The Ring of Water - Chris Bradford [60]
‘But he said the rules were easy,’ interjected Hana, with a desperate look of hope.
‘Go may be simple to learn,’ acknowledged Ronin, ‘but it takes a lifetime to master.’
37
THE RULES
Despite his pessimism, Ronin agreed to teach Jack, since the postponement of their death sentence might give them an opportunity to escape.
While the three of them sat round the board beside the tea house, going over the rules, the six guards stood at a distance. But so far they hadn’t taken their eyes off their prisoners or their hands off their swords.
‘Think of this board as a piece of land to be fought over,’ said Ronin, his fingertip marking out the grid of nineteen by nineteen lines. ‘Go is a game of territory and your aim is to control as much of the board as possible and to capture your opponent’s pieces by surrounding them.’
Ronin removed a black counter from a smooth, rounded rosewood bowl.
‘These stones are your “men”,’ he said, placing the counter upon one of the grid intersections. ‘You can put them on any unoccupied point, known as a “liberty”. Once played, the stones are not moved. They can be surrounded and captured during the course of the game by the enemy occupying all of its adjacent “liberties”, in which case they’re removed from the board as prisoners.’
Taking three white counters from a second bowl, he placed them on the empty points immediately above and to either side of the black stone, leaving the one space below unoccupied.
‘A stone’s liberties are horizontal and vertical, but not diagonal,’ explained Ronin. ‘The black counter is now in atari, meaning it’s about to be captured because it only has one liberty left. Where would White put a stone to take Black as prisoner?’
Ronin handed Jack a white counter. Without hesitation, Jack placed it on the vacant point below the black stone.
‘Good,’ said Ronin. ‘But always handle your stone between your second and middle fingers. It’s more elegant and good etiquette.’
Removing Jack’s white counter from the board, Ronin replaced it with a black and added several more in an L-shape.
‘Stones occupying adjacent horizontal and vertical points create a connected group. Think of these groups as mini-regiments. They share each other’s liberties, so are stronger and more resistant to attack. A group can only be captured when all its liberties are occupied by enemy stones.’
He surrounded the Black L-unit with white counters.
‘This group is now held prisoner –’ he removed the black pieces – ‘and White has gained all this territory in its attack. Such battles as this will decide who wins the game. At the end, once both players can find no way to take more territory, capture stones or reduce their opponent’s area, the liberties inside their own territory are counted along with any prisoners they’ve taken. The winner is the player with the highest score.’
‘That seems easy enough,’ said Jack, grasping the concept with little difficulty, since the game didn’t appear to be any harder than the Draughts he’d played with his father.
‘Don’t be fooled!’ warned Ronin. ‘Capturing stones is only one way of gaining territory. Eventual victory has more to do with the deployment of your stones to surround territory. Strategy is everything in this game.’
Ronin began to lay various groups of counters across the board. ‘Placing stones close together helps them support each other and avoid capture. See?’ He pointed to a connected Black group that appeared surrounded by White but still had two liberties. ‘On the other hand, placing stones far apart creates influence across more of the board and helps you gain territory.’ He surrounded the board’s top right corner with a division of white counters to demonstrate this in action. ‘The challenge of Go is in finding a balance between these conflicting interests. You need to be both defensive and offensive, always choosing between