Journal

The Style Gap

For anyone in the go world, it should not come as a surprise to you when I say that a majority of go books that I own are from the Japanese school of go (e.g., Kiseido). After all, a lot of new players come to know of the game through Hikaru no Go, which would explain why there is generally a large focus on Japanese go terminology, literature, KGS, and so forth. As a result, I would not be surprised if a large number of go players are unaware that the go they’ve been exposed to all this time is just one style of the major countries.

Now, for those players who are immersed in the professional world, I’m sure you would agree with me when I say that Korean and Chinese styles of go tend to go unnoticed by these players. It is by no means their fault for not knowing this, but realizing this has made me aware of a fantastic learning opportunity for players interested in truly getting stronger.

Since most of my exposure to go has been through the Japanese style, I will begin my exploration of the Korean style of go next month. This means that I will be playing less on KGS and more on Tygem, and I will be studying Korean books in order to find out what differences I can find. By doing so, I hope that it will help further my understanding of the game and provide you with some insight as to things you can do to get stronger as well.

Finally, I want to show you that I do not give advice that I do not follow myself (e.g., playing even games with stronger players). Over the next few weeks, I will be working on an exercise to play even games against dans in Tygem. Not only do I hope to learn a great deal from this exercise, but I hope to also further grasp the differences between Korean style and Japanese style.

Here is the first of many to come: