may also be exactly that. We would need to consult some research on that. There are some arguments in following the go literature, but there are also other arguments for following what is usual in the language as seen as the practice found in UK and US dictionaries. – ishwar  (speak) 08:17, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course there are arguments pro and con. If they were all on one side it would be asinine to even raise the issue, right? And if, say, the chess community wants to refer to "go" that is fine with me. But at Wikipedia we have an established usage, to capitalize, and even if the case for lower-case is nearly as good there is no "Great Wrong To Be Righted" here. You have not shown any significant problem that needs to be addressed, therefore there is no "need to consult" any kind of research.

That you may be familiar with some of the arguments suggests that you might not be uninformed on this, and therefore less interested in a point of information than argumentation. I have more important work to do. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Nobody invited you into the discussion, Johnson, so your personal shit is inappropriate. --IHTS (talk) 23:56, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

According to Marchjuly in 2014, there didnt seem to be any consensus. So, there's no established usage. (I mean the earliest versions of the article had Go but that's just first editor bias, right?) Whether it's true that capitalizing the word helps readers' comprehension is just speculation (or wikipedia's 'original research') without something like published processing experiments. Basically, i think the argumentation (J. Johnson involved for not) needs to be something like the following

weight(collective published source using Go) > [ weight(collective published sources using go) + weight(desire for consistent treatment across wikipedia) ]

If that's the argument, it's fine. Just be explicit and put it clearly on the Go/go project page and maybe give a link to it at the top of this talk page for folks like the ones who have been questioning this for about 10 (?) years. – ishwar  (speak) 19:58, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

This is stupid. No one says Poker nor Bridge. Uchiha Itachi 25 (talk) 05:30, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

See also #Is it "Go" or "go" mid-sentence? below. — Tonymec (talk) 09:32, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

It should be "go", full stop. The Manual of Style is clear, and it is also simply everyday convention, like "bridge" and "poker" examples given. If a sentence could actually be read ambiguously, it should just be re-written. WP Ludicer (talk) 05:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I disagree; and the etymology section of the article explains why. Capitalising the name is common practice in sources that write about the game. In fact, I think Go should be one of the exceptions specifically listed at MOS:GAMECAPS. Reyk _YO! 10:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a topic pertaining to all articles on Go, not just the article Go (game). It keeps coming up. Please see this discussion at WikiProject Go. Reliable sources, including Go World capitalize Go. I believe this is due to readability issues, because of the common English verb "go". We need to formalize this convention, which is how most articles on Go in Wikipedia handle the capitalization of Go. I suggest we do this in the WikiProject under Guidelines and amend MOS:GAMECAPS with this exception. Coastside (talk) 17:15, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Atoms in the universe

Last sentence in the lead compares the number of legal board positions (est. 2 x 10^170) to the number of atoms in the universe (est. perhaps 10^85). This is an utterly absurd comparison, considering one number is roughly the square of the other. One might instead imagine replacing each atom by an entire universe; then the total number of atoms would be comparable (but of course that would be too complicated a statement to put in the article). Really, the number is so vast nobody gets any wiser by such an idle comparison. I think it should simply be deleted (but my recent deletion has been reverted).

PS. The comparison reads:

... which is greater than the number of atoms in the universe

which of course is a true statement. Also, a book source is given. I still find it absurd.

PPS. It might be compared to some other combinatorial result. E.g., 107! = 1,2 x 10^170 is the number of distinct sequences into which you can arrange 107 numbered cards. Still, that might not make anyone any wiser (and then, it doesn't sound so impressive, does it?)--Nø (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I saw your good faith edit, and would have reverted it myself in time, and am glad you made it because that's an interesting fact and a good attempt to make an inconceivable number even more inconceivable but understandable at the same time. If you can find a source saying something close to this it would be a great addition. As it is now it still makes the point well, so I support keeping the statement until a more accurate one, as you've pointed out, is sourced. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm the one who reverted it - without comment here, sorry. The only point of that phrase is to give context of the vast number of possible moves to people who don't have a good grasp of exponents, which is a *lot* of people. It's part of the introduction of a popular article, so being easy to understand is important. Talking about combinatorial results wouldn't help; that's over most people's heads. Remember, this isn't a mathematical exact analytical paper, it's an encyclopedia article for readers who may have little or no training. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The Sensei's Library go wiki page also says "The number of possible go games is extremely large. It is often compared to the number of atoms in the universe ([ext] around 10^80), but it is in fact much much larger" https://senseis.xmp.net/?NumberOfPossibleGoGames JohnRussell (talk) 02:28, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Photograph mislabeled?

The first photograph under History, showing a Sui Dynasty board, is labeled "19x19". Unless my counting is misguided, I think it is a 17x17. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.130.160 (talk) 10:02, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

The star points at 4/4 indicate that this must be a 19×19 board with the outer edges of the board counting as the external lines of the grid. If this were a 17×17 board then the star points would be on 3/3 which is wrong and not found on other 17×17 boards. Remember that this is a funerary model of a go board, not necessarily a real board for playing real games. BabelStone (talk) 11:17, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• • Yes, and the fact that the drawn lines extend to the physical edge of the board suggests that the edges are lines. Admittedly, it would be awkward to balance a stone on the edge, but still. Reyk _YO! 11:58, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Online teaching facilities?

Is there a website that provides shared Go boards for teaching? The article doesn't seem to say. By 'teaching' I mean a board that works like a real board: one can play stones of any color and remove stones freely, for teaching purposes. I've been searching the Web and I can't find such a website. Teaching can be done at OGS and KGS, but apparently not freely as with a real board but only as real (but unrated) games with review afterward. David Spector (talk) 00:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you can use KGS as with a real board. Start a "Demonstration" game. This will not be a real game, and you can edit however you like. If you want to set up situations, use the Edit tool (F2, or the menu in the top left). Click to add and remove black stones. Shift-click for white. Teachers frequently use this method to discuss tsumego and other situations. --seberle (talk) 12:58, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikivoyage article

WV now has voy:Go which emphasizes travel-related things like museums about the game & places to buy equipment. It could use contributions or comments. In particular, most of the places it mentions are in China or Japan & contributions about Korea are needed; see voy:Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Does_anyone_know_about_Korean_baduk?. Pashley (talk) 13:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Byo-yomi obscurity

"Standard byoyomi: After the main time is depleted,"

1. I think the spelling is "byo-yomi".

2. I think there is no timing method called "standard byo-yomi". The standard timing method for many matches is called "byo-yomi" as opposed to Simple, Absolute, Fischer, or Canadian.

3. What is main time? Is it accumulated time for all moves by the player in question so far, or the time elapsed for the current move by the player in question?

There is no reason why a description of timing methods cannot be clear and understandable by anyone, IMO. David Spector (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with some of this.

1. The spellings "byoyomi", "byo-yomi" and "byo yomi" are all common, and some sites even use more than one spelling on the same page. Still, Wikipedia should be consistent, and currently some pages have one spelling and some another.
2. It is true that Simple, Absolute and Fischer have nothing to do with byo-yomi. Canadian time, however, is often (usually?) called "Canadian Byo-Yomi".
3. This could be made clearer. The "main time" is the total, accumulated time for one player before the byo-yomi period begins. --seberle (talk) 09:52, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Here is a description of how to use Canadian byoyomi with the help of standard mechanical chess clocks :

1. Before the game begins, set the clocks so that they will show 12:00 at the end of the "main" game period. For instance, for "normal" (slow) games, set them at 10:00 if the agreed-upon "main" time period is two hours per player before getting into time trouble.
2. After making a move, the concerned player stops his clock and starts the opponent's.
3. When a player's clock flag falls at the 12:00 mark, signalling expiration of the main period, stop both clocks, count the agreed number of stones, set the rest apart, and set back the concerned player's clock to the byoyomi interval, then start the clock again. In the example given in the article, count 20 stones, put the rest far enough to avoid being tempted to reach for them, and set the clock five minutes back, then start it.
4. If those byoyomi minutes expire before all byoyomi stones have been played, the concerned player has lost on time. OTOH, if all stones are played before the flag falls again, then repeat the procedure (count 20 more stones and set the clock to :55 again).

I live in Belgium, not in Canada; however I've never seen the so-called "standard" byoyomi procedure being used. I am however aware of the existence of electronical clocks allowing (with a single clock but of course not during a single game) a number of different time control methods for fast and slow variants of both chess and go. — Tonymec (talk) 05:45, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

P.S. See also Time control#Byo-yomi — Tonymec (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

In my experience the "standard" (Japanese) style of byo-yomi (but not of counting main time) was common in tournaments until at least the 1990's, usually with only one period, which made it equivalent to a fixed period (with sudden death) for each move in extra time. This style of byo-yomi usually made it necessary to press gang a bystander to count byo-yomi, which made watching a game less appealing when byo-yomi approached! I think that Canadian has become more popular, partly because the players can do it on their own, as described by User:Tonymec. I would add that in Canadian byo-yomi another way of avoiding using stones from one's bowl is to place one's lid (with captives) on top of it. The development of electronic clocks has also made it easier to use many different systems, including Japanese byo-yomi. I favour adding some of this information to Time control and abbreviating it in this article. PJTraill (talk) 22:44, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I learnt Go in the wake of the May 68 student-liberation movement (or its Belgian counterpart), but played only "friendly games" (without clocks) until well into the nineties, and it's been some years since I latest played a game, which may explain why I didn't meet "standard" byoyomi. — Tonymec (talk) 23:31, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

BC/AD instead of BCE/CE

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This article is inconsistent in its use of BC/AD vs. BCE/CE for dates. Personally, I prefer BCE/CE, but the original convention used in the article (as far back as 2007 anyway) appears to be BC/AD. The History section used BC for dates. I propose converting the BCE references to CEBC and the CE references to AD to be consistent and to respect the originally adopted convention. Any reason not to make this change? Coastside (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2020 (UTC) 16:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Sadly, policy is t0 do as you suggest, assuming you are right that BC/AD is the original in this article. There is nothing to discuss; be bold and go ahead! (Apart from your obvious typo: BCE should be converted to BC, not CE.)--Nø (talk) 08:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I changed me mind. You have to go pretty far back to find the original use of BC/AD. The article has in fact mixed conventions for many years (like 8 to 10 years). Given the tolerance of both conventions, and the fact that the introduction has used CE/BCE for many years (at least 5 years), I think I'll adopt the CE/BCE convention instead. I'll wait for any objections and then I'll be BOLD and make the article consistent.Coastside (talk) 16:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

No objection. CE/BCE "feels" right for a topic like this. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:12, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Obviously, dating incidences in relation to Go wrt. the birth of Christ is irrelevant, and I think BCE/CE is the natural choice. Wikipedia policy being as it is, someone may chalenge this - but cetrainly not me!--Nø (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I made the change. Five instances of BC->BCE. Given the topic, seems CE/BCE isn't going to be controversial. The convention has been mixed for quite a while, and seems various edits have switched back and forth, so I'll document the consensus in the talk page header.Coastside (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

unnecessary hatnote

@DavidWBrooks: I deleted the hat note and you reverted my delete.

In the revision comment I pointed out that the page is not ambiguous and pointed to policy at WP:NOTAMB. Did you read my explanation and did you read WP:NOTAMB before reverting?. This is exactly the scenario described there. A reader who is following links within Wikipedia is unlikely to end up at Go (game) if they were looking for other meanings of Go. By contrast, it would make sense to include a hat note linking to Go (disambiguation) if this article on the game were titled "Go" as the primary topic and someone looking for another meaning of "Go" wound up here. In that case, a hat note would be helpful. See a description of this at WP:Hatnote § Linking to a disambiguation page. Since this article is not the primary topic and the title has a qualified name "(game)" in parentheses, there is no chance someone will arrive at this article looking for another article about "Go". In short, the title of this article is not ambiguous and no hat note is necessary. Your explanation that the hat note "tells readers where to find other things called 'go' - the (disambiguation) terminology is not obvious to casual readers", doesn't follow convention. By that logic, every page with a qualified title should point to the disambiguation page, and that's not convention. Given my explanation, I'd like to delete the unnecessary hat note, unless you can point to some relevant policy or have a more compelling reason to keep it.Coastside (talk) 05:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I did read your explanation and am familiar with WP:NOTAMB. I should have put my explanation here rather than just the edit summary, because it's a little complicated.

I think this is an exception to NOTAMB because "go" is used in so many different ways - including seven other games in wikipedia! It would be easy for a casual wikipedia reader to accidentally end up here and be uncertain how to find the article they wanted. As I said, the "(disambiguation)" terminology is not obvious to inexperienced readers, so how would they know to type that into the search box if there wasn't a link for them to use?

The hatnote may not follow convention but we're not bound by algorithms, we can make editorial decisions. I think this is a case where the hatnote is potentially useful to some readers without being an obstacle or a detriment to the rest of us. (In general, I dislike hatnoes and usually argue to remove them; this is a rarity!)

So it's a judgement call to include it - but so is most wikipedia editing, after all! What do you think? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:00, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I see your point that there are other articles that could be confused as they are related to games. I'd like to suggest a slight more basic hat note with more standard wording:

This article is about the board game. For other uses, see Go (disambiguation).

You ok with that? Coastside (talk) 19:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good. Thanks! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Italics or quotation marks?

Just a minor point ... I appreciate Coastside's recent correction of a technical term being signaled by both italics and quotation marks. (That had been bugging me too.) But this raises a more important question. Currently, the first use of some terms are signaled by quotation marks and some by italics. I'd make the correction, but I'm not sure which is preferred. Or perhaps both have different purposes? --seberle (talk) 05:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Seberle: Great minds think alike. I posted a question at the MOS talk page about this and got a very detail and helpful reply. The short answer is to follow guidance at MOS:WAW regarding technical terms. It could be either italics or quotes, apparently. But there is more to it than that (see the discussion). I suggest being consistent in any given article and using italics for first use terms here. This makes a lot of sense for Go terms, since many of these terms are Japanese words and would be italicized as foreign words anyway.Coastside (talk) 06:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I've tried to change most quotation marks to italics. I tried to follow the discussion Coastside linked to. If I've misunderstood the discussion, or if I've overlooked or overcorrected something, please fix it! The corrections I made are:

• No italics for a term having a link. (I debated whether to leave the italics for first-time Japanese terms with links, as the discussion implied, but in the end decided not to since they are not italicized elsewhere in the article.)
• No italics for a term already introduced earlier in the article. (I made an exception for terms being formally defined later in the article. I also made exceptions when the word itself is being discussed, such as Go in the etymology section, and of course leaving quotation marks for actually quotations, such as "Go markers".)
• Leaving quotation marks when it's not a technical term, such as mentioning a ko stone "taken back". --seberle (talk) 09:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Name of the article

Why is the name of the article Go and not Weiqi if the game is originally from China? In the etymology section there's no explanation as to why the Japanese word is being preferred over the Chinese name

177.225.149.138 (talk) 21:54, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

On the English language Wikipedia we use whichever name is most commonly used by English language sources (WP:COMMONNAME), which is often not the original or historical name. - MrOllie (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that more explanation is needed. The Internationalization subsection certainly needs more details about how the game spread from Japan to the West. --seberle (talk) 02:03, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

The same issue was discussed at voy:Talk:Go#Move_to_Go. Pashley (talk) 01:14, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not a preference for the Japanese name over the Chinese name. It's that this is the English version of Wikipedia, and English sources on the game refer to it as "Go", not "Weiqi". This no doubt has to do with the way the game was introduced into the West, but in any case it's called "Go" in English. Coastside (talk) 02:19, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Squares

My board is 18 x 18 squares. (324 squares) why is that? I have seen 19 x 19 but not 18 x 18 Regards Shelley 49.197.61.18 (talk) 04:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Line intersections matter, not squares - 19x19 lines is 18x18 squares. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:18, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, the game is played on the lines, which are always in odd number. A "standard" game has 19x19 lines, but beginners may play on 9x9 or 13x13 depending on their proficiency with the game, and once upon a time, 17x17 boards used to be common. Some 19x19 boards have a "beginners' board" on the flip side. — Tonymec (talk) 01:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

And it should be noted that 9x9 is not just for beginners. Even professionals sometimes play on 9x9. --seberle (talk) 03:37, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Artwork

Minamotono yoshiie

The article includes this nice image. It would be nice if someone could add a bit to the caption about what we're looking at, and why he's slicing that board like a birthday cake. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:23, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I've done my best to include a description. seberle (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Seberle Thank you very much. Was there possibly a girl in the visited house? Also, any chance the legend has an article on japanese WP? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:27, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there was a daughter or wife involved. I was not able to find a detailed description of the story. What I wrote is a synthesis of what all the sources I found seemed to agree on. Yes, it would be nice to know if Japanese Wikipedia has a more detailed article on it, at least for a link. The image page has a short description in Japanese. seberle (talk) 16:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps we should add it to Cutting Corners. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

"Go (board game" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Go (board game and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 27#Go (board game until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Abstract versus concrete

It’s cultural appropriation to term abstract 71.178.33.122 (talk) 11:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits

Robert92107 has made several recent edits. Most are excellent and really improve the article. Thank you!

I'm not sure about the ko explanation. But then again, I don't really like the previous explanation either. The article used to read:

A ko (Chinese and Japanese: 劫) is a repeated-position shape that may be contested by making forcing moves elsewhere. After the forcing move is played, the ko may be "taken back" and returned to its original position.

A non-player will probably find this confusing since they won't know about ko fights. So it's good that there was an attempt to edit it. It now reads:

Ko (Chinese and Japanese: 劫) is a potentially indefinitely repeated stone-capture position. In chess, this would be called a "stalemate", except in Go there is a rule that prevents that from happening. Once ko is identified, the next player must move elsewhere for one turn. This allows him to change the sente, and possibly force the other player to abandon the ko position and so let him occupy that point in his next turn.

I'm not sure the comparison to chess is helpful. Instead of "identifying" a ko, why not just state the simple rule that a board position cannot be repeated? We still need to stay away from references to ko fights until the rule is clear.

I'll try to make an edit, but feel free to improve it if my attempt fails as well! seberle (talk) 16:13, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, the reference to sente may be confusing for the casual reader trying to understand ko for the first time.--seberle (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Frankly, I haven't played Go in many decades, but the rules are very clear.

I saw the Go article, and was horrified, since it gave no feeling (or readily understandable explanation) about the playing of the game. Maybe it's a little better; it's also sad that the self-playing game goes too fast, or can't be stopped for inspection.

There was also too much technical jargon, which confused the explanation of the game. (Also, as I recollect, when I learned from Go books, roughly 60 years ago, there were NO points ... they were all eyes, but they were understood in context differently if they kept a group of stones alive or not. I'm am doubtful that this newer style is an improvement, since it seems like a needless complication to me.)

I did another re-write of the Ko rules to make it clearer. As to the sente, that really is an essential concept in ko fights and not mentioning it wouldn't be good. Hopefully the way I did it here (again) isn't too unclear. Robert92107 (talk) 08:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I was interested to read 60 or so years ago that Go masters had concluded that a board 21x21 exceeded human mental capacity to master. I would have liked to add this, but I have no idea where that datum came from! Robert92107 (talk) 09:10, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Though this is not a forum, I'd like to state that standard Go on the 19x19 board exceeds human capacity (hence AlphaGo Zero consistently beats humans - and by the way, it also seems standard Go exceeds Chess in this repsect). For a game between humans, the board size should be at a sweet spot between so small it's too trivial and so large it's too tedious; for fairly strong human players, 19x19 seems to be it. Nø (talk) 11:05, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

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Re explaining ko in the two following descriptions:

[a] Players are not allowed to repeat a stone capturing move in the immediately prior position.

[b, current] Players are not allowed to make a move that returns the game to the immediately prior position.

I do not like [b]. It technically is correct, but what is meant seems a bit opaque to a beginner because of the odd terminology ("returns the game to the immediately prior position"). The objection to [a], that stone capturing is not part of the ko rule is actually incorrect. Ko is ALL about when a stone/group can be captured and when it must be left alone! Making this situation explicit I believes make the explanation much clearer. (I also tried to show this more understandably, step by step, in the graphic example.)

The question is, does anyone else have a better explanation in a one sentence lead-in? Or other opinions?Robert92107 (talk) 05:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

As to "Ko is ALL about when a stone/group can be captured," well, that is true 99% of the time, and it is a good way to understand it practically. But it's not always true. In some longer cyclic sequences, the repeating move is actually not a capture at all. It's rare, but they do happen. seberle (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

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