American Go E-Journal
March 15, 2021
By William Cobb I was thinking about taoism the other day (such things are a consequence of studying and teaching Eastern philosophy for many years) and realized that it offers a hint of what I might say to readers who are unhappy about…
February 17, 2021
By William Cobb Have you ever tried to do something really fast? I can think of several things I would want to do as fast as possible: spit out something that tastes really bad, get out of a house that is on fire, run in a race, get out…
July 25, 2020
By William Cobb Sitting around with way too much time on my hands and trying to think of something to do, I started thinking about go games in the old days. You may be familiar with this traditional Chinese poem: Just one game they…
June 26, 2020
By William Cobb I was chatting with the young man to whom I am teaching go the other day and I remarked that he was beginning to make a lot more plays that were like those of a real go player. His reply was that that might be true but…
December 7, 2019
by William Cobb “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” is a film that is hard to forget, though that may be because I was a Cross Country runner in college. Since moving to a very small town in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas I am…
March 24, 2019
By Bill Cobb I’ve just finished reading Cho Hunhyun’s fascinating book Go With the Flow , which was highly recommended by several prominent members of the AGA. It’s fascinating, although the Korean publisher should be ashamed for…
November 28, 2018
By Bill Cobb As in life, there is a color issue in go that has an impact on most players’ experience. The fact that Black plays first has an obvious effect. Most players, at least in the early years of playing, find it more comfortable…
October 31, 2018
By Bill Cobb I’ve been working with Yuan Zhou on a new book about the astonishing degree to which pros are adopting an AlphaGo tactic that is a direct rejection of traditional theory about how to play. The move in question is invading…
September 19, 2018
by William Cobb A big part of life is experiencing things you have never experienced before: flying in a plane, hiking to a mountain top, being in a snow storm, visiting a country where you don’t speak the language. We think of such…
July 11, 2018
by William Cobb Go is like life, but it’s not like every part of life. Take war, for example, or a political election. You may have certain sorts of respect for your opponent in such cases, but you don’t really wish them well. Not only…
May 21, 2018
by William Cobb “Blitz” games are an interesting phenomenon in the go world, often played at ten seconds per move. They do count as go games since they follow the rules of the game, but to me, they’re about as appealing as playing…
May 14, 2018
by William Cobb As go players, we cannot say whether playing the game is itself good or bad. We can only say whether particular moves in particular games are good or bad. To make judgments of what’s “good” or “bad” you have to have a…
May 7, 2018
by William Cobb I hope at least some of my readers felt at least a slight twinge at the statement in the last Empty Board (#4) : “the player’s ultimate goal, which is of course to win.” If you are talking about the making of decisions…
May 1, 2018
by William Cobb Decisions about good and bad moves have a big role in go. It’s often not that easy to determine, but a move either promotes or hinders the achievement of the player’s ultimate goal, which is of course to win. Whether…
April 26, 2018
By William Cobb In the classical age of go, players would spend several hours or more playing a game. Ever wonder why they did that? What could they have been thinking about? Here’s an experiment for you: Go onto one of the turn based…
April 17, 2018
by William Cobb Except for the 90 minutes basic time of games in the US Open at the Congress, almost all official games in US tournaments have a basic time of 45 minutes. Why? Well, it makes it possible to have four rounds in a day. But…
April 3, 2018
by William Cobb “Go is like life.” It’s a common claim---and true. But go is also like death. Every game comes to an end and every player eventually plays their last game. Is that a bad thing? With individual games, even if you lost,…