Go is an overall superior game than Chess.

It has covered the games well, and I hope that we have given a greater appreciation of both Chess and Go to our readers. ComplexityPro states: “I am fighting an uphill battle. Not because Chess is, indeed, more complex than Go, but because the audience already knows of Chess' complexity, at least somewhat, and you can never really understand how complex Go is without having played it beyond the level of a beginner. ” The fact that Pro is fighting an uphill battle is an argument for the superiority of Chess to Go. It acknowledges the great difficulty inherent to defending Go as opposed to Chess. Pro concedes that “there are far less plausible moves” in Go, as I had argued last Round. Pro’s comparison of 9x9 Go is Chess is irrelevant. 9x9 Go has far less possible positions, strategic or tactical depth, than Chess. Pro argues that, unlike Chess, “in Go, when the battle's over, you have another one just waiting to take its place, until they all finally connect with each other in the end game. ” This is an example of a misunderstanding of Chess. In Chess, battles occur over a square, or over a bishop-knight imbalance, or a king-side attack, or acquiring the initiative. When the battle ends, another one emerges because of the new imbalances that emerge. This is why I argued earlier that Chess is temporal whereas Go is spatial. In Chess, because the pieces are constantly in flux, new battles emerge throughout the game as the pieces shift and create new strategic imbalances in the position. The creation of new positions, imbalances, objectives, and battles is endless, as pieces move about the board. In Go, many battles will occur but the quantity is not endless. The board gradually fills up, and once every space has been filled, the game ends. This makes the game spatial, whereas Chess is temporal. This actually makes Chess more complex and deep than Go, since Chess can keep going whereas Go will end once the board is filled up. According to Pro, “there is no greater challenge than 19x19. ” Not according to Pro’s logic, however. Pro states that a larger number of possible positions makes a game more complex and difficult. Therefore, Pro contradicts himself by simultaneously stating Go is more complex with a 19x19 board, yet also making the claim that the number of possible positions matters. My argument holds: the number of possible positions beyond a certain threshold quantity does not matter. Chess has more possible positions than atoms in the universe. There is a reason Chess is so well known for its vast number of possibilities. We can say that Chess has more than enough possible positions. The extra possible positions that Go has are irrelevant, when evaluating the game as a game. What is relevant are other factors of complexity, such as conceptual, strategic and tactical depth. Pro states that in Chess, the “opening is always the same; there is no choosing. ” That is absolutely false. In chess, opening theory is vast, certainly surpassing that of Go. Different openings have different purposes, and attempt to establish different kinds of strategic and tactical imbalances. Stating the opening is the always the same is a misunderstanding of what the Chess opening is supposed to do, and of the huge variety of possible positions that result from different openings. As an example, take the King’s Indian, which gives black winning chances with a late-game bishop on g7, but white gains the temporary advantage of knights with strong outposts. Other openings create an entirely different set of imbalances. For example, the Sicilian in which all-out tactical attacks on opposite sides of the board takes center stage. Importance of each movePro states, “having more moves does not dilute the importance of each one. ” Taken abstractly, Pro is correct. But within the context of a game, each move in Chess will have more significance and impact on that specific game. That is a matter of simple math: 1/40 to 1/200. Chess moves within a game have more impact and meaning. Psychological WarfareIn Round 3, Pro argued that psychological moves in Go are weaker than the best moves. Now Pro argues that psychological moves are the strongest. Suppose, for the sake of argument, I grant Pro this much, this still would only demonstrate the equality of Chess and Go, not the superiority of Go. But as I have argued, Chess is more psychological. The game explicitly thematizes the psychological, and the effects of psychology can be witnessed directly. In Chess, the pieces can move, and each one has a different function. This creates the constant threat of bluffs. Nothing can be taken for granted, because every piece can move. In Go, the opponent might make a wrong move, but because the stones cannot move, psychology cannot effect what has already been done. In Chess, it can. An opponent’s entire plan can be ruined as the opponent scurries to meet false threats. Luck in GoRead the quote as given by my opponent again. Notice that there are two games, one against Pao Wen Yao and one against Gu Lingy. In the game against Gu Lingyi, there is a mistake admitted. But in the game against Pao Wen Yao, no mistake is admitted. It is a simple matter of luck. So, the luck argument stands. Furthermore, making mistakes is more prevalent in Go because there are a greater number of moves. Luck is related to making mistakes; because there are more moves per game in Go, there is more chance of making a mistake. This increases the luck factor of Go, as compared with Chess. FairnessPro argues that two players can agree to not use komidashi in the standard way, but that is irrelevant to this debate. Players in any game can agree to change the rules of that game. Does that mean the rules of the game permit this? No. It means the players are playing a variation of the game, but not the game itself. There are a huge number of variations in Chess that I could have used in this debate to make arguments. I did not because they are not the game of Chess anymore. Likewise, agreeing to not use komidashi is the equivalent of no longer playing Go – you would be playing a differnet game. I urge readers to use the definition of komidashi that Pro has provided throughout the debate, the definition that Pro used in the first Round to make the flawed argument that Go is better than Chess because Go does not allow draws. I turned the argument around on Pro, and Pro admits defeat on this crucial point by attempting to change the definition of komidashi at the last minute. Towards the end of the final Round, Pro states the following: “two people of perfectly equal skill do not exist. ” This is Pro’s final attempt to attempt denying the superiority of Chess. But instead, Pro ends up admitting what I’ve been saying all along. In Go, it is assumed and presupposed that two people of equal skill cannot exist. This makes the game inherently undemocratic. It presupposes inequality. Chess admits the possibility that two players would be equal in skill. The possibility is evident by the fact that a player can play himself. The possibility of equal players will necessarily lead to lucky wins, since equal players will be unable to draw. Thus, we conclude that Go not only presupposes inequality, but also ends up introducing luck as a significant factor. We conclude Go is less fair than Chess. ConclusionChess has enough possible variations to make it competitive with Go. Chess has more strategic/tactical depth than Go. Because Chess is temporal, Chess has more psychological depth. Go is unfair, because Go players cannot draw. The explanation provided is: because “two people of perfectly equal skill do not exist. ” Go thus presupposes inequality. This will produce wins deterined by luck, and this makes Go unfair. For all these reasons, we conclude that Chess is a better game than Go.