Computer go has improved dramatically in recent years, For instance, a program named “Zen” recently earned a rating 
of KGS 4D by playing 83 games in 24 hours at that rating, and winning 60 of them. Peter Shotwell (l) has written about computer go for years, and covers all the latest advances in a thorough update of his article available from The Bob High Memorial Library, entitled, “A Time Line of Supercomputer Go: Temporal Difference Learning to Monte Carlo Programming.” Also available are two appendices featuring interviews with some of the more prominent programmers. Shotwell also joined the critical reaction to Henry Kissinger’s recent use of go principles to explain Chinese thinking, posting “Thoughts on the Relationship of Go to On China by Henry Kissinger and The Protracted Game by Scott Boorman,” arguing in detail that neither of the books contribute much towards understanding the basic differences between Eastern and Western history, thinking and language that are the roots of the differences in strategic outlooks, both past and present.
– Roy Laird
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Shotwell Updates Computer Coverage, Challenges Kissinger
Sunday October 30, 2011
Boz Slams Dr. K, Says China’s Policy “More Akin To Chess”
Monday October 10, 2011
by Roy Laird
Earlier this year, we covered the skeptical reaction to Henry Kissinger’s claim, in his new book On China, that principles of go — or weiqi, as it’s known in China – influence Chinese military and political thinking. (Click here to view the article. ) The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and others found the comparison shallow and superfluous. Noted go author Peter Shotwell disputed the historical basis for Kissinger’s assumptions here. Now Richard Bozulich, the founder of Ishi Press and Kiseido and author or publisher of dozens of the finest go books in English, goes even farther, in an essay available for download exclusively on the AGA’s Bob High Memorial Library. In Richard Bozulich on Kissinger on China and Go, he presents a set of facts to support the view that in fact China pursues particularly unreasonable, unyielding policies, while the US and even chess-playing Russia sometimes apply “commonsense” principles that can also be found in go, but do not originate there. Whether or not one agrees, it’s a well-made case and a fascinating read. I especially enjoyed a section intended for non-players in which the “commonsense” aspects of strategic concepts like aji and yosu-miru seem to come clearly into focus, even for a non-player. We eagerly await Dr. Kissinger’s response . . .
Shotwell Updates Go! More Than a Game
Monday July 4, 2011
Go writer Peter Shotwell reports that he recently updated Go! More Than a Game with a brand-new chapter covering 
recent developments in the go world. New material in Go! — first published in 2003 by Tuttle — includes Computer Go Turns into Supercomputer Go, Surreal Numbers and Combinatorial Game Theory, Go Combinatorics: The Maximum Number of Possible Go Positions, Games and their Length, Asian Professional Go, Two Giant Tibetan Go Boards and A Re-dating and Re-interpretation of the Pre-Han Confucian Go Passages. Because of space limitations, the section on beginner’s use of The 36 Strategies has been dropped from the latest edition, “however they will soon appear in the AGA e-library” Shotwell says, adding that he’s now at work on a review for the EJ of the use of go in Henry Kissinger’s new book On China and Scott Boorman’s The Protracted Game.
GO IN THE NEWS: U.S. Strategists Learning from Go, says Wall Street Journal
Sunday June 26, 2011
“Forget chess,” said the Wall Street Journal on June 11. “To understand geopolitics in Taiwan or the Indian Ocean, U.S. strategists are learning from Go.” David Lai (r), a professor at the Army War College, has been telling senior military officials in the 
U.S. and overseas in recent months that go “holds the key to understanding how the 
Chinese really think—and U.S. officials had better learn to play if they want to win the real competition,” wrote reporter Keith Johnson in “What Kind of Game Is China Playing?” Lai authored a 2004 paper called “Learning From the Stones,” that described China’s long-term and indirect approach to acquiring influence and “zeroed in on concrete geopolitical challenges such as Taiwan, which he described, in terms of Go, as a single isolated stone next to a huge mass of opposing pieces.” The paper caught the attention of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who the WSJ says “quickly became a convert to his way of thinking.” Kissinger refers to go throughout his new book, “On China,” (“Flawed” Use of Go in Kissinger’s New Book? 6/5 EJ). One of Lai’s first fans was Air Force Gen. Steve Lorenz, formerly the head of Air University, where Lai then taught, reports the WSJ. “Gen. Lorenz heard one of his lectures in late 2005 and summoned him for a full briefing about the insights that Go could offer.” In recent months, Lai has briefed officers at Pacific Command, the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, the Center for Army Analysis and the Australian Defence College. “One officer at the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, where Mr. Lai gave a presentation at a commander’s conference in March to about three dozen officers, said ‘the game analogy really sparked fascination’ and was useful for Air Force officers 
who might have to consider China a potential adversary one day. He conceded, though, that the briefing’s heavy academic content left ‘plenty of heads hurting.’ ‘You’ve got to think like the other guy thinks,’ said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” Other say that comparing national strategic thought to popular sports and games is an over-simplification. “Go is a very useful device for analyzing Chinese strategy, but let’s not overdo it,” James Holmes, an expert on Chinese strategy and professor at the Naval War College said. The 6/11 article also features a video of the WSJ’s Christina Tsuei getting a lesson on the game from 35-year go veteran – and Brooklyn Go Club organizer — Jean-Claude Chetrit (left).
“Flawed” Use of Go in Kissinger’s New Book?
Sunday June 5, 2011
Henry Kissinger ‘s understanding of go strategy informs his latest book, On China.
However, according to a recent review in The Economist, Kissinger’s book “is marred by three related flaws. The first is Mr Kissinger’s insight that Chinese strategists think like players of wei qi or Go, which means that, in the long term, they wish to avoid encirclement. Westerners are chess-players, tacticians aiming to get rid of their opponents’ pieces ‘in a series of head-on clashes’, he writes. ‘Chess produces single-mindedness; wei qi generates strategic flexibility.’” The review, entitled No go points out that “This conceit has been used by other authors. It appears every few pages here like a nervous tic. Even before Mr Kissinger joins the game, the metaphor is pulled into service to analyse, among other things, Chinese policy in the Korean war, the Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s (where, of course, “both sides were playing by wei qi rules”), the 1962 war with India (“wei qi in the Himalayas”). Later he describes events in Indochina as ‘a quadripartite game of wei qi,’ just at the time when genocide was under way in Cambodia.” Finally, The Economist reviewers say, “the picture of Chinese foreign policy, as formulated by cool, calculating, master strategists playing wei qi, makes it appear more coherent, consistent and effective than it has been. China’s involvement in the Korean war, for example, led, in Mr Kissinger’s phrase, to ‘two years of war and 20 years of isolation,’ hardly a goal for China—or a wei qi triumph.” In a related story, Leonard Lopate recently interviewed Kissinger on NPR’s WYNC and they briefly discussed the game of go; click here to hear the interview; they talk about go from approximately 13:50 to about 16:20. Click here for our January 24, 2011 report on Kissinger on Go and Chinese Strategic Thinking.
- thanks to Robert A. McCallister, past president of the AGA and former publisher of The American Go Journal, and to Richard Simon, for spotting these reports
Kissinger on Go and Chinese Strategic Thinking
Monday January 24, 2011
Discussing China on CNN Sunday, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that “One has to understand the Chinese intellectual
game, which is what we call go (and) they call weiqi.” Explaining that “it’s a game of strategic encirclement,” Kissinger said that “our intellectual game is chess. Chess is about victory or defeat. Somebody wins.” Kissinger contrasted chess in which “all the pieces are in front of you at all times, so you can calculate your risk” with go, where the pieces “are not all on the board, and your opponent is always capable of introducing new pieces.” Historically, Kissinger said, the Chinese use strategic analysis based on “the go way.” Despite Kissinger’s cogent understanding of the game, CNN mistakenly used video of Chinese Chess to illustrate the segment. Click here to see the interview; the comments about go begin at 7m32s.
Thanks to the many readers who alerted us to this interview.
UPDATE: Noting that “The goal is less victory than persistent strategic progress,” Kissinger made similar comments in a 2004 Newsweek column. (Thanks to Roy Laird for finding this)
