I started to play Go again a couple of years ago. I had played intensively when young in Japan, going to Go clubs and playing against some decent players (5 and 6 Dan, who of course crushed me) and when I moved to Boston in October 2006 it was one of the things that I began to do again. I started to play games against myself as a way to regain my board sense and to get a feel for the stones and patterns, but it has become one of my favorite ways to relax (after cycling of course).
Playing a game of perfect information (a game where chance does not play an explicit role and all information is available to all players) against oneself is a good way to stay honest. When playing other players I sometimes try to lead them into traps or take advantage of their miscues. I don’t think this is a good way to play, and it leads to bad habits that stronger players can exploit, but as I like to win I sometimes fall into the mental trap of exploiting other’s weakness. I can’t do this when I play against myself – I am not quite that schizophrenic – so playing against myself means taking turns at finding the absolute best move for black then white, assuming (is that the right word?) that my opponent has as much insight into the board as I do (I hope so, since my opponent is me).
This makes the game one in which the goal is to seek balance and to find patterns. Each move made into a place of deep repose where all of the different tensions on the board are resolved as best I can, and each moving setting up its own new potentials. I am learning a lot doing this, not just about Go, but about the relations of spatial to temporal patterns and how they can disrupt each other.
Sometimes the play can go quickly, when the call and response is obvious or when I am working through Joseki I know well. Sometimes I even stop and look up Joseki online at sites like Sensei's Library .
Usually the games are pretty close, ten points either way, with black having the edge. But some times the game cascades in one direction or the other and black or white gets a massive victory. There is something important for me to learn here, but I am not completely sure what it is. There is something about this experience that reminds me of self-organizing criticality, where a system seems to suddenly take control and organize itself. It is also a good reminder than small choices can cascade into larger patterns and that these will not always seem to be fair.
(Photo by Yoshie Hattori)
