The game of Go in wuxia novels

[Huumanshadow]

In many wuxia novels, the game of Go is as profound as kung fu. My question is, is it possible for people to spend decades on one game? The board in DGSD is almost complete except for a few moves, how is that for 30+ year no one can solve it? There is a finite number of moves that can be taken once you near the end of a match. Let say that even a great player cant solve the puzzle, cant they use the process of eliminations? they have years to do that. I know the basic rule of Go and i play a few times with family, but my idiotic brain cant comprehend that anyone can spend years stuck on one game. Do you believe Go can be as hard as the novels make it out to be? fill with meaning and philospohy like the I Ching and stuff.

[K2Grey]

The tree of possible variations explodes really fast, I don't think the process of elimination gets you anywhere especially since it's already obvious what the possible moves are, you just can't comprehend which one is significant.

[Han Solo]

I give you an example in chess, which is comparatively less complex.

My favourite game ever is Kasparov vs Topalov in Zee 1999.

This game has been and is still being analyzed by newer and newer generations of software.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478


Han Solo

[wuyuejin]

The weiqi problem in Tian long ba bu is just fictional. In some chess compositions a player can change his situation completely with stunning sacrifices, but thats CHESS. In weiqi it would make no sense at all if such a problem as the problem in Tian long ba bu existed. Everybody knows therere 361 intersections on a standard weiqi board. According to the book, initially, the number of stones on the board were around 200 and the white side was being dominated by the black one. Thus the number of the white stones on the board must have been less than 100 at the beginning of the problem. After Xuzhu had made the sacrificial move the number of the white stones was reduced by several tens, likely around 40. That made the white side be heavily outnumbered by the black side. Considering the nature of weiqi theres no chance the white side in this situation could turn the table on the black side and achieve the final victory, much less SO easily.

[AnhHung]

Ref my signature. :-)

[Huumanshadow]

Ref my signature. :-)

True, everything is fiction. But isnt it amazing to imagine the possibility. I used to think that martial art is limited too until i saw clips of Bruce Lee's one inch fist and read his account of some of his master's abilities.

Personally i think Chess is a more complex game then Go because once you put down a piece then its final, chess can go on and go but that's just me.

Han Solo, when people are analyzing the chess game, what are they doing exactly? try to win or make better moves? what the game finish? just curious.

[Han Solo]

The purpose of the game is to checkmate, ie to capture the king- everything else can be sacrified for that purpose.

The game that i linked earlier features a rare double rook sacrifice- rooks are very powerful pieces in chess, and kasparov won this amazing game by looking almost 15 moves ahead when he made his sacrifice - truly a thing of beauty.

Han Solo