The game can be varied by placing the Fox on another spot; or by insisting on his catching all the Geese; by the latter taking the horizontal limits of the board only, or by offering odds, and so on; but the plan here given will be found ample in providing rational amusement for winter evenings. Less scientific, certainly, than Chess or Draughts, it affords abundant opportunities for thought and mental calculation.
[Illustration: SINGULAR TRANSFORMATION IN A BOY WHO NEVER USED HIS BRAINS!]
This game is of Japanese origin, and the name means Go = five, and Ban = board. It has, however, become gradually corrupted into ‘Go-bang,’ and thus it is now generally written.
In Japan it is played on a board of more than three hundred squares, but in Europe on boards of sixty-four squares (as in chess and draughts), or on larger boards. The Japanese have schools for the study and practice of the game, and divide the players into nine classes. A late account says that at present there is no player of the highest (the ninth) class living; but one of the eighth class, named Murase (in German spelling pronounced Moo-răh-sey), is editing a periodical, in which he publishes the theory of the openings, actual games, problems, poems, &c.
This game of Go (or game of five) is in China called Ki (= Kee), and was invented there about 2,000 years B.C. It is therefore older than chess. It was introduced into Japan about 1,100 years ago, and was there brought to higher perfection.
It is played by two persons. In Japan they use more than a hundred men on each side. If played on the _chess-board_, then generally one plays with _twelve white men_, the other with _twelve black men_. The aim of each player is to get _five men in a line_--_i.e._, five of his men close together in a straight line, either in row, a file, or a diagonal. In Japan each player tries to form a chain with his men around the others, etc.
The play is carried on thus:--The players decide as to first move; afterwards they begin alternately. The first player, say White, places a man on any of the sixty-four squares, then Black places a man on any of the remaining sixty-three squares: thereupon White puts down his second man on any unoccupied square, and so on until all the twenty-four men are placed. Now the moving begins. The first player moves one of his men to any of the _next_ unoccupied squares, but must not leap over a man, and the second player proceeds in the same manner. So the play continues until one or the other succeeds in getting five men in a line.