Moments in Go History

A Famous Game of Mirror Go
February 16, 2004
By William Cobb

Mirror or mimic go (mane-go in Japanese) is not often played, but it is an intriguing approach. One player imitates the other's plays in the diagonally opposite portion of the board. Black can start by playing on the center point (tengen) and then mimicking White. One would think that this would work in Black's favor for as long as he can continue it. It's also possible for White to be the mimic, but Black can easily disrupt this by playing on the tengen. There have been famous cases of this tactic, and Fujisawa Hosai 9p (1919-1992) was fond of mane-go. One of the most famous games involved Go Seigen. When Go was fifteen and had been in Japan only a short time, he was given an opportunity to play Kitani Minoru, then a twenty year old 4 dan. This was in 1929. Go startled everyone by beginning on the center point and continuing to play mirror go for over sixty moves. It is amusing to speculate about what he and Kitani were thinking. Perhaps Kitani thought it was a joke. No doubt both were concerned at every move as to how to end the mirroring so as to gain an advantage. Go finally deviated at move 65, and Kitani ended up winning by three points. The game record with some comments supplied by Dave Sigaty from Japanese sources is attached. [Sources: Go Review December 1971, gobase.org, and Dave Sigaty's entries in Sensei's Library]

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