Tabletop Wars : Ancient Asian Board Game Finds New Enthusiasts
Like Chinese nobles who waged tabletop war and Japanese Samurai who battled for control of smooth slate stones centuries ago, a new wave of Ba Duk board warriors seized territory Sunday in the very heart of a suburban shopping strip.
Well after dawn the sounds of skirmish filled the sunny quarters of the newly opened Korean Ba Duk academy edging the Macadam of the Western shopping center at Garden Grove Boulevard. Polished pebbles clicked softly against cherrywood cups. The battle cry of warriors soared to polite murmurs.
Yong Kwan Ju, 52, a former fish wholesaler turned master of the academy, surveyed the victories and wreckage of war like a proud general inspecting the troops. Just a month ago he opened his Ba Duk academy to teach “lessons in life” along with the rudiments of the ancient Asian board game. Sunday almost 70 players from all over Southern California gathered in the academy for a weekend of board warfare and the promise of trophies and a $500 prize.
In 1942, Life magazine used the game of Ba Duk--or Go as it is known in the United States--to explain Japan’s war strategy. In 1994, tournament player and family practice physician Steven Joe uses the game to explain an approach for life.
“It teaches patience. It’s possible to be too impatient and aggressive too early and that could lead to downfall. You also learn foresight--the more you can analyze ahead the more likely you are to succeed,” said Joe, 32, who juggles his Anaheim Hills practice so that he can come to the academy for play at least twice a week.
The rules of the game--played with 180 stones on one side, 181 on the other--are deceptively simple, but the strategies are so complex that most practiced Ba Duk players can easily best computers at the game.
Matches are waged on a thick wooden board crosshatched with lines intersecting at 361 points. The stones--which are whacked against the board with the force of a poker player slamming down a full house--move only once unless captured. Two competing players vie to surround their opponent’s stones and seize territory. It’s a process that usually takes an hour, but in some legendary competitions has lasted for days. When a player commands as much territory as possible, the game ends, with victory going to the competitor with the most spoils.
Historians believe the game originated in China before 2,000 BC, and legend is that an emperor created the game as a mental exercise for his slow-thinking son. Another explanation credits the evolution of the game to ancient astrological forecasting.
Along the whitewashed walls of the Korean Ba Duk academy, the airy rooms are slowly being decorated with delicate calligraphy. The writings express lessons of the game that have endured as values for nobles and Buddhist monks, Japanese Samurai and Korean military commanders, corporate raiders and computer hacks indulging in games of Ba Duk over the global Internet.
Jae Myong, a retired librarian from UC Irvine who grew up in Korea, donated the drawing that spells out the characters: “A good fighter doesn’t end a match in anger.”
“No anger,” Myong explained, “means no emotion. Always have a good attitude. This is the right way to play. . . . This is very much like the way of living. These are the ethics to be followed.” Myong learned the game when he was in his thirties, carefully studying books and game strategies. Gradually he mastered the lessons, learning that in tabletop warfare all strategies must be balanced: aggression with caution, greed with patience, harmony with hunger for power. After all, one point can win the game as decisively as a hundred.
Three times a week Myong plays the game at one of the two Ba Duk clubs in Garden Grove, gazing thoughtfully at the mint-shaped pieces while younger men gather to watch his swift, deliberate moves.
In the rankings of the game, Myong falls among the more seasoned amateurs.
This weekend’s Ba Duk tournament was sponsored by the American Go Circuit Tournament and Lloyd Eric Cotsen, a Los Angeles businessman who is such a hard-core fan that he said he often plays 2 a.m. matches against Internet computer opponents as far away as Germany.
Cotsen runs the Princeton Review Education Testing service but manages to sandwich time for the game into his work schedule.
On Thursday afternoon he answered his telephone with the greeting, “Can I kill him?” Then he politely added: “Can you call me back? I’m in the middle of my Go lesson.”
For the last five years Cotsen has donated prize money for Southern California tournaments to promote the game and--more important--train new challengers.
“I really wanted to provide a forum to play at my strength,” said Cotsen. “There aren’t a lot of people playing at my level. My goal is to promote it to bring more people. I don’t want to get too spiritual but I can apply strategies of the game to my business. My problem is I become too micro-focused on original battles and I lose the game. So I’ve got to shift back and not get obsessed with the small kill. I’ve got to see the bigger picture.”
But yesterday Cotsen’s big picture was clear.
In a quiet storefront in the shopping center, weekend warriors quietly trained for Ba Duk battle. The edgy click of slate stones signaled they were ready for more.