From: jzy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jim Yu)
Subject: Go Seigen: Game 0 (Part 1)
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 04:42:02 GMT

Hello everyone!

Every Go player probably knows the name Go Seigen -- because his name
conicided with the name of the game that we all love?  Yes! :)  No, no,
that is completely a coincidence.  People know him because he's probably
one of the best players in the entire Go history.

Best or not, I like his game.  Maybe when the first time I read his game,
what in my mind was like, "This is Go Seigen's game.  It's got to be good!"
In other words, his fame might have given him an edge.  But later, after I
read more of his games and games of other famous players, I believe it was
his game, not his fame, that had conquered me.

"Beautiful", "magnificant", "powerful." These common adjectives are the
ones that I can barely come up with.  Certainly not good enough, or, not
"thoughtful" enough. :) Once in a while, I'd be in a stage that I have a
hard time to express my feelings; I guess I am in that stage right now. :)

But not long ago, a friend of mine just sent me a piece he had written on
Go Seigen.  He is a big fan of Go Seigen, just like me.  His beautiful
thoughts shown in the writing seem to be exactly what I would like to say
today, and I am very glad to post it here for him -- who wants to be
anonymous --- 


Go Seigen is my idol.  For two simple reasons: (1) He won games. (2) He won
games in his unique manner.  Always. 

Maybe a few other professional players can qualify the above criteria.
"Ancients" like Kitani Minoru and Sakata Eio, and the "super players" of
the 80's: Rin Kaiho, Otake Hideo, Kato Masao, Takemiya Masaki, Cho Chikun,
and Kobayashi Koichi.  And don't forget the big man in China: Nie Weiping.

These are all big winners.  But none of them is as big a winner as Go
Seigen.  Go Seigen once RULED Japanese Go profession for *one third* of a
century!  And that was a 1/3 of century when Japan was the only land where
Go was blooming.  I think it's fair to say that a new generation of
professionals come out about every ten years.  Then, Go Seigen would have
to hold off the challenges from three generations of best Go players in Go
history.  And that he did: First there was Kitani Minoru, who, perhaps,
would have been rated as great as Go Seigen had he not faded after World
War II.  Then there was Fujisawa Kuranosuke (who later changed his name to
Fujisawa Hosai), the first ever professional 9 dan (Go Seigen was the
second) after the death of the last Meijin, Shusai.  Finally, in the 50's,
Sakata Eio and Takagawa Shukaku emerged as the top challengers to Go
Seigen.  But none of them was able to take away the No.1 seat that belonged
to Go Seigen.

And we can't say these challengers were weak.  In fact, any of them was a
definition of the *opposite* of "weak." Kitani, along with Go Seigen,
discovered the revolutionary "new openings." He might have been more famous
of his magnificent disciples (5 of the 6 "super players of the 80's"
mentioned above, except Rin, were his pupils), but as a player, according
to Go Seigen, he was "first of [Go Seigen's] toughest opponents." They two
together wrote the historical period called "Go-Kitani Era," a span of
about a decade before WWII.

Fujisawa probably spent his entire playing career in Go Seigen's prime, and
that produced another memorable rivalry.  There was only one player who was
strong enough and being strong *long* enough to play three 10-game series
with Go Seigen, and his name was Fujisawa Kuranosuke (later Hosai).  And
let us not forget: Go Seigen lost only one 10-game series in his life, and
that was to Fujisawa (it happened during WWII; Go Seigen was unbeatable in
10-game series thereafter).

Sakata Eio.  We know his stories -- the man has won more major
championships than any other Japanese players in modern Go history.  I
don't remember the exact number, but it's close to "70 titles when he was
70 years old." How could he win so many?! One has to wonder.   

Takagawa Shukaku, whose first name originally was "Kaku", without "Shu." In
Japan, only some Honinbo title holders would add a "Shu" in their names,
and Takagawa certainly deserved this honorable character -- he once won 9
straight Honinbo titles.  And that was the time he started to challenge Go
Seigen.  There were total of seven 3-game series, or 21 games, between the
two.  Takagawa lost the first 11, and what he did?  He won 7 out of the
next 10.  That spelled "tough."

So here we have the picture: Kitani, Fujisawa, Sakata, and Takagawa -- any
of them was a great player who was talented enough to dominate his era.
Yet it did not happen.  It did not happen because of one man: Go Seigen.
Go Seigen was the winner of winners; Go Seigen was the genius of geniuses.

Watching Go Seigen's game always brings me pleasure.  It's not that I fully
understood his moves and was thus appreciated (that, in fact, is still a
long way to go); rather, the shape of his stones and the tempo of his moves
seem to always lighten me up.

Go Seigen seemed to have an extraordinary ability to simplify local (on the
board) conflicts.  Especially in openings.  Often he would play "tenuki"
moves -- moves that locally ignore opponent's previous move -- although
that would lead to some local loss, globally speaking, he would gain.
Because he preferred to play fewer moves at the opening corners, his games
were usually on a fast pace.  Quickly, middle-game fights started.  That's
the kind of game I would enjoy to watch (and play, of course, if I *can*).

Going to middle game, Go Seigen was again showing extraordinary power.  He
settled his weak groups quickly; he started to attack his opponent quickly.
By "quickly" I don't mean he played twice or thrice as fast as his opponent
(although he indeed often did), but I mean he could use only a few simple
moves to start or end, again, a local conflict.  Gradually, since his
opponent was unable to catch up with his high efficiency, Go Seigen started
to lead -- a lead that he, in his prime time, would never surrender.

Thus Go Seigen's endgame very often became exceptionally simple.  Well,
endgame seems to be a phase that one cannot really simplify.  If there are,
say, such many unsettled boundaries, both players have to finish them off,
unless -- unless it's like in many of Go Seigen's games, the game was over
before the endgame started.

That's all I can see from Go Seigen's game.  I am unable to visualize his
local or global "feelings", and I am unable to carry out his deep
calculations.  All I can see is a surface of his game -- yet, it's a
surface that's clear enough to reflect his manners.  Go is a game full of
conflicts, and if a man could handle all these conflicts in a simple manner
and win -- I would say, he is a genius.  This genius was Go Seigen.

This reminds me of a biography of Albert Einstein.  The author convinced me
that to describe Einstein, "simplicity" was the word.  Einstein was a man
who handled things in simple ways.  I don't know if this book on Einstein
had unconsciously helped me to understand Go Seigen, but as of today, I am
convinced that, if these two geniuses of the 20th century had nothing else
in common, they shared one word: "simplicity."

I suddenly feel sorry for being born 50 years too late.  I wish I could
play games with Go Seigen.  I might lose every game to him, but I wouldn't
care.  When one gets a chance to play with a genius, it's not just a honor.
It could well be his life: something deep inside his mind could suddenly
light up...  Yes, that's why I want to play with Go Seigen; the more I
would learn from him, the closer I would be with the truth of Go.

Go Seigen is my idol.



That's my friend's piece of writing.  Applause please. :) -- I confess!  I
did make some changes on wording under his permission (and I spelled Nie 
Weiping :) so more or less I deserve the right to post it for him. :)

Anyway, as you can see, we are both big fans of Go Seigen (or Wu, which is
his family name in Chinese).  And we are certainly not alone.  Jansteen
(who should be as famous as Go Seigen on this net :) wrote the following:

"He played like the birds fly: swift and light.  Suddenly the position
could get frozen, though, and then one would get a glimpse of the universe
of variations hidden below the sky that Wu had spanned in the earlier
stages."

Jan, you must be a poet to come up with these insightful and a-little-bit- 
hard-to-read sentences. :) -- again I confess!  I added two punctuations
and changed "Go" to "Wu" to avoid unnecessary confusions.

So Jan is another big fan of Go Seigen -- just by writing those 3 to 4
lines?  Of course Jan did more than that: the 100 games of Go Seigen
available in the net (ftp milton.u.washington.edu) were the work of
Jan van der Steen and, who else, Adrian Mariano.

And I believe there are many more Go Seigen's fans out there.  That's why I
did one thing over the past month that, when it's finished, I am proud of.
I editted a game of Go Seigen with very detailed commentary.  I did it not
just for myself (it was truly an excitement and pleasure), but also for all
the fans and non-fans (the ones that I hope they will change their minds :)
of Go Seigen. 

And I didn't do the commentary.  Go Seigen himself did.  Almost move by
move.  In plain, easy to follow language.  He didn't do this for pros,
obviously.

It all started back in summer.  I bought two volumns of "Detailed Analysis
on Wu's Famous Games." I bought them because, of course, I wanted to read
them.  But suddenly I realized, I could turn it into a book that every Go
fans in the net can read!  That was an exciting moment.

I just finished editting the first game I chose, a game between Go Seigen
and Kitani Minoru, a couple of days ago.  It took me more than a month,
since the tight schedule forced me to apply a 3-page-a-day pace (every page
contains a big board at the middle and a few lines).  It was simply a great
pleasure to work through it.  Now, I dedicate it to everyone ---

In two days! (Hahaha... You have to be a little bit more patient; I am
doing quadruple check on the mgt file.  A lot of variation diagrams.)

In two days, I will post the game in 3 parts.  The first part would be a
brief description of that game, my specail dedications, and a forecast of
the next game I plan to edit.  The second part would be instructions and
notes on how to read the mgt file.  The third part is the game itself.  You
can skip any part you don't like, but hopefully not all three. :)

The 2nd part of *this* game (Game 0) is a brief history on the "First
Japan's Strongest Deciding Matches", which later became Meijin Sen.  7 of
the 8 games in the two volumns I bought were chosen from these Matches.

Yours truly,
Jim Z Yu
--
Go isn't everything.  Go is the only thing.           -- zhuge

"zhuge, why does your .plan change every minute -- when i finger you?"
"you must have used a different finger each time."