Expectant Official Yan Jingshi contended with Gu Shiyan for a pair of gold-petalled lidded bowls. Yan Jingshi was White and played first. Gu Shiyan was Black and won by 1 point.

243 moves. Black captures 6 white stones. White captures 6 black stones. Black has 40 points. White has 39 points.

(JF) Gu Shiyan was a player instructed by the go-loving Tang Emperor Xuanzong to play a Japanese prince who visited the Chinese court in 853. Gu won the game (extant) by surprising the prince with a move that broke two ladders. There is no record of who the prince might have been, but Japanese envoys were common. It does not seem too fanciful to speculate that the game here was prior to that and led to Gu's selection.

Expectant Official (daizhou) was the rather lowly rank assigned to go players who served the Imperial court. The meaning was that the holder was still a recommendee (on probation) awaiting the royal edict, which never came, of course.

The formula used to describe the result is significant. It is proof that at this time Chinese players in the same way as modern Japanese players, territory plus prisoners, but with the important difference that at the end of the game each side is "penalised" by a tax of 2 points for each group.

Brief comments on this game by a modern go expert, Yasunaga Hajime, may also be of interest. Instead of 20 at L16, Black could live with K17, but he would be sealed in. Opting to sacrifice two stones to keep a route open to the centre is advanced thinking, says Yasunaga. Black 26 at P17 shows awareness of using a wall to attack, but as the star stone is high this is actually a loss for Black to modern eyes. For White 29 (N18) simply R13 is better. Go was still seen then as a constant fight, with an emphasis on attacking eye shape. The concept of taking territory was lacking. White 35 (N15) is bad to a modern player, but cutting and connecting were then heavily emphasised. [This is because of the group tax rule, which actually makes a huge difference.]

Click here to download the game in sgf format.

Games from the oldest book of Go

The book is a collection, by Li Yimin, of old text classics (Go Secrets, The Go Classic in Thirteen Chapters), uncommented games, openings and a smallish number of problems. Much of it was copied into the more accessible Xuanxuan Qijing (Gateway to All Marvels - see elsewhere on this site) a century later, but the latter book is a problem book par excellence. The main interest of C&IP is its window on the past, and the clearest view is through its games, most of which we present here.

It should be noted that there are variant texts and even some variations in diagrams. The most notable is that sometimes five starting stones are shown instead of four, the extra one being a white one at the centre point. Modern go scholars reject this extra stone in these games, but there are some grounds for believing that old Chinese go did once use such a fifth stone.