adjourned games
Henry Thomas
|> In article <nolan.670635405@helios> no...@helios.unl.edu writes:
|> >ag...@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta) writes:
|> >
|> >>Someone said that he knew of no other sport
|> >>or game (other than chess) which takes a break
|> >>and continues the next day.
|> >
|> >>Well, there's cricket. An official "Test"
|> >>match goes on for five days, with a day off in between
|> >
|> >And baseball ... golf ...Diplomacy ... Tour de France
|>
|> And dont forget Go. Single games between the top masters have been
|> played over many sessions lasting weeks, sometimes with only two or
|> three key moves being played in one session.
|>
|> There's an excellent book on just such a game called I believe Masters
|> of Go, but of course I dont have easy access to my library.
|> [... end deleted]
Yes, it's written by Yasunari (?) Kawabata, and the title is "The Master, or the Go Tournament" (Litteral translation from the french title). This is a very good book, which I recommand. This is the story of a go tournament between the old master a
Michael Nolan
>A subsidiary question; do you know of anybody who has taken up both
>chess and go and achieved a high standard in both? I thought about
>trying it many moons ago, but decided life was too short (apart from
>other problems like lack of talent).
>Having posed the question, I have a vague recollection that Lasker was
>a good go player. Can someone confirm that?
Dunno about Lasker, but I can come up with one. Prof. Loren Schmidt,
originally of Lincoln, Nebraska, then Indiana, and currently living and
teaching in Japan.
Loren is about 2500 USCF, has been the Japan Chess Champion once or twice,
Played first board for Japan in the Olympiad 3 years ago, and I think 2nd
board this last time. He says he has the equivalent of a master rating
in go in Japan. He also dabbles at shogi, which according to Loren is
a VERY well paying professional sport in Japan, probably because it's legal
to gamble on it. (Or at least I THINK it's legal...)
I think I've seen some of our US Grandmasters like Christiansen playing go
at the U. S. Open.
Michael Nolan
no...@helios.unl.edu
Craig Presson
|> al...@cged.co.uk (Alan Williams) writes:
|> >Having posed the question, I have a vague recollection that Lasker was
|> >a good go player. Can someone confirm that?
|>
|> Dunno about Lasker, but I can come up with one. Prof. Loren Schmidt,
Emanuel, and he wrote a book on Go and Go-Moku for Westerners. I have
heard that he did not get all that far into Go, in which he was one of
the first Westerners to compete. He excelled at checkers also. Nice
work if you can get it.
-- ******************************************************
** Craig Presson pres...@ingr.com **
** Intergraph Corporation MS CR1104 **
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Bill Terry
...uunet!ingr!b11!terry (UUCP)
te...@b11.ingr.com (Internet)
Ray Frank
>And dont forget Go. Single games between the top masters have been
>played over many sessions lasting weeks, sometimes with only two or
>three key moves being played in one session.
>
>There's an excellent book on just such a game called I believe Masters
>of Go, but of course I dont have easy access to my library.
>
>Alan Williams Computer General Electronic Design Ltd phone:+44-225-482744
Sounds like it should have been called Masters of Slow. 8-)
ray
Bo-Yin Yang
>al...@cged.co.uk (Alan Williams) writes:
>
>>A subsidiary question; do you know of anybody who has taken up both
>>chess and go and achieved a high standard in both? I thought about
>>trying it many moons ago, but decided life was too short (apart from
>>other problems like lack of talent).
>Dunno about Lasker, but I can come up with one. Prof. Loren Schmidt,
>originally of Lincoln, Nebraska, then Indiana, and currently living and
>teaching in Japan.
>
>Loren is about 2500 USCF, has been the Japan Chess Champion once or twice,
>Played first board for Japan in the Olympiad 3 years ago, and I think 2nd
>board this last time. He says he has the equivalent of a master rating
>in go in Japan. He also dabbles at shogi, which according to Loren is
>a VERY well paying professional sport in Japan, probably because it's legal
>to gamble on it. (Or at least I THINK it's legal...)
>
>I think I've seen some of our US Grandmasters like Christiansen playing go
>at the U. S. Open.
>
>Michael Nolan
>no...@helios.unl.edu
Chess and Go, being games from rather different cultures, probably shares
few champions. However, in the Orient, Shogi and Xiangqi (the Japanese and
Chinese versions of Chess) do share champions. As an example, the first
officially acknowledged "Champion of Go" in Japanese history, the first of
the House Honinbo, is also the Champion of Shogi at the time.
Just my $.02
Bo-Yin Yang
Richard Harter
> In article <nolan.670832737@helios>, no...@helios.unl.edu (Michael Nolan) writes:
> |> al...@cged.co.uk (Alan Williams) writes:
> |> >Having posed the question, I have a vague recollection that Lasker was
> |> >a good go player. Can someone confirm that?
> OK, I know .02 more than that: the Lasker in question was Edward, not
> Emanuel, and he wrote a book on Go and Go-Moku for Westerners. I have
> heard that he did not get all that far into Go, in which he was one of
> the first Westerners to compete. He excelled at checkers also. Nice
> work if you can get it.
Actually a fairly decent book. For a long time there were only three
works on Go in the west, a very primitive one by a German named Korshelt,
Lasker's book, and a book from Tuttle press (a firm that specialized in
works on Japan.) At the time Go theory was in a state similar to that
of chess prior to the Steinitz-Zukertort revolution, i.e. there was a lot
of specific analysis but no overall general analysis. Lasker tried to
approach the game from a general strategic approach.
The two Lasker's did play a number of games together so, yes, Emanuel
also played Go.
--
Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc.
Net address: jjmhome!smds!rh Phone: 508-369-7398
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742
This sentence no verb. This sentence short. This signature done.
Lee Schumacher
>> OK, I know .02 more than that: the Lasker in question was Edward, not
>> Emanuel, and he wrote a book on Go and Go-Moku for Westerners. I have
>> heard that he did not get all that far into Go, in which he was one of
>> the first Westerners to compete. He excelled at checkers also. Nice
>> work if you can get it.
Richard Harter writes:
>Actually a fairly decent book. For a long time there were only three
>works on Go in the west, a very primitive one by a German named Korshelt,
>Lasker's book, and a book from Tuttle press (a firm that specialized in
>works on Japan.) ...
Actually Lasker's book is mostly of historical interest, Korshelt's book
(still in print) was primitive only by typographical standards.
The games are presented mostly in algabraic notation (hopeless for Go),
and what diagrams there are contain several hundred moves. The content,
however, was based on extensive discussions with Honinbo Shuho, the top
player of the time (late 1850's). In particular the endgame analysis is
among the best in English.
>At the time Go theory was in a state similar to that
>of chess prior to the Steinitz-Zukertort revolution, i.e. there was a lot
>of specific analysis but no overall general analysis. Lasker tried to
>approach the game from a general strategic approach.
I have to disagree with this opinion. Whole board strategy had been
extensively studied for hundreds of years in Japan. The culmination
of this era were the games of Honinbo Shusaku (Shuho's mentor), who
lived in the early 18th century (died around 1850, aged 33, of yellow
fever courtesy of Comm. Perry). Study of his games is still mandatory
for all prospective professionals in Japan. For more info on Go in the
Edo period see "Invincible: The Games of Shusaku" - Ishi Press, ~ $75.00 (U.S.)
(Without question the best Go book in English, both in content and appearance)
Lee Schumacher (schu...@schaefer.wisc.edu)
Dept of Math.
UW-Madison
Louis Blair
>I have a vague recollection that Lasker was
>a good go player. Can someone confirm that?
In his 1951 book, Chess Secrets I Learned From the Masters,
Edward Lasker wrote: "Shortly after meeting [Emanuel
Lasker], I showed him the ... game of ... GO ... A friend and
I had found its rules in a magazine. ... [Emanuel Lasker] ...
became utterly fascinated with this game ... and he arranged
weekly "Go meetings" at his house. One night we were invited
to meet a Go master at the Japanese Club. Although Emanuel
Lasker, his brother Berthold, and I were to play in consultation,
a handicap of nine moves was proposed - something like Queen
odds in chess. Lasker laughed and said he did not think anybody
in the world could give him that handicap if he could take his
time in studying his moves. We had played over some games of
Japanese masters and felt fairly sure we understood the reasons
behind their play. But our opponent smiled and suggested that
we let him try it anyway. Our confidence was indeed considerably
ruffled from the start. The Japanese master answered our deep-laid
plots without ever taking more than a fraction of a second for his
reply. To make the story short - the fellow completely demolished
us, and Emanuel Lasker was the most downcast of men. On the
way home he proposed that we should try to arrange to go to Japan
for a few months and play a great deal with their masters. He said:
`The Japanese haven't as yet produced a mathematician who
compares with the best we can muster. I am convinced that we can,
ultimately, beat them at Go, the ideal game for a mathematical
mind.'"
It appears that Emanuel Lasker never carried out his plan. In a 1973
letter to the magazine, Lasker and His Contemporaries, Edward
Lasker wrote that Emanuel Lasker "was not able to master" Go.
I do not remember seeing Go (or, for that matter, Edward Lasker)
mentioned in Emanuel Lasker's biography. It appears that, for the
most part, Emanuel played Go only with Edward Lasker.
Craig Presson writes:
>Edward [Lasker] ... wrote a book on Go and Go-Moku for
>Westerners.
Richard Harter writes:
>Actually a fairly decent book. For a long time there were only three
>works on Go in the west, a very primitive one by a German named
>Korshelt, Lasker's book, and a book from Tuttle press (a firm that
>specialized in works on Japan.) At the time Go theory was in a state
>similar to that of chess prior to the Steinitz-Zukertort revolution, i.e.
>there was a lot of specific analysis but no overall general analysis.
>Lasker tried to approach the game from a general strategic approach.
I'd have a hard time believing that Edward Lasker had anything
to say about the game that had not been said many times in the
Japanese Go literature. Even restricting to English Go literature,
I think that Edward Lasker's book was not all that original. Edward
Lasker himself said that most of the examples in his "Advanced
Strategy" chapter had been taken from Kaku Takagawa's book, The
Vital Points of Go. Nevertheless, Lasker's book DID probably make a
significant contribution to the popularity of GO in the western world,
being, for a long time, probably the best written book readily available
in English. Edward Lasker certainly never had the stature of a
Steinitz or a Zukertort. His role in the GO world is perhaps more
analogous to Mason, whose books, The Principles of Chess and The Art
of Chess were popular for many years.
Incidentally, there are those who are skeptical about Edward Lasker's
claim to being a relative of Emanuel Lasker. Edward Lasker claimed
that he learned of this from Emanuel Lasker only shortly before his
death, and apparently nobody else has confirmed this. For example,
Joseph Platz, another friend of Emanuel Lasker in his last few years,
wrote, "I had met Edward many times in Emanuel Lasker's house,
whose distant relative he claimed to be, which was never confirmed
by the world champion."
Alan Williams writes:
>Single games [of Go] between the top masters have been played over
>many sessions lasting weeks, sometimes with only two or three
>key moves being played in one session.
>
>There's an excellent book on just such a game called I believe
>Masters of Go, but of course I don't have easy access to my library.
Henry Thomas writes:
>Yes, it's written by Yasunari (?) Kawabata, and the title is "The
>Master, or the Go Tournament" (Literal translation from the
>french title). This is a very good book, which I recommend.
The English translation that I have gives the title as The Master
of Go and the author as Yasunari Kawabata.
Bo-Yin Yang
>In response to Craig Presson:
>Richard Harter writes:
>>Actually a fairly decent book. For a long time there were only three
>>works on Go in the west, a very primitive one by a German named Korshelt,
>>Lasker's book, and a book from Tuttle press (a firm that specialized in
>>works on Japan.) ...
>
>Actually Lasker's book is mostly of historical interest, Korshelt's book
>(still in print) was primitive only by typographical standards.
>The games are presented mostly in algabraic notation (hopeless for Go),
>and what diagrams there are contain several hundred moves. The content,
>however, was based on extensive discussions with Honinbo Shuho, the top
>player of the time (late 1850's). In particular the endgame analysis is
>among the best in English.
>
>>At the time Go theory was in a state similar to that
>>of chess prior to the Steinitz-Zukertort revolution, i.e. there was a lot
>>of specific analysis but no overall general analysis. Lasker tried to
>>approach the game from a general strategic approach.
>
> I have to disagree with this opinion. Whole board strategy had been
>extensively studied for hundreds of years in Japan. The culmination
>of this era were the games of Honinbo Shusaku (Shuho's mentor), who
>lived in the early 18th century (died around 1850, aged 33, of yellow
>fever courtesy of Comm. Perry). Study of his games is still mandatory
>for all prospective professionals in Japan. For more info on Go in the
>Edo period see "Invincible: The Games of Shusaku" - Ishi Press, ~ $75.00 (U.S.)
>(Without question the best Go book in English, both in content and appearance)
I must say I am totally confused about the last paragraph....
[a] The 18th century would have something that has ...17xy
[b] If my Japanese has not totally deserted me here (I am Taiwanese) the
situation between the two names mentioned above is wrong:
As a matter of fact, Shusako was never officially the Honinbo. He
was the heir to the Honibo Shuho, not his mentor as written above. Although
he was and is acknowledged to be the best player of the era he was only
ranked 7-dan till his death since his teacher, the Honinbo Shuho, is ranked
as 8-dan.
>Lee Schumacher (schu...@schaefer.wisc.edu)
>Dept of Math.
>UW-Madison
Just my $0.02
Bo-Yin Yang
Louis Blair
>In a 1973
>letter to the magazine, Lasker and His Contemporaries, Edward
>Lasker wrote that Emanuel Lasker "was not able to master" Go.
>I do not remember seeing Go (or, for that matter, Edward Lasker)
>mentioned in Emanuel Lasker's biography. It appears that, for the
>most part, Emanuel played Go only with Edward Lasker.
My memory was a bit off as far as Emanuel Lasker's biography
was concerned. His game with Edward Lasker in the 1924
tournament is mentioned and there is a comment by the translator
that Lasker "had some deep theoretical knowledge and practical
experience of a good many games including the most difficult of all,
the Japanese `Go'." My guess is that Edward Lasker's statement
that Emanuel Lasker "was not able to master" Go is closer to the
truth. The translator, Heinrich Fraenkel (also known as Assiac),
mentions that Emanuel Lasker "was an expert bridge player" and
also "mastered" dominoes at a "high level".
but0...@vax87.aud.auc.dk
> chess and go and achieved a high standard in both? I thought about
> trying it many moons ago, but decided life was too short (apart from
> other problems like lack of talent).
competitors play chess, go *and* bridge. People skilled in this "brain-explo-
der", normally get rather good in at least two of the disciplines (without
getting too old). So there is hope for anybody wishing to play more than one
of these games.
Ian P. Semey Aalborg Universitets Center fax: 98 10 10 03