Go is an overall superior game than Chess.

What is Go? Go is a strategy board game where players alternate placing stones on a 19x19 grid in order to surround territory. The goal is not to have your kingdom overthrow your opponent's like in Chess, but to build your kingdom from scratch better than your opponent does his/hers (whoever has more points, which includes both territory and captured stones, at the end of the game wins). Also unlike Chess, there is no hierarchy of pieces; the stones in Go do not differ at all in function or capabilities and they all potentially have the same value. Since its invention in ancient China, skill in Go has been seen as one of the marks of a scholarly gentlemen. Below, I will outline five main reasons why Go is a superior game than Chess:1. Go is a far deeper and much more logical game than Chess. "Impossible," I hear a unanimity from the audience, "There is no greater intellectual arena than the chessboard! To capture the opponent’s king is to prove your worth as a thinking man/woman! "Of course, such proclamations are only made by those unfamiliar with the depth the goban offers. It is true that Chess can provide a great deal of challenge to its studiers, but even this is paler than a blue moon when compared to the shining brilliance of Go. Edward Lansker, a highly influential Chess and Go player in the West, once said "While the baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, 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. "Let’s compare the two games' complexities objectively: on the very first move in Chess, white has 20 possible moves to choose from (two for each of his/her eight pawns, and two for each of his/her two knights). In stark contrast, on the very first move in Go, black (black goes first in a standard Go game) has 361 moves to choose from (one for each of the intersections on the 19x19 grid). It's clear to see that from the very beginning of the game and throughout its completion, the number of possible variations in Go outweigh Chess like a sumo-wrestler at an anorexia convention.2. The strongest minds in Go are actual minds. Just who is the strongest Chess player in history? Is it Bobby Fischer? Emanuel Lasker? No. It’s Houdini, a computer program with an ELO rating of 3300, 600 higher than a super-grandmaster. While computers generally do struggle with positional understanding, the relatively low number of legal variations in Chess still allow for the programs' algorithms to decisively pick the correct branch of moves far more expertly than any human. Meanwhile, Zen19, wildly recognized as the strongest program in Go, is only about an American 5d and any strong amateur can crush it with minimal effort. This means the highest-level games are played by flesh-and-blood people, not cold and calculating machines. I won't blame my opponent very much if he says this point is too subjective, but I feel as though learning from actual people instead of robots gives the game a much more fun and competitive environment.3. Neither player has an inherit advantage in Go. It’s only natural that the player who moves first in a game such as Chess will have the inherit advantage of initiative. In 1994, Chess grandmaster Evgeny Sveshnikov wrote this: "Black players cannot afford to make even the slightest mistake [. .. ] from a theoretical point of view, the tasks of White and Black in chess are different: White has to strive for a win, Black—for a draw! "Indeed, this inherit advantage is present in tic-tac-toe, checkers, Chess, and would otherwise be found even in Go. However, in the early 20th century, Go adopted a rule known as Komidashi. Because of this, white gets an automatic set number of points (called komi) in order to balance out his/her disadvantage of playing second. The impact this kind of rule has is colossal to players seeking an intellectual arena to engage in fair and equitable battles of the mind. Never can the second player say “Well, sure you won–you had the advantage,” because neither player has an advantage. Whoever wins will do so because of their own skill and nothing else.4. Go games cannot end in a draw. Many chess grandmasters (including the first three World Champions of Chess) theorize(d) that, given perfect play, Chess should always result in a tie. Indeed, it is quite common for players of near equal strength to play to a stalemate, and some strategies have even been developed for the sole purpose of this endeavor when a win has become too far-fetched to obtain. A standard match of Go, on the other hand, cannot end in a tie. Remember the rule of Komidashi? The komi assigned to white is typically 6.5 points, and although this number is constantly under scrutiny and fine-tuning when necessary, the “.5” is always present. Therefore, it is impossible for a standard Go match to result in a tie, as one player must at least have half a point more than the other.5. Go is even fun for mismatched games. Ever played someone significantly stronger or weaker than you in Chess? It is normally an impossibly difficult challenge (literally) for the weaker player and a boring experience at best for the stronger. In Go, however, even mismatched games can be fun with the handicap system. Depending on how vast the difference in skill is, the weaker player sets a certain number of stones on the board before play begins, thus creating a disadvantage the stronger player will have to overcome throughout the course of the game. While it is true that Chess players have tried to incorporate a handicap system as well (such as the stronger player playing without a queen or without both of his/her rooks), it’s difficult to place an objectively precise value on the pieces, since each piece is uniquely helpful in different situations, and different strategies utilize different pieces. In Go, it is far easier to calculate the value of placing a stone on the board. Therefore, the handicap system in Go is much more accurate and by extension more practical. To ConcludeIf you are in search of the greatest intellectual forum in gaming history, look no further than the classical logic incarnate that is Go.