Game between Tang Expectant Official Jia Xuan and Yang Xican. Jia Xuan was Black and moved first. Xican lost by 8 points.

119 moves each. White captures 21 black stones. Black captures 9 white stones. White has 43 points. Black has 51 points.

(JF) Although described as of the Tang dynasty in the original, Jia Xuan (also sometimes given as Jia Yuan because of a later taboo on the character Xuan) was active in the Taiping Xingguo to Chunhua periods of the Northern Song dynasty, 976-995. The explanation is believed to be that, although the main Tang dynasty ended in 907, there was a brief Later or Southern Tang which ceased in the middle of the 10th century. Since records appear to show he was active for several decades, this would be consistent. He was certainly, however, an Expectant Official in the Hanlin Academy and can be regarded as a guoshou (champion or Meijin).

The reference to Tang may also be to emphasise that the game was played under the Tang-style counting rules (i.e. Japanese plus group tax). An interesting point for the rules mavens is that this game indicates that only live groups are penalised by the group tax. The seki group is not. The implied double-ko in the top left also has some technical value in reconstructing old rules (i.e. it is not played out).

Note that there are some rather defective versions of this game around, mainly in Japanese sources (this applies also to some other games in this series).

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.