A master of GO, Shu

 

 My name is Shujiro, but English speakers call me Shu.

One day a friend of mine who lives in Japan said to me.

“A guy is looking for you, Shu!”

Then I met the man. I have forgotten his name and nationality. He was a young English speaker and was excited to meet me.

After a short greeting, he suddenly asked me.

“Do you play GO?”

 GO is a traditional board game. It is popular in East Asia, but unfortunately I don’t know how to play. So I said “No”, but he doubted me and asked a few questions about GO. Maybe my answers sounded stupid to him. He was so disappointed. What happened?

 I was the wrong Shu. The young man was a GO player. He always played GO using a computer on line with other GO players around the world. One of them was his rival whose name was also “Shu”. “Shu” was Japanese. The young man was looking for “Shu” in the real world with these clues. He dreamed of playing GO with “Shu” on a real GO board, face to face. I was so surprised. Is GO such an attractive game that it makes people act like this?

 According to the Internet news, in the very near feature, the strongest GO players will be completely beaten by AI. Most GO players feel that is the funeral of GO. I do not think it will matter to GO.

A long time ago, someone invented horseback riding. In that moment, people who were light on their feet could all be beaten in a race. That was a few thousand years ago, but we still enjoy track and field races and respect athletes. When we watch a marathon race, no one says “if you want to move so fast, you should drive a car!” The same thing is happening in GO.

 By the way, I assumed that the young man and “Shu” are experts of GO, but I could be wrong. KASA-GO is a Japanese classic short story. KASA means sedge hat, and this is a simple but interesting story about two old GO players. They were good friends and always played GO. One day they had a big fight for a small reason. They said to each other “I don’t want to see you anymore!”, but they started to regret it a few days later. One of the old men said.

“I can’t enjoy GO without him, because other players are too strong.”

One rainy day, one of the old men approached the other old man’s house wearing a sedge hat. Both of them realized that they were very close and missed each other, but it took a long time for them to reconcile. After becoming friends again, they immediately started to play GO. Some water drops fell down on the GO board. The old man had forgotten to take off the sedge hat. Were the water drops rain drops from the sedge hat or tear drops? Nobody knows.

 The young man and “Shu” could be like this. It is not necessary to be experts. The chemistry between them just worked well, like the old men in KASA-GO.

 I wonder if the young man is still looking for “Shu” now or has already found him or her. It is possible to imagine that he finally found “Shu” and just now they have started to play the very first game of GO face to face. No one will report or broadcast the game, but it must be one of the best games of GO.

　PICTURE:xiangotao