Arthur Smith (6) (1870–)

Writing a book review is a lot like a game of Go. In one of them there are all these intersections of lines upon which you have to place stones in order to surround territory, all the while defending your stones from attacks by your opponent. And the other is a Japanese board game.

Aha, no I'm just kidding. Go is Chinese.

That's about the only trivium on the history of Go that I learnt from this book, which is unfortunate since I only bought it to learn the game's history. Books covering this topic seem to be few and far between, but I did find a website which claimed this particular one contained an extensive discussion of the subject. In fact what it contains is a twenty page translation of some German articles from Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (parts 21–24, 1880–1881) written by Oskar Korschelt, the man who introduced Go to Europe. And by “German articles” I mean academic papers written in German, not “der, die, das”. But obviously we've all read parts 21–24 of Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, so there's little history to be gleaned here.

The rest of The Game of Go features a rough guide to the rules, some frankly impenetrable examples of full games by various levels of Japanese players, and then a bucket load of openings. Much of the text is spent condescendingly pointing out that the book is aimed at beginners, since any Go player with two brain cells to rub together would find everything in it utterly obvious. Yet for all that the author seems to rush through the genuine beginner-level stuff (if I didn't already know the rules of the game I'm not sure I would understand them from the description given in the book) and spend far too long on the illustrative games and possible openings.

The illustrative games in particular seem out of place. Some of them are between players who are actually, you know, good at Go. The annotations for these take pains to point out that the subtleties being displayed would be beyond any beginner. Then there's a game between a rank amateur and a half-decent player, and there the annotations consist mainly of calling the beginner's moves “hopeless”. The tone is sufficiently snarky that I kept thinking the author was British, and had to remind myself that he was indeed American, albeit from the start of the twentieth century when the US was apparently less chirpy.

There are enough mildly interesting titbits in the text to save it from being a pointless purchase. And some of the tips it contains will perhaps be useful when I'm a better player, but given that it apparently takes around 10,000 games for a player to become proficient at Go, I might be a while getting my money's worth.… (altro)

Writing a book review is a lot like a game of Go. In one of them there are all these intersections of lines upon which you have to place stones in order to surround territory, all the while defending your stones from attacks by your opponent. And the other is a Japanese board game.

Aha, no I'm just kidding. Go is Chinese.

That's about the only trivium on the history of Go that I learnt from this book, which is unfortunate since I only bought it to learn the game's history. Books covering this topic seem to be few and far between, but I did find a website which claimed this particular one contained an extensive discussion of the subject. In fact what it contains is a twenty page translation of some German articles from Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens (parts 21–24, 1880–1881) written by Oskar Korschelt, the man who introduced Go to Europe. And by “German articles” I mean academic papers written in German, not “der, die, das”. But obviously we've all read parts 21–24 of Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, so there's little history to be gleaned here.

The rest of The Game of Go features a rough guide to the rules, some frankly impenetrable examples of full games by various levels of Japanese players, and then a bucket load of openings. Much of the text is spent condescendingly pointing out that the book is aimed at beginners, since any Go player with two brain cells to rub together would find everything in it utterly obvious. Yet for all that the author seems to rush through the genuine beginner-level stuff (if I didn't already know the rules of the game I'm not sure I would understand them from the description given in the book) and spend far too long on the illustrative games and possible openings.

The illustrative games in particular seem out of place. Some of them are between players who are actually, you know, good at Go. The annotations for these take pains to point out that the subtleties being displayed would be beyond any beginner. Then there's a game between a rank amateur and a half-decent player, and there the annotations consist mainly of calling the beginner's moves “hopeless”. The tone is sufficiently snarky that I kept thinking the author was British, and had to remind myself that he was indeed American, albeit from the start of the twentieth century when the US was apparently less chirpy.

There are enough mildly interesting titbits in the text to save it from being a pointless purchase. And some of the tips it contains will perhaps be useful when I'm a better player, but given that it apparently takes around 10,000 games for a player to become proficient at Go, I might be a while getting my money's worth.… (altro)