Chess vs Go

It’s funny how, when I was younger, I used to see pictures of chess on some article and would brim with some pride at having skills in a game that was universally considered a symbol of strategy. I was, hyper-provincially speaking, decent at chess, and most people I met face to face (again, meaning weekend players, not the rated kind) I could dispatch without too much concern. Not that I didn’t know where I stood. The internet was just budding then, and online testing revealed at best a 1700 rating, though I was sure it would be much lower against those who knew what they're doing.

Upon more thinking, however, I'm sure that the symbol of chess as strategy needs to be retired forever. This isn’t to say there is no strategic component to chess, or that it’s some peasant’s game (though that has been hinted at in China that the real aristocrats play go). Rather, if one is to allude to a game with more strategy to it, there are better choices. Even within the realm of chess, there’s shogi, a game which requires some more strategy than its western version. See, shogi is the Japanese version of chess, and has a few elements which makes it less of a tactics game and requires more long term thinking (though it has no end game, and thus lacks that beautiful ending that people enjoy in a long grueling chess game).

But I digress. Back to chess. It’s been said that chess is 99% tactics, and given what most grandmasters still say, this seems to hold true even today. The lowest estimate would still have chess in the 90% for tactics. See, if one goes down a piece in chess, it’s more or less game over. The position would have to be horrendously bad for the player with extra piece(s) not to come out on top (I’m not, of course, speaking about a a short sacrifice that would soon yield more pieces or a checkmate for the person who just sacrificed).
Now, when it comes to Shogi, even if you gain a handful of pieces, the weakness inherent in most of the pieces, and the ability to drop pieces, makes it so that advantage isn’t as pronounced. Now, I’m not exactly proficient at shogi, my visit to Tokyo proved that, but there was a kind of grasping as I played the game that I knew couldn’t be easily solved with the correction of a few tactics. Nevertheless, allow me to delve into the matter of shogi, as it is my most favorite version of chess.
Shogi is, if anything, an interesting ode to cultural differences and how those differences manifest themselves in the realm of games. Today with a worldwide board game culture that may seem a distant phenomenon, but allow me to dive into the details: shogi came to Japan, we can only assume, as the original chess game, or as a version of the Chinese game (though many say it originated in India, there is still some level of discussion as to whether or not it was there or China). The game in Japan took on many different variations. There’s chu-shogi with a large 13x13 game and and other, close to esoteric, versions with hundreds of games pieces to each side. A few hundred years ago there was a dwindling of all the different versions and the 9x9 game, with drop abilities, came into being.
The drop ability is what makes Shogi so damn interesting. And it originates from the samurai habit of changing sides once one is captured so that they may live on. Hence, when one first sees a shogi game (coming from the Western version) one sees that there is only one color. The pieces are pointed, designed to be used for either side. When you capture the other side’s piece, it’s in your hand and thus can now be dropped anywhere on the board, with few limitations.
Indeed, the promotional aspect of shogi also makes for an interesting game. In Western chess, the point is almost always to promote the pawn and get a queen. Usually that ends the game. A passed pawn can make for a lot of strategy in the endgame of chess. In shogi, one can promote all but two kinds of pieces, and the promotion ends up being an integral part of the game (last three ranks allow for promotion).
I mentioned different pieces, and shogi has many different ones. Of course, it has the king, with the same objective as western chess (kill the opposing king). And a bishop and rook and weaker pawn (in some respects, the drop feature allows for one to remake the pawn as needed) and a weaker knight. It has other pieces such as the lance, and the gold and silver generals. Outside of the one rook and bishop, the pieces are all very immobile. The generals, some of the stronger pieces, are really weaker kings. Only if they are in hand, about to be dropped are they even close to being worthwhile. One can ravage the opponent’s one side, but if the king is safe on the other side, that doesn’t even mean that the game is close to being over.
I’ll leave the complete strategy for another time, not that I would do much but add a beginner’s view of the matter. Nonetheless, one cannot abide by the western chess tactic of gaining a slight advantage, then squeezing the opponent (trading/reducing works well in chess, at least at my level) until that advantage is more pronounced. You cannot get away with that in shogi. I’ve tried and failed miserably.
Of course, being an American, there are many disadvantages to shogi, the largest one being that outside of Japan, few people play the game. One thing I don’t like are the pieces. They are merely flat, pointed, with the names written on them. To some extent, the kanji is beautiful to a foreigner, but one cannot help but think that representational pieces, like western chess, would work the best.

And when it comes to go—especially the 19x19 version, but even in the 9x9 one (though this one has more tactics involved)—there is something to the gameplay and the strategy that still has me enthralled with the complexity of the game. If one is to be generous and say that chess is 10% strategy, then go is usually about 90% strategy.
For a game with such simple rules, it’s nothing short of a magisterial game of strategy. As a chess player, I can sense my habits of getting tenacious in a tactical fight in the corner, working against me. It’s hard to fight it. Nonetheless, it is easily the most complex game (within reason, of course, one can simply take one of those shogi games with hundreds of pieces per side and say it’s more complex, but that doesn’t mean it’s a feasible game to play, or play well within a reasonable time, is it?) that I know of. Of course, history adds to this, adds to this ability to have a long strategy component.
One other matter people who play go try to bring up is the fact that go isn’t playable, on a high level, by computers. In chess, since the original games of the 90s, computers have come a long way and now easily dispatch grandmasters in matches. Meanwhile, they haven’t yet beaten the best in shogi, though that is a matter of mere time. Meanwhile with go, computers are no where near even professional level of play. This is will change, and I don’t think anyone thinks otherwise, but it does say something about the complexity of the game, even if one is to disregard what the computer does to gain its proficiency (nothing at all like human, and certainly nothing “beautiful”, mainly it’s search tree pruning, while with go more pattern recognition is needed).
That is the least interesting aspect in comparing the games. Again, we’re not computers. A game of seeing and deciphering blurry photos would have humans on top, but that wouldn’t mean that the game is complex or interesting. What one can do is compare the two games and play them. Again, the strategy component in go should be immediately obvious to anyone coming from Western chess, or even shogi. Enjoyment takes many different levels, and complexity is not necessarily the main one. One can easily fall in love with the battle aspect of chess, versus the multi front war aspect of go. One can also personify the pieces in chess as something to like. Whereas go’s egalitarianism could drive people away (and even shogi’s pieces, I must admit, don’t inspire much, visually speaking). Design certainly matters, though I think my American side is showing its face here.
So, give these other games a try if you haven’t already. They are surely interesting and worth your time, even if finding over the board opponents is too hard. As for me, I’ll keep working at improving my pathetic go game. As for shogi, I think it can catch on as a more strategic version of western chess. All such games only take a matter of time. What I think it lacks is some level of aesthetics, a beauty that could be corrected with 3-d pieces, still designed to point one way, to flip upon promotion that I will be working to solve soon. And for those photos, I hope that they will soon learn to place go pieces, with a view of the full 19x19 game, in all its complexity.

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