The five elements (phases) 五行 and weiqi 围棋（圍棋）

The styles of gameplay bases on the five elements theory.
水shui water: the timid and not risky-taking of territory making, used sometimes by weak oponents
木mu wood: the agressive and destructive strategy of making deep invasions, the rage and destruction that they produce as wood is the fuel of energy.
火huo fire: The rewarding and difficult play for influence, do not play with fire unless you know what you are doing!
土tu earth: the balance of calm gameplay, the equilibrium
金jin metal: the solid strategy, trying to never concede, gameplay of seeking for big moyos. not bending like rigid metal, but Chinese saw things too rigid are easy to break.

YI jing(I ching)易经（易經）and go (weiqi) 围棋(圍棋)

Form the hexagram that represents your style of play by adding the lines, yin are broken lines, yang unbroken

Line 1 fuseki constant is yang, creative is yin
Line 2 opening constant is yang, creative is yin
Line 3 early mid game constant is yang, creative is yin
Line 4 later mid game constant is yang, creative is yin
Line 5 end game constant is yang, creative is yin
Line 6 putting the last stones constant is yang, creative is yin

A comparison of Weiqi围棋(圍棋)(go) and western chess, again

There’s already plenty of material about the subject, this is a text about the misconceptions I have seen.
Go and chess don’t represent a war of “West versus East”, Chess came from China, not even India, it is evident by the advanced society China had, and the games of Liubo六博, Chinese chess 象棋 xiangqi, etc., although there’s some resemblances in their focuses (the more immediate thinking of chess and the long term strategy of weiqi).
There’s a question: what is the most complex game? Some people argue that a 1 million by 1 million tic tac toe game would be more complex; I don’t think so. Such a game would have only 2 diagonal chances of winning the game and just one of your moves in a 1 million spaces of a row or column would make a loss in that space impossible. The Size 19×19 of weiqi been greater than chess cannot be pointed as the only cause for its greater complexity; what about a 1 million by 1 million game of go?
What the ideal size for these games? If you played bigger variants of chess like the dragon chess and most of its variants, have flaws on their openings that make them almost unplayable. 8×8 Chess, compared to the rules of go, is already much complex. The 19×19 go is complex for many people and is the only thing that prevents it to be bigger; The go in any board size that the rules would be so simple and would be visually by seen the colors that predominate a certain area, would be easy to see the strategies, it could be played in any board size.
The fact that computers don’t play well weiqi because there is more time of research, don’t we forget that the chess has been played for centuries and, weiqi, for millenniums; and we all know that every year the advancements in computer software and hardware are increasing exponentially, a few decades would not make so much difference. I heard someone saying “at least we don’t loss to a random number generator”, maybe they’re referring to the Monte Carlo method of search; In a simple game like chess is possible to exhaust a good number of moves ahead for every move, but with a complex game like go we would not go further than seeing part of the board. Imagine a engine of chess searching the moves for the queen’s rook pawn, the queen’s rook, the queen’s knight pawn, , the queen’s knight… and have to move; it would not play a brilliant game, would be better use random search for moves .It is not really playing random moves.
The best game would probably be one of simple rules versus complexity of gameplay, weiqi has the most simple and intuitive rules, that is nearer from math perfection; they are thought to be universal, as the chess world champion Emanuel Lasker said “If there are some rational beings in some other planets, they sure know Go”. Wei qi has so subtle strategies that mimics conflict, war and the universe as never seen. But its complexity is criticized, and Go is even cited wrongly as a game of luck, making chess a better game for some people or a game for kids or introductory game.
I certainly can affirm” Chess is the game of kings, go is the game of gods”.

Abstraction of 围棋(圍棋) Weiqi (go), the differences between Chess and Go

Weiqi, Go, is part of the abstract games. But chess in not so abstract, its fun; There’s the horse, towers, is a battle. Go is terribly abstract (for people who don’t know its true essence, almost anyone), you put that pieces of two different colors in the board and wonder what it is about: is about war. There’s other explanations; it’s about yin and yang, balance… but war is about yin yang and equilibrium
The secret to see the difference of chess, Chinese chess, Shogi, etc, and go is the proverb(Chess is a battle, Go is a war(larger scope). In Chess and Chinese Chess each square represent maybe 10 meters, in go each point represent strategic points or cities miles away of distance.

You can see this in the different approaches of Chess and Go in representing a conflict:
Different pieces: Chess and Chinese Chess, in a small scale, you have specialized types (the types of Chinese chess is almost perfect, the general in the rear, protected by its royal guards, the chariots in the flank (you see the use of chariots in the Sun Tzu Art of War 孙子兵法, the use of elephants that started in east, the soldiers in the front, of chess seems more complicated, queen more powerful than the king, bishops and towers fighting, it is probably a mix of the diplomatic power and the battlefield). In large scope war, in go,you simply have forces,(wouldn’t make sense send all archers to a city, all cavalry to another with walls; in second world war send snipers to north of France, mans with granades to another front, all Infantary to another, all anti-tank to Russia).

Block: in Chess and Chinese Chess, a small scale battle, if you need to defend a mount, a bridge, city, etc. you simply put forces in their way , you see that in chess and Chinese chess where pieces blocks the way of others; but in larger scale war and in go how you defend the space of miles between two cities or strategic points and impede of reaching a third? That’s why you can put a stone even in a surrounded area,(in modern motorized I don’t know if there’s too much dependence of roads and probably easier to block, but the routes should be so much… in ancient time was easy to pass trough forest, defiles, etc, read the art of war for more examples).

Capture : Chess and Chinese Chess captures who moves first, probably showing the importance of attack and initiative; in Go you surround completely the enemy, meaning attacking it supply lines and incapacity of reinforcements or a siege.

End of battle: chess and Chinese chess shows a short term goal, surrender the opposite general, generally battles in small scale were fast and ended with an army victorious and another captured or fleeing, in Go represents a more complex war with long term goals, war were longer, you conquered a part of the territory and after that it was reconquered, you gain control of something but loss of another, in rare cases there was a total annihilation of the opposite force, although possible in go and war, you have to calculate the losses and gains and see who were the victorious.

New way of count wei qi 围棋 (圍棋) (go) victories

Go victories should not be counted as simply as someone that have a single stone ahead, we should count every point as a superior form of victory, adding the points of a victory to a total or subtracting the points lost from that total, and maybe we would not have never a winner. For example as in some games that have a minor victory and a major victory, but even if we for example establish 3 stones a minor victory, what is the difference of getting 3 stones ahead and not 2, and 2 and not 1?

The ratings should reflect this method. I’m not good at math so I don’t understand much how the calculation of rating works, but I suppose that opposed to giving a value to victory and other to defeat, this value would increase or decrease depending of the number of stones ahead of the rival.

We should see every war as not a decisive victory or loss, but only part in a more complex conflict; that’s why go is one of the best, if not the best, game; because you don’t see in short term, you should look at long term, the big picture. That’s what I teach in martial arts, don’t see a victory in a fight or competition as a goal, you should see further; don’t care for that belt, or a medal or trophy,  don’t see that one stone stronger as your aim, see you three or four stones stronger, see in long term. The sides have established its territories but the war is not over, war is never over.

We should see a match of go as an opportunity of better understanding the game, or should I say better understand life, a victory will bring you, most of the time, nothing. Do you want a concrete example? Try another strategy other them make large moyos, experiment new ideas will give you new perspectives of the game even if they are risky, fight better opponents to learn better strategies even if you win more against a weak opponent (although the game has a very effective way of balancing the odds); ask a good weiqi player and they will say the same thing. Because in training, your main objective is getting better, not victory (believe me, there is a difference).

I don’t even count the results after a game, unless for curiosity, or if it is needed to adjust ratings or you need a winner, I only see that my score is one point less than what I want and one point higher than what I don’t want. Loss the battle but win the war, one of the great lessons of the game and the Sun Tzu’s Art of war 孙子兵法 “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved”.

My 围棋(圍棋)weiqi(go) new ladder reading techinique

I have my own ladder reading technique, that’s sometimes very useful to read the difficult ladders. There’s a go proverb “If you don’t know ladders, don’t play go”. And is very difficult to beginners get lost on the path of long ladders.
If you start a ladder with white stones in coordinates b16 and b17, all liberties surrounded except c17 (the lower-left corner is a1 and the upper left corner t19), this ladder path, if you alternate one point in one direction and other in another and do again the same movements, will end in d19. Now, the ladder not just progress toward the center of the board, it goes back to the near edge of the board, in our case, a16. Look, the same distance, 4 points, in a16 from a19 in the beginning of the ladder, and the 4 points to d19. This is not a coincidence; because of the symmetry, the ladders start and end on the same location.
Now, the long, difficult to read, ladders. If a ladder starts at c4 and c5, with the only liberty being d5, it is difficult to read its path because it is too long, and, since the center of the board is generally not populated in the beginning of the game for example, there is no point of reference and is easy get lost; this ladder will end in r19, 3points from the upper-left corner, the same 3 points (a3) from its path toward the edge of the board. If there is a stone for example in o17 is much simpler read the ladder c4 and c5 backwards to the point a3 and, once knowing there is a 3 spaces from a1, start a ladder going backwards from the three points from the upper-right point r19 (a straight line parallel to the diagonal of the board) and then see if o17 breaks the ladder (it breaks); it is easy because you have stones and references of the board as guides.

Do not learn moves, Learn with moves

A weiqi (go) saying, referring to the studies of joseki(patterns that are common in the game) that is indeed very useful in go, but should be applied to war too. In martial arts, don’t learn moves or forms and simply repeat them, learn WITH then; Sun Tzu said “do not repeat tactics that give you victory”. And this all should be applied to all Chinese philosophies. Do not learn the forms of太极拳太極拳Taijiquan(taichichuan) as if the fight would require them in the exact order you train, or they would exhaust all the possibilities of the art, Sun Tzu said that the tactics would be never exhausted; don’t simply know a judgment or line reading of the 易经(經)Yi jing (I ching) if when they say good fortune or misfortune is all you need to know; don’t learn by heart the 八卦bagua water in times of drought could mean a good thing not danger; don’t learn the text of the art of war and think it will make you a master of war, Sun Tzu said that the plans should be modified according to the circumstances; in feng shui don’t put an object in a direction that should give you luck in front of the door.