Yes That Is The Turtle

Aug. 20, 2002

Type: discussion

In a message dated 8/21/2002 6:48:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

> The turtle is set like this you mean?
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Well done young Jedi. Yes that is the Turtle.

See, the stones are all "men" like in checkers. They have to be connected to
open space in order to "breathe" i.e. communicate, feed the troops, stay
live. Surrounded stones are taken off the board, and since the Turtle has
"internal free space" it is hard to surround and take off the board.

I hang with a lot of loser chess players who dig Go. (These fellas are chess
pros/semipros, study all day, teach, coffeeshop, etc. Can't mention any
names but say dudes from the Twin Cities Chess League.)

I most dig the story of the origin of Go, and how it relates to rotational
mapping as well as social control during "wartime." Supposedly an Emperor or
Chief invented the game to force his son and heir to learn depth perception,
and when the son refused, his dad cut off his head!

"Moyo" is like the "big-picture" strategy in Go: open but potentially
occupiable space on the Go board as a whole. Every game, or, every different
position of stones, has different moyo.

Turtles are mainly a tactical form, means to achieve a greater portion of
space after all the stones are laid.

Playing along the edges, maneuvering for edge-space, is like the other huge
tactical side of Go.

Jonathan Robbiotti
genius2000.net

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