Students going crazy for Go game

The very best players are treated like celebrities, the biggest games are televised and the next day, the scores are printed in the paper.\nThis is no professional sport, however. It's a game, one that most Americans have never even heard about -- but it's immensely popular in Asia.\nIt's called Go. The closest Western game it can be compared to is chess, but it's much more complex. In fact, computers still can't beat humans at Go because there are so many possible moves in each turn.\nNow, Go has spread across the Pacific Ocean to IU.\nA little more than two years ago, Chris Horn, a recent IU graduate, and a few of his friends heard in their cognitive science class about the difficulties computers have playing Go. Horn and his friends learned how to play the game from books and then approached the Asian Culture Center about starting a Go club.\n"They were happy to have us," junior Andrew Allred said. "They bought the boards and stones, and they even made us popcorn and drinks."\nPlayers on campus meet at 5 p.m. every Tuesday, and they are even planning a tournament some time later this year.\nSome people say Go, which began in either China or Tibet more than 4,000 years ago, has a certain addictive quality to it. The game is similar to puzzle video games like Tetris. \nThe game is played on a wooden board criss-crossed by black lines that make up 361 spaces. Each player then uses smooth black or white beads to surround the other player's beads. The other players beads then are captured. This continues until there is no more usable space on the board. \n"It looks really simple, but there are lots of interesting possibilities during a game," Horn said.\nThe game of Go is so addictive that some players say they begin to see strategies from the game in real life.\n"It changes the way you look at things. Sometimes you have these really freaky 'Go epiphanies,'" Allred said. "You look at a tree and see Go patterns, or one day I was telling Bryan (Bergert) that Go was giving me a better understanding of our military flaws with the war in Iraq."\nGo has a bit of a history with war strategy. Japan's island-hopping strategy during World War II is said to be based off of Go techniques. In fact, the U.S. military encouraged GIs to play the game, hoping it would give them a better understanding of the Japanese mind.\nFor a time, Go declined in popularity in the Far East, a status it still has in some countries such as China. \n"It's not that popular," said Jing Li Cheng, a Go-playing graduate student from China. "Only people who are really interested in it or families with a tradition of playing Go play it. Some see it as an opportunity for their kids to get famous and send their kids to schools." \nRecently though, the Japanese have taken a renewed interest in Go thanks to the anime "Hikaru's Go."\nAllred said he has a theory as to why Go is still widely played four millennia since its creation.\n"Go is a very territorial game," he said. "And everything humans do is territorial."\n-- Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.