Go Reviews

The Proceedings of The Second International Baduk Conference St. Petersburg - July 2003
Large format (8.5x14); 236 pp.
Available from the AGA: $30
Reviewed by Roy Laird

The Department of Baduk Studies at Myong-ji University, headed by Dr. Jeong Soo-hyun 9-Dan, is trying to build a base of academic knowledge about baduk (go). This year the Department sponsored the 2nd International Conference on baduk during the European Go Congress in St. Petersburg. Of thirteen papers that were presented, one entitled "Some Games Travel, Some Don't", by Ulrich Schadler, caught my eye. Schadler seems to be involved with the Swiss Museum of Games, where they are trying to figure out the best way to organize their exhibits. Creating categories like "chance," "strategy," "simulation" posed difficulties, because some games cross categories. So they thought, what about an "environmental" approach? Show games that flourished at different times in different cultures.

But the Swiss Museum encountered a similar problem -- some games cross categories and have become popular throughout the world. So they wound up creating a special room for voyager games such as chess, backgammon and playing cards. Despite its many advantages as a superior strategy game, go is not in the voyager room. Why not? Schadler theorizes that three factors could account for why some games spread more easily than others: dynamism, variability and gambling. Chess games end dramatically, and the pieces and rules can be altered to suit local taste. Baduk, however, has a universal quality that renders such adaptation at once unnecessary and impractical. It's often not clear whether the game has ended, or what the result is. These elegant and mysterious qualities may partly explain why baduk is so obscure in the West. Many Korean players will attest that baduk actually works quite well as a gambling game, but Schadler's other ideas are intriguing, and can be fun to think about. For instance, another question arises: if baduk was so difficult to spread, how did it spread so widely and easily from China to Japan and Korea?