Chinese Go, Weiqi

The game of Chinese Go is called Weiqi in Mandarin. There a couple of different theories on the history of the game Go and how it was originated. One theory is that it was invented by an Emperor who wanted to increase his son's mental faculties and so devised a game to do so. Another theory is that it was developed by court astrologers during the Chou dynasty (1045-255 BC).

Chinese Go is the world's oldest board game, and is at least 3,000 to 4,000 years old. Weiqi was called Go when it was imported to Japan roughly 1200 years ago. Playing the game Go improves your strategy and your memory skills, much like Chess. Some schools in Asia even teach Go to help their students improve their thinking and strategizing skills.

The Go board is composed of 19 parallel lines and 19 vertical lines. There are 361 intersections on the board. Of these, the most important intersections are known as star points. Each Go set comes with a flat playing board or mat and 180 stones in both black and white. The black stones always make the first move. The stones move between the points on the board, rather than staying within the colored squares as in checkers or chess. The stones can only be moved one time.

Each player is free to move the stones around on the board unless the other player moves vertically or horizontally close to them. When this happens, the other stone loses the freedom to move around the board. When a stone loses its freedom to move around the board in any direction, then that stone is moved from the board. The game of Go ends when both players agree that there are no further moves left on the board, or when one of the players forfeits the game.

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