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Baduk and its Past

By: Fredrik Eilertsen

Weiqi's historical past is increadably long. In truth it is 4000 years lengthy and its popularity has by no means died out. The origin of go is somewhat unclear, but the general story is that this game was created for the son of the Chinese emperor, reason being he wasn't behaving properly. Wei-chi was made to calm him down and to teach him concentration and patience.

Many starting players assume that it's a Japanese game, when it in truth is Chinese. I think there are three separate causes for this. First, the Japanese anime Hikaru no Go, that helped improve Go's popularity, so many people got introduced to go by following this series. Also, the many phrases used in English go teaching books come from Japan. Finally, it's due to the Honinbo family, which I'll come back to shortly. The actual fact of the matter is that go didn't spread to Japan earlier than the year seven hundred, which is way after this game was created.

It's in Japan however, this game began to really advance. During the seventeenth century the Honinbo institution was formed, a school of incredible wei-chi professionals. The heads of this institution was perhaps the best on the planet in history. Gamers worth mentioning are Honinbo Shusaku, Dosaku, Jowa, Shuwa and Shuei. There have been also a few professionals from China and Korea that made their mark throughout this period, especially a person named Huang Longshi from China. Many new plays were invented in the course of the Honinbo times, and the overall playing strength of go gamers increased.

One other notable level in go's history was the start of the new period, with players like Go Seigen, Kitani Minoru and also Takemiya Masaki changing the way in which go was to be played. The brand new type of play focused on center play rather than territory, so the moves were played further to the center of the goban, instead of further to the edges. This type of play is still very popular.

Article Source: http://www.onlinearticlessite.com

If you want to read about wei-chi's historical past and the most legendary gamers, or learn how to play baduk, go to this website: learnbaduk.com.

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