6. GAME IN XINGGUO TEMPLE
Also known as "A Wild Fight between Two Champions, Going To and Fro in a Multitude of
Variations"
Played at the Ordination Centre, Xingguo Temple, within the Liang Gate, Kaifeng
Sun Shen cedes to Guo Fan who has Black and first move
54=51
(JF) The Xingguo Temple was originally the Longxing Buddhist Temple of the Tang Dynasty, but was converted into a granary by the Later Zhou Emperor Shi Zong (r. 944-960). The Northern Song Emperor Tai Zu converted it back to a temple in Kaibao 2 (969) then endowed it in the first year of the era Taiping Xingguo (976), whereupon it became known as Xingguo Temple.
Click here to download the game in sgf format.
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.
