In 1979, I flew to Kyoto to visit a friend. I had been obsessed with chess for the last year or so and had gotten a lot of practice. My friend couldn’t beat me even if I played blindfolded and gave him queen odds so he suggested, “Let me show you another game.” He showed me Go, and I hardly ever played chess again.
The world’s most sophisticated game of strategy, Go resembles chess in that there is no element of chance and all the pieces are in plain view of both players, with nothing hidden. It’s like playing five chess games at once—one in each corner and one in the center of the 19 x 19-line board. Players move alternately, trying to surround territory with walls of their stones. Once a stone is played, it cannot be moved, although a stone or a group of stones can be captured if it is completely surrounded.
Whereas handicapping is difficult in chess, and inaccurate as a leveler of strength, Go features a wonderful method of handicapping. The weaker player, who plays Black, may begin the game with one or several stones on the board before White plays at all.
Upon my return to New York, I looked up all the Go clubs. There were three at the time, populated mostly by ethnicity—Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.
The Korean club was in Flushing, Queens, in a lively and multi-cultural community with delicious and cheap restaurants. Betting was common there so I didn’t go very often, as I particularly dislike the negotiations before a bet as to how much to handicap. I’m not saying that all bettors sandbag but some players mysteriously become several stones stronger when there’s money on the game. The club’s owner was an U.S. Army veteran, about 55, with a gravelly voice that could have come from under a bathtub. “Yaaah, Koreans high-class unemployed. Go to college, then no job. Play Go all day long.” Some real estate brokers used the club as their office, taking calls there and speaking Korean to their customers.
The Japanese club was on 32nd Street, the Little Korea block. While the food options were good, the room was dingy and small with no windows, and quite depressing. In 1984, the club members abandoned the place and moved to a balcony upstairs of a wretched Greek diner on 26th Street at 2nd Avenue. It was open every day so I went on weekdays after work. The diner had its desserts in a revolving glass case, and we used to joke about the “revolting” desserts.
Much more fun was the Chinatown Go Club. On the fifth floor of a decrepit building at Canal just east of Baxter, I climbed a filthy staircase with huge holes in the walls and rats and roaches scurrying around. Out the window upstairs I could see the Sun Say Gay restaurant, which meant “New World”. It was run by Vietnamese but the steam buns, fried rice and noodles were passable. It was next to Kam Man, or the “Golden Gate” supermarket, where you could buy duck or other prepared meals.
During the weekend days, the Go Club was also a ping pong club. In the evening, the ping pong and Go players went home and a mahjong club opened for business. I used to go early in the mornings and help the strongest player, Mr. Tao, a stocky and kindly vegetable truck driver by day, set up the tables and sets. As a reward, he would play me a teaching game. The Go community is much more helpful to beginners than the chess community, and this partly reflects the nature of the games. In chess, the object is to destroy the opponent. While Go stones may be captured, Go is like a game of market share, where you can win by as little as one point. Although I have known very lovely exceptions, frequently the best chess players have personalities that are aggressive, even hostile. In Go, you must show respect for the opponent and not be too greedy.
I spent most of 1984 sitting in a construction trailer, tabulating deliveries of gravel, dirt, and concrete to a warehouse building site in New Jersey. There was nothing to do for most of the day so I memorized Go openings, called joseki, meaning “formulas”. I got so good at it that even Mr. Tao would ask me, “Michael, what’s the joseki in this position?” and I would lay out the standard book sequence effortlessly.
A Japanese neighbor of mine called Watoku played me handicap games and I improved quickly. I did problems of life and death, where the object was to kill a group or to survive an attack. In Go, since the stones cannot be moved once they are played, one doesn’t usually win by capturing like in chess but rather by making the opponent’s previous move look stupid. That said, if possible, one may kill the opponent and end the war.
Now Go players are ranked from a theoretical minimum of 30-kyu up to 1-kyu, which is already quite strong, to 1-dan like a black belt in karate, up to 7-dan or even higher. After those amateur ranks come professional ranks of 1-dan to 9-dan. Although I advanced to 1-dan in one year and 3-dan the next year, I got stuck at 3-dan and couldn’t seem to advance no matter how hard I tried. It took two more years to make 5-dan.
All this was going fine until one Saturday night, one of the mahjong players got shot in an altercation and the place closed for good. That was the old New York for ya. I called Chen Dao Lin, the President of the club, and suggested we join forces and make a combined Go club out of the Chinatown members and the Japanese and American players. He said that depending on the location and other factors, this could be possible.
In 1986, I used to meet a very strong 7-dan named Dae Yol Kim for an exchange of English conversation and Go lessons. Dae Yol had graduated Seoul University in English (think Harvard) but in the U.S., he operated a laundromat. A slight man with a ready smile, Dae Yol was a strict Christian and never drank or swore. A top amateur player of Go, he only wanted to open a Go club and make that his business. One night, I had a dream that we were playing Go in a loft. I could see the high ceilings and tall windows and a view of an avenue outside. Dae Yol and I began looking for spaces in Chelsea. We finally found one on the second floor across from the Flatiron Building at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street over a terrible restaurant. The space had a reasonable rent because the building had no elevator.
It took a very modest sum to set up the club with chairs and tables, Go sets, a book and sets inventory for sales, cigarettes, coffee, tea, noodles, and a board that showed the members’ names and ranks. Watoku made me a beautiful upstairs loft storage area of wood slats stained a deep brown. While not quite legal under fire codes, it was unlikely to get me fined. I called Chen Dao and his Chinese contingent came faithfully, and quickly became the most active members. The Japanese were mostly too busy to play much Go, and most Koreans preferred their own club, if only for the food.
Dae Yol hired a few Korean girls as receptionists so we didn’t have to sit there all the time. One Sunday, I was scrubbing the main stairs of the building, a set of 43 diamond-plate steel stairs that were filthy. I poured water and soap on them, got on my knees, and scrubbed my way down to the front door lobby. The Korean girl on duty marveled at my determination. “It’s amazing. Most American guys are dirtbags but you really like it clean!”
I looked up and grinned, “I know there’s a compliment in there somewhere but I can’t quite feel it.” She shrugged a Whatever sort of shrug and went back into the club.
I may have had some issues with the gap between East and West but one thing you could say about my Go club was that it was the only place in New York where Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans could hang out together and even enjoy each other’s company. Part of my obvious fitness from studying kungfu is that nobody wanted to pick a fight and they knew that any kerfluffle with a racist overtone and you’d have to deal with me. The Chinese guys used to call me Chairman Deng, meaning Deng Xiaoping, the ruthless dictator of China in those years.
I worked hard to promote the club and increase membership. Every year, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden had a Cherry Blossom Festival and we set up tables and a demonstration board and I taught a steady stream of spectators the basic rules of the game. On Tuesday night, I had a regular joseki opening study group. On Wednesday, we had Beginners Night and I would play ten or more people simultaneously, making a move and moving to the next board, walking back and forth.
My biggest teaching success was a Chinese fellow named John Davis. A native Taiwanese, a heavy-set 250 lbs. or more, an accountant by trade, John was a total beginner when he came. To distinguish him from the other players named John, we called him Big John. After a few weeks, he asked me for a game. He put nine stones as a handicap, the largest permissible, and I immediately killed his first group. I suggested he study more before he played me again. He seemed upset but recognized the logic. I tried to figure out how he could have a function at the club and he became Vice President in charge of ordering Chinese takeout, a job he filled splendidly.
A year later, he beat me at an even game. He had advanced to 5-dan in one year! I beamed at him, “You’re amazing. This is wonderful! Congratulations,” and he seemed happy to know that I only wished him well and didn’t resent losing. But when a student surpasses his teacher, shouldn’t the teacher be happy?
After the Tienamen Square protests in 1989, in which several hundred protesters were gunned down, a Chinese émigré named Jujo Jiang visited us for a year or so. Apparently, he had picked up the phone at the Chinese Go Center in Beijing and someone told him not to go to Tienamen that night, and to spread the word. He was one of the strongest professionals in the world, an amazing player with a unique style, and he gave lessons for very reasonable fees. Sometimes for fun, we would play a kind of blitz Go, where the players had to move before the third tap of a folding fan on the table. He thought so fast that he could easily give the 5-dan amateurs at our club 9 stones and win while keeping up a coffeehouse patter all the while just to unnerve us.
In those days, the popular style was called the “Outer Space” style, and was characterized by moves very high, near the heaven point at the center of the board. He ignored this and sometimes played low and sometimes high. I asked him how we could develop a style like his and he answered profoundly, “Beginners don’t have styles. They have flaws.”
I first met John Lee at the 1990 Go Congress, a national event for enthusiasts of the game. That year, it was held at a university in Rochester, New York. A pimply 14-year-old prodigy, John was already 5-dan. Apart from his obvious talent at the game, John understood the various ego trips that players indulged in, such as defining themselves as 22-kyu. I believe that there are no meaningful ranks under around 6-kyu. Below that, everyone is a beginner, and the outcome of their games is mostly about luck rather than skill.
This event was John’s first national tournament and first exposure to the professional players that taught Go in the U.S. He made fast friends with Janice Kim, a 21-year-old pro 1-dan from Korea. We gradually got to be friends during and after that tournament, and I followed his progress as he won game after game. Amazingly, Jujo Jiang agreed to be his Go teacher, a rare privilege, as no compensation was involved.
“Jujo!” Young John was excited about something and wanted to ask his teacher. “How do you say, ‘Good Luck,’ in Chinese?”
Jujo’s eyes narrowed, “Why you want to know?”
“I just looked at the pairing chart and my next round opponent is Chinese. I want to tell him, ‘Good luck.’ ”
“I see.” Jujo smiled, “Just say ‘Ni wandanle.’ ”
“Thanks!”
Jujo looked kind and avuncular, “Anytime.”
John went up to the Chinese kid and said, ‘Ni wandanle,’ and the boy turned white as a sheet. Instead of, ‘Good luck,’ Jujo had taught him to say, ‘You’re finished!’
When John told me the story, I also was a bit avuncular. “Your teacher makes a living out of tricking people. Why do you believe what he says to you?”
John moved to New York and I sponsored his education somewhat. I also hired him to translate Korean Go books and to manage my club.
Now many say that Go develops intelligence, patience, and respect. I think that getting strong at Go has one obvious result—you get strong at Go. Beyond that, I think the theory gets very speculative and invites wishful thinking. For example, not all the members were polite. One member named Sergei hailed from Russia and was a strong 5-dan but very rude. The club managers frequently had to calm scenes that he caused with his rough language but we put up with him because he was strong. One day, John Lee happened by while he was studying from a Go magazine and asked him, “Say Sergei, do you have a lot of friends?”
“No, not so many,” Sergei replied.
“You should try being nice,” John said innocently. “You’d probably be much happier if you had friends.”
Of course, it was John’s very youth and innocence that enabled him to say such a thing. From an older man, it would have offended Sergei but how can you get mad when a youngster asks you to be nice? It was like magic. For a week, Sergei played teaching games with weak players. He held the door for women who came to the club. He poured tea for newcomers. He was wonderful. But the effect didn’t last. The next week, he was back to the same surly Sergei. John and I shrugged, “Hopeless case.”
At some point a Chinese member brought in a framed calligraphy that he said represented the ten rules of excellent Go playing. Rule #1 was don’t be greedy. Rule #2 was don’t play close to where the opponent is strong. But the funniest one was Rule #7—the good Go player doesn’t look smart. Presumably this encourages overconfidence in the opponent. At the Go club, we shortened this rule to “Look stupid.” In fact, if a weak player exhibited signs of arrogance or seemed to think he was better than he really was, we all would nod sagely and say, “A case of Rule #7.”
The restaurant downstairs was infested with rodents, who would visit occasionally. I came up the stairs one afternoon and beheld a preposterous sight: Big John Davis standing like an elephant on a chair and Chen Dao running around with a broom trying to swat a mouse. “John,” I warned him, “I don’t have insurance if you fall. Please get down from there. Chen Dao! You can’t catch a mouse that way—you’ll only break the broom. Please stop that!”
One of my Go club members was a retired African-American pharmacist named Mario. I remember happening on him in the Korean Go club in Queens. A very solid 3-dan, Mario was playing white against some random club player when a Korean guy stopped to watch the game. “Oh, you very strong, you playing white. How long you play this game?”
“Thirty years,” said Mario, and placed a stone that killed a huge group.
“Amazing,” the Korean said.
“Why?” Mario asked innocently.
Few Japanese could believe that I was as strong as I was in those days. During a business trip to Japan, I went to the main downtown Kyoto Go club and politely said that I was 5-dan. Some lout said, “5-dan, huh,” and instructed me to put four stones. This would mean he was perhaps one of the strongest amateurs in the world. I indicated awe and bowed, “Really! Thank you for kindly giving me a game.” I put the four stones on the board and proceeded to kill every stone he played.
At some point another club player wandered over and looked at the board. “What the fuck is this?”
I protested, “I told him I was 5-dan but he insisted that I put four stones.”
The fellow laughed, “It seems that he should put four stones against you.” He nudged the other guy out of his seat. “Let me try.” We played even. I won by two points. True to form, the guy bought me a nice dinner.
As Director of the New York Go Club, I became part of what one could call the U.S. Go Mafia. Mostly East Coasters, a small group of dedicated Go players ran the national organization and some local clubs, and were devoted to furthering Go in the U.S. and the world in general. As such a mafioso, I was nominated to a position in the American Go Association. One of my first duties was to go to Taiwan and seek donations for U.S. Go.
In those days, the Ing Foundation of Acer Computers in Taiwan was very active in sponsoring Go. They also made Chinesey-looking tables that flipped open to reveal a Go board. Even though they weren’t so attractive, I somehow acquired one. My old friend Joe the drummer came to my house one day, gave it the jaundiced eye and asked, “Where’d you get this atrocity, man, the Dung Dynasty?”
At any rate, several representatives of the American Go Association traveled to Taiwan for a meeting with Acer’s Mr. Ing. We posed for commemorative photos and then went around the table introducing everyone. Here was Phil Straus, the President of the AGA and Michael Simon, the Treasurer. Here was Ing Chang-ki, President of Acer and of the foundation, and Wang Lin, the Treasurer. Here was Ping Yang-li, Chairman Ing’s son and COO. And other officials.
We started with some bios and small talk. Ing had barely survived the War and started a trucking business in 1946. Taiwan was growing explosively, and Ing did very well, starting a conglomerate that made everything from memory chips to potato chips. Phil and I were genuinely impressed by his effort and good fortune.
Business seemed ready to start so I jumped right in, addressing the CFO. “How big is your foundation?”
“Thirty million U.S. dollars.”
I nodded, “I see. And if you got say 3% return on investing it, that’s about $1 million a year.”
The CFO nodded, “That’s about right.”
“Well I don’t know anything about Taiwan’s tax law but in the U.S., if you don’t spend the income on purposes in line with the Foundation’s goals, the income gets taxed at a confiscatory rate.”
“Yes,” he confirmed, “It’s the same here.”
I nodded, “Uh huh, so you have to spend about $1 million per year.” I smiled an Aha! Voila! kind of smile to let them know I wasn’t completely serious. “OK, we’ll take it.”
It wasn’t as simple as that but we did go home with a grant of $100,000 a year for American Go. We were wined and dined a banquet that was among the best I’d ever tasted and then we all paired off and played a game of Go. Being the strongest of our representatives, I played the Chairman himself. He played a wild and high style, more Out of This World than Outer Space style. I was careful to let him win by two points, as was traditional when playing a patron.
Our guide during the trip was a fellow whose name I can’t remember but he went by the computer handle of “Vegetarian” because he was one. His boss Mr. Ing evidently had instructed him to show us the sights of Taiwan so he took us to the snake market. In a covered mall, Taiwanese sold snakes, both live and butchered, and also sold drinks of the snake blood, which was supposed to be good for virility. When I realized how disgusted Vegetarian was, I suggested we look at other products, such as vegetables and ferns.
The next day, when I came to the Ing Foundation office, I found Vegetarian trading stocks online on his work computer. Realizing that this was a common sport in China, I kept quiet. Presently, his boss Mr. Ing walked in and noticed what Vegetarian was up to. He wasn’t angry that his employee was goofing off but he did admonish the fellow, “You shouldn’t buy stocks. You should do what I do, print stocks.” And he turned and walked to his office, leaving Vegetarian and me to stare at each other and then burst out laughing.