The Three Great Games

It is said that the three great original games are chess, backgammon, and go (wéiqí 围棋); they are said to represent the three human conditions. The origins of chess are debated, but the earliest definite record of chess is from around the 6th century BCE in China during the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋时代), although some say it had Indian influences. Chess is a military game of attack and defense strategy against a definite opponent. Backgammon comes from ancient Persia, and is a game of luck, although there is a great deal of strategy as well. Moves are made based on a roll of dice. While an opponent is clearly present, the object of the game is to win by clearing the board of your own pieces. Igo, or wéiqí, also originated in China. Legends say it was invented by Chinese emperor 尧 (Yao) in around 2300-something BCE, but the earliest written records are from around the 4th century BCE. It is also a game between two players, but the object of the game is to influence and end up controlling the free space on the board. It is an extremely complex (though visually simplistic) game of tactics. One may choose to engage the other player or not.

Chess has many variations in the world. International chess is (surprise-surprise) Western chess, where each player has one king (can move in all directions once) one queen (can move in all directions infinitely), two bishops (can move diagonally infinitely), two castles (can move horizontally and vertically infinitely), two knights (can move in any combination of two spaces in one direction then one space in another), and eight pawns (can move one space forward, and may only attack diagonally one space). The square board has 64 spaces and the goal of the game is to use the game pieces to strategically "checkmate" the enemy's king, or to put the king in a position where no move can save the life of the king.

Backgammon is one of a family of table games, and consists of a square board with 12 isosceles triangles on two sides pointing at each other. These triangles are called "points". The pieces move in a "C" shape from one end of the board down and around back to the same side. Moves are determined by a role of the dice, and vary greatly depending on the combination of dice rolls. By landing on unprotected pieces, you can capture your opponents pieces, and by setting up rows of your pieces, you can block his/her movements. The game ends when you can clear the board of all your pieces by getting them all to the end.

(I)go, or wéiqí, is also played on a square board, although they traditionally sold as whole tables. The board is a square grid of 19x19 lines. The pieces are round black and white stones. The objective of igo is in its name; wéiqí (围棋) literally means "surround, chess". The game is won by surrounding, or capturing more space on the board than your opponent. An opponent's piece is "captured" by surrounding it--taking all the spaces adjacent to it. That space has then been captured. A space can be captured without an opponent being involved at all. Merely by surrounding the space, a player prevents the other player from ever taking it, making it captured territory by default. One can easily begin to see how while an opponent is clearly necessary and evident, interaction between the players is tactical at times and arbitrary at other. Of the two chess games played in China, Go was seen as the intellectual while chess was seen as the game of the masses.

These three games are said to represent "man vs. man" (chess), "man vs. nature/fate" (backgammon), and "man vs. himself" (go). Some say they represent the West, Asia (and mid-east) and East-Asia respectively. Western motivations tend to be very direct and Machiavellian, and for westerners to take themselves out of their dominant culture to see the motivations of others is no easy task. The concept of "man vs. himself" has inundated China for thousands of years and continues to be an important concept when analyzing different cultures and politics, especially a difference as vast as between East-Asia and the West.