Ancient Chinese sport gains popularity in UK

It's a game of strategy, skill and subtlety. Hugely popular in Asia, Go is now being played by more and more people in Europe, four millennia after its creation. 

In the UK, organizations like the London Go Centre in Hammersmith have been established to cater for the small but dedicated Go playing community.

Gerry Gavigan helps run the London Go Centre. He told CGTN Europe that Go players developed an almost obsessive passion for the game.

"People get it and they love it, so they play – and once you start playing Go, you tend not to stop," he said. 

Go versus Chess

At first glance, Go shares many similarities with chess. It's played between two players with black and white pieces on a board.

But while the object of chess is to eliminate or take as many pieces as you can, Go is about the acquisition of space, using your stones to get as much territory on the board as possible. For Gavigan, this makes a difference in gameplay.

"The Go board starts empty; both players have no power. The chessboard starts populated and both players have equal power," he said. 

"As the game progresses with chess, I think the person who loses power the slowest wins the game – but in Go, the person who gains power quickest or best wins the game."

Simplicity and complexity

A classic Go board is 19 by 19 lines, although you can play on smaller boards. Each player has effectively an unlimited supply of stones, which they then place on line intersections.

The purpose of the game is to get more territory than your opponent. Ai Guan, a Mathematics Teaching Fellow at the University of Birmingham and an avid Go player, told CGTN Europe the game shared many qualities with mathematics.

"The game is practically infinite," she said. "I've played thousands of games, hundreds of tournaments but no two are ever the same. The other thing is the community. There are a large number of Go players in the UK and it's very active."

CGTN Europe also met the oldest member of the London Go Centre, Francis Roads. The retired teacher has been a fan of the game since the 1960s.

"There are games of chess where you get two games which are identical; they're played to a draw," he said. "There's no draw in Go – if you're not playing to win, you're playing to lose."

From ancient times to the AI era

Go is thought to have originated in China around 4,000 years ago. It then spread to the rest of east Asia.

In the years since World War II, the game has started to gain a worldwide following. It's now thought that up to 46 million people play the game globally. 

More recently, the game has also been involved in the development of AI technology. In 2016 the Google-owned AI research company DeepMind pitted its AlphaGo computer program against one of the world's best Go players, South Korean Lee Sedol. 

In the best-of-five series, AlphaGo won 4-1 – and the achievement was heralded as a breakthrough in the advancement of AI technology. This ancient pastime is helping to develop modern technology – and still entertaining millions of people around the world every day.

Cover Image: /CGTN

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