About Weiqi
Having developed in China between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, Go (called Wei Ch’i in China and Baduk in Korea) contends with backgammon for the right to be called the oldest game still played in its original form. Today it is played by millions in Asia and thousands elsewhere. Weiqi is an intellectual but fun game. It is much more complex than the Chinese Chess, thus usually takes quite long to finish a game. A game of Weiqi can take as quick as 15 minutes and as long as days to finish. Weiqi helps to improve one’s concentration, calculation, memory and creativity. It develops one’s systematic thinking skill and develop a good sense of judgement.
If you are interested, you may want to learn how to play weiqi and find out more about the courses offered by the Singapore Weiqi Association.
How To Improve
To improve your weiqi, the most important thing to do is to PLAY MORE!
Below maybe some tips to guide you when you play:
1) When you play a game, concentrate and focus on your game
2) Recall and record a game after you play (whether you have won or lost) and find out where are you mistakes
3) Try to go through the game you have played with your opponent and spot each other mistakes
If you want to play Weiqi, you can head down to the Singapore Weiqi Association to find other players. Monday evenings are especially good—there’s a weekly social meetup then, so you’ll definitely have people to play with. Otherwise, if you’re free, just hop online to play anytime!
You can also read up on weiqi books and go through game records of professional players.
Weiqi History
GO, or otherwise known as Weiqi(directly translated from Chinese), originated from ancient China. There are a tangle of conflicting popular and scholarly anecdotes attributing its invention to two Chinese emperors, an imperial vassal and court astrologer.
One story has it that go was invented by the Emperor Yao (ruled 2357-2256 B.C.) as an amusement for his idiot son. A second claims the Emperor Shun (ruled 2255-2205) B.C. created the game in hopes of improving his weak-minded son’s mental prowess. A third say that one Wu, a vassal of the Emperor Chieh (ruled 1818-1766 B.C.), invented go as well as games of cards. Finally, a fourth theory suggests that go was developed by court astrolgeres during the Chou Dynasty (1045-255 B.C.).
In any event, it is generally agreed that go is at least 3000 to 4000 years old which makes it the world’s oldest strategic board game.
Go has not always enjoyed its current status as the world’s most challenging and intellectually stimulating board game. In its infancy, go was said to have been used by astrologers to divine the future. Later, according to Chinese classics such as The Analects of Confucius, Tso-chuan, all of which was written no earlier than the sixth century B.C., it became the pastime of gamblers and other idlers.
While there might have been even the earlier references to the existence of go in ancient China, the books that contained were probably burned during the reign of Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, who in 221 B.C., ordered that all books be burned.
Beginning around 2000 B.C., go and poetry enjoyed golden age in China, until about 600 A.D.. Whatever its sources and early reputation, by this time go obviously occupied a prestigious position. For example, in the second century A.D, the poet Ma Yung is said to have made himself famous by celebrating go in his verses. Of the many anecdotes about go that have survived from ancient China, the two most popular are these.
Sometime during the late third or early fourth century A.D., a go player named Osan gained historical immortality for his amazing ability to replay entire games (consisting of anywhre from 150 to more than 300 moves) from memory, move for move.
Today, of course, all professional go players and many strong amateurs can do the same. In fact, the customary teaching technique used in Japan is for the teacher to reconstruct-play by play-games played with his students in order to criticize their moves. Nonetheless, this anecdote demonstrates that strength in go and a powerful memory go together.
The second anecdote illustrates the esteem in which go was held during its golden age in China. During the Chin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.), Hsieh An was at war with his nephew Hsieh Hsuan. After many bloody but inconclusive battles, these two warlords decided to spare their remaining soldiers and instead to allow the outcome of their war to be decided on the go board in a game played between themselves. Unfortunately, the result of this contest was not recorded.
No matter how many different story about Weiqi there are, it still remains the fact that Weiqi is a very enjoyable and challenging game. Not only it is intellectual, it is also very fun. In fact, Weiqi has become a language whereby different people from different countries who speak different languages, Weiqi seems to form a bridge between the people.
Scientific Studies
• The research team led by Professor Jun Soo Kwon, SNU College of Medicine, reported a research result that the game of ‘weiqi’ has enormous influence on the structural plasticity of the brain.
• The structure of the brains of professional ‘weiqi’ players shows that different areas of the brain are more closely related to each other and the routes of information transmission are well developed.
A local research team identified for the first time that ‘weiqi’, traditional game from the ancient time of Northeast Asia including Korea, has enormous influence on the structural plasticity of the brain.
The research team (1st author: Boreom Lee, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology) led by Professor Jun Soo Kwon, Department of Psychiatry, SNU College of Medicine, identified the fact that long-term training of ‘weiqi ‘have influence on the white matter structural changes of related brain functions through the research on brain imaging. The research result will be covered in the August edition of Neuroimage, famous magazine on brain imaging.
The research conducted in cooperation with the Korea Weiqi Association was set out to identify differences in brain structure and functions between ordinary people and the Association’s young professional weiqi players and trainees trained for more than 10 years.
The study selected 17 young weiqi players (average age: 17, 14 men and 3 women players) and carried out experiments on them, including diffusion-tensor image, one of MRI images, for a year starting June 2007. The subjects all participated in weiqi training from their childhood and had about 12-year experience in training. Of them, 9 were professional players and the others researchers.
Diffusion-tensor imaging is the latest imaging technology of brain structure to have a naked-eye view of white matters playing as a route to transmit information by connecting all areas of the cerebral cortex in charge of high-level cognitive functions.
The research team identified, through the analysis on diffusion-tensor images, that mutual connectivity of different regions including the frontal lobe, the limbic system, and the sub-cortex in the brains of weiqi players were more developed than those of normal people. These regions are very important to exercise major cognitive functions such as concentration, working memory, execution control ability, and problem-solving ability and the research result suggests that information transmission between such regions takes place more effectively in the brains of people with weiqi training.
In addition, white matter changes in the temporal lobe identified in the group of weiqi players is a typical characteristic of masters trained for a certain technology for a long term. Normal people store memories piece by piece but professionals store the whole of patterns in the temporal lobe. In other words, weiqi experts keep, in a memory reservoir, game patterns specialized based on various experiences acquired through long-term training and take them out in a strategic and efficient manner.
Further, weiqi experts were found to have the frontal lobe-subcortex region of the right brain, usually processing non-verbal, spatial, and time information, more developed compared with normal people. This suggests that weiqi experts are trained to exercise time-spatial information processing ability quickly and efficiently through repeated weiqi training. Also, the fact that the white matters in the right hemisphere of the cerebrum was relatively more changed than in the left hemisphere reflects that the major tasks of the game of weiqi are related to spatial characteristics.
“The outcome of this research is expected to contribute to in-depth inspection on the structure and functions of the human brain. The outcome is likely to help to improve educational goals for brain development and treatments of various disorders related to cognitive functions,” said Professor Jun Soo Kwon.
His research team currently conducts the analysis on working memory tests using functional MRI and the analysis on neuropsychology tests in parallel in order to examine the influence of long-term weiqi training on functional brain changes. Such research is expected to explain the plasticity of brain functions and the process of cognitive functions based on weiqi training in a more comprehensive and succinct manner.