Recently, I was introduced by Phil Preston to an ancient oriental game called "Go". Go has a few simple rules, yet it it is an incredibly deep game. Basically, it's a game played by two players, one white and one black, on a grid 19 lines across and 19 lines down. They put little pieces, called "stones" on the grid points. The goal is to enclose the most territory on the board, which you do by surrounding points on the board, and, occasionally, attacking the areas that your opponent is trying to surround. You can get more info on the rules and even an introduction on how to play at Mindy McAdams' excellent site.
The funny thing that I observed with go is that playing it is analogous to many situations I've faced in life. Yes, I know that sounds silly. After all, how is it possible that putting stones on a board could have any similarity at all to life? The funny thing is, though, that you don't understand it until you play ...
I am a complete amateur at the game, not yet beyond the novice stage. But even so, it's just that what I see as successful strategies in Go reflect some of my views on life. Weird and strange, I know, but hear me out.
How is it possible that there are common traits? My personal opinion is that it is almost a natural consequence that any sufficiently complex game played by humans -- especially one such as Go, which is about territory, protection and sacrifice will take on some aspects of human endeavour. Originally, in Japan, playing Go was considered excellent training for military officers. I think I have some ideas about why.
In the first part of a Go game, you essentially try to stake out the outposts of your "moyo" - the area that you hope to have as your territory at the end of your game. But how big do you make your "moyo"? If you make it too small, if you're too cautious, even though you may well be able to defend it successfully, it may not be enough to win you the game. On the other hand, if you try to grab too large an area, if you're too ambitious, you will have a hard time keeping it all together and preventing your "moyo" from falling to pieces, and also end up losing the game.
How does this compare to life? Aren't we always trying to see just how far we can go in achieving our ambitions, while not stretching ourselves beyond our limitations, which would lead to us coming to harm? On the other hand, if we're too timid, too cautious, isn't there always the fear that we won't reach our full potential?
It's also about understanding your skill level. How much, with your current skill level, do you think you can defend? If you don't know how good you are; if you don't know what your strengths and weaknesses are, then trying to decide how you're going to attack the problem is very difficult.
Probably, your best bet is to grab the largest area you think you can successfully defend, even if it's not big enough and hope that an opportunity presents itself to expand it.
When you start learning about Go, for whatever reasons (probably because of being trained on chess), your initial instincts are to attack almost immediately. Gwonn, a Korean friend has taught me that good Go is not about conflict, it's about compromise. Sometimes you are fighting over an area, that even under the best circumstances would garner you a small area, while your opponent is busy taking over unclaimed parts of the board. You come to realise that conflict is necessary (otherwise the game would be boring), but that conflict in isolation is usually pointless; the points you and your adversary fight over are the ones that hold critical strategic importance - the ones that have ramifications not just for the pieces involved, but for the rest of the board.
In Go, whole areas of territory can hinge on who is ahead: black or white. Being one move behind can literally lose you the game. So before starting a sequence of moves, it pays to analyse how many moves a strategy will take.
The analysis of Go is a very tricky thing; compared to chess, there are many more possibilities. A stone can go just about anywhere on the board. In chess, there are 20 possible opening moves (I think - each of 8 pawns can move 1 or 2 forward; and each knight can move to two positions). In Go, there are 361 possible opening moves (19x19 possible places to put the stone). However, because of the way Go is played, there are more symmetries than you can have in chess. As a result, intuitions and patterns and what you "think" is right is important.
Of course, having said that, I am not saying that it's all pattern-matching and intuition; you certainly need the intelligence in analysing what your opponent is trying to do. Nor is it true that you can't improve your intuitions: you can through practice and watching other people play.
When playing bad Go (which I do), you'll often find yourself forced to make a reactive move: your opponent does something that you must respond to immediately or risk losing territory. The net result of this continued playing on the back foot is that while you're wasting moves trying to defend, your opponent is busy developing things elsewhere.
This is analogous to the whole reactive-proactive thing. Good organisations see problems before they happen and try to plan ahead, try to develop, while bad organisations are too busy just coping with all the stuff that inevitably comes up.
An isolated piece in Go, one not even remotely connected with other pieces, is in extreme danger, especially if the opponent starts to surround it. Exactly how much danger it is in depends on the situation; but sometimes all it needs is one loose tie to another stone, that when the time comes, can be strengthened and made safe.
Sometimes a group of pieces can be suffocated by having too many of its own kind forced into too small an area. At the same time, pieces have to be given some breathing space, otherwise they may well end up dead.
Another basic strategy in Go is that "two eyes are safe". The notion of "eyes" is a bit difficult to explain, but translated into English, it's basically the idea that if you have access to two linked areas, and it is impossible to attack both simultaneously, then no matter what the opponent does, he can not regain that area or attack your stones.
Much like life, it's dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket - but if you can figure out how to do two alternatives to a problem, such that if one fails, the other will most likely succeed, then you can be secure about things working themselves out.
To succeed in Go, two important ideas are to expand from the area already under your control, and ensure that your pieces are safe. A piece in isolation is never safe, but a group can be. Once you have established a relatively safe zone, in the middle game one expands from this safe zone. A good opponent when playing can actually effectively "lock you in"; in other words, from within your safe zone, you can not expand. If this happens, there is very little that you can do; except for take huge risks building within enemy areas. So, it is important to realise that the easiest way to gain more territory is to grow from existing territory, and if you are surrounded then that becomes very difficult. How to avoid being surrounded? Difficult question, I'll tell you when I find out ...
Overconfidence can be a real killer in Go. You think everything is in place, and your stones are safe; you think you are in control; when one point of weakness, one flaw in things can totally switch the game; and this is far more likely to happen if you are not expecting it; i.e. you are overconfident. Being confident is important in the game, but if you grow overconfident you tend to become undercautious, assuming that you can't lose, when you can.
Sacrifice is part of the game of Go. A beginner will watch a game, thinking that one side has made a stupid move offering to sacrifice a piece, but it is often the case in go that sacrifices, when part of a bigger plan, for an important part of the strategy. If a player doesn't want to lose any pieces at all, the game becomes very difficult to win, and likely the player may end up losing more than the sacrificed piece.
If there is no escape for a piece, if it can not be saved, and this can be determined, then trying to save it with extra stones will only lead to the death of those stones too. If a stone is dead, it must be left to die. Otherwise, more stones will die.
In Go, there are many good moves, but often playing good moves is not enough to win the game ... you have to play better moves than your opponent. Each move is precious, and moves spent defending territory that is already safe is a move that could have been used more productively elsewhere.
It's such a simple but beautiful game. How can it hold so much meaning? I don't understand to be honest. But it does for me. Perhaps it is something I have imposed on the game that is not there, but is not the same thing true of poetry, where we are expected to read through the words and yet find something beyond them?