The History of Go
Go originated in China, and there are references about go dating over 4000 years back, which makes it the oldest board game in the world. How the game came about nobody knows for sure, but the most common belief is that the Chinese emperor Yao(2337-2258 B.C.) had one of his counselors design the game for his son to teach him skills like discipline, concentration and balance. About 700 A.D. go spread to Korea and Japan, and have since then been very popular in these countries. In the beginning a 17 * 17 sized board was standard, but this changed by the Chinese Tang Dynasty(618-907) to 19 * 19.
In 1612, Honinbo Sansa founded the Honinbo Go School in Japan, which became one of the four major Japanese go houses, the other being Hayashi go house, Inoue go house and Yasui house. These houses were all Buddhist institutions, so all the players were male. The high level of play at these houses and the competition between them made the Japanese go strength unrivaled. When perhaps the strongest player in the history of go, Honinbo Dosaku, was head of the Honinbo house, the Honinbo Go School became recognized as the strongest institution, and many more remarkable players would continue to emerge from this very school. In 1884 the Honinbo house and the Hayashi house was merged, and the head of the Hayashi house, Hayashi Shuei, became the head of the Honinbo house, Honinbo Shuei. Today, none of these houses exist, but the last Honinbo heir, Honinbo Shusai, decided that the Honinbo title was to be competed for in a yearly tournament starting after his death. Shusai died 1940 and the first tournament was held in 1941. The current Honinbo title holder is Hane Naoki.
In the 1950s a komi system was introduced. Since people realized that black had an unfair advantage by playing first, white was given 4.5 compensation points. In 1974 this was changed to 5.5 points, and again changed to 6.5 in 2002.
In the late 19th century, go spread to Germany after a German scientist named Oskar Korschelt wrote a treatise about go. In 1905, an American man named Edward Lasker learned go when he was visiting Berlin, and he later founded the New York Go Club with a man named Arthur Smith. In 1934 Lasker wrote a book which he entitled "Go and gomoku", which was a great contribution for spreading go in the US. After World War 2, go continued to spread throughout Europe. Go got another popularity boost after the manga/anime "Hikaru no Go" was made in 1998. This helped awaken the Japanese children's interest for go, as well as for people all around the world who read/watched the manga/anime.
In 1989, international go tournaments started being held, and although Japan used to be in the lead when it comes to go strength, they have not been as strong as Korea and China in these tournaments.
Today, people all around the world play go. The internet makes this easy, and there are numerous go servers to play on. For more information about these, check out the online go servers section.
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