Intellectual games

This lens is dedicated to my beloved late husband Boris who liked to play Go.
The origins of Go are shrouded in the mists of ancient Asian history, Go's early history is debated, but the game is thought to have originated, at least 4,000 - 5,000 years ago. Some say that the board may have been a fortune-telling device used by Chinese cosmologists to simulate the universe's relationship to an individual, with black and white stones representing yin and yang. A famous legend holds that the ancient Chinese Emperor Yao (2337 - 2258 BC) created the game to improve the intelligence of his son, Danzhu, who he thought needed to learn discipline, concentration, and balance. Recent archaeology has added more concrete facts. Chinese archaeologists have discovered a porcelain Go board from the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 24 AD). By the time of Confucius (around 600 B.C.), wei-ch'i or weiqi (in Chinese) had already become one of the "Four Accomplishments" (along with brush painting, poetry and music) that must be mastered by the Chinese gentleman.
The details of Go have been unknown outside of Asia for most of the game's history. Oscar Korschelt, a German engineer, is credited as being the first person to try to popularize Go in a non-Asian country. He brought this game to Europe, and thus became the first one who systematically described this game in a Western language.
The Western players did not take up the game as more than a passing interest until the 1950s. As recently as 20 years ago, formal games between Go masters from different countries were practically unheard of. In 1978, Manfred Wimmer became the first Westerner to receive a professional player's certificate from an Asian professional Go association. The last 10 years have seen a historic proliferation of international championships, where the great players from Japan, China, Korea and elsewhere compete to be seen as the world's best player. But itt was not until 2000 that a Westerner, Michael Redmond, achieved the top rank awarded by an Asian Go association. Now, The World Ing Cup, a quadrennial event with $1 million in prizes, tops the list. Annual events include the Fujitsu Cup and the Dongyang Securities Cup.
Other world championships on the amateur level include the World Amateur Go Championship, the World Youth Go Championship, the World Women's Championship, and the World Pairs Go Championship for male-female teams.
The American Go Association sends U.S. representatives to these events.