Japanese Go lessons on board/Carlos Pueblo
One
afternoon I was wondering around the observation room on Deck 15
up to the 3rd
top level of this mega ship. I found an old gentleman studying
a Japanese
Go map and I stopped and watch. Mr. Ted Terpstra was invited
by the
cruise to teach Go on board at sea days. He invited me to play with
him and I
was shy to admit that I was never be able to play. He gave me a
quick lesson
right away and gave me a book, The Way to Go by Karl Baker.
He is the founder
and owner of the 50 years San Diego Go Club. I briefly
explained my
admiration of Go game and a found memory of a solid wood
Go table at
home when I was a kid. It was a gift left behind to my Dad for
his
friendship with his Japanese principal in Taipei Technology School. He
could not
bring all his belonging back to Japan after 1945. My Dad couldn’t
play Go game
either and the table had been served as a small desk for our
homework
throughout our school years.
In order to
practice the game with him, he yield 10 stones to me for the 1st
Lesson. Go
game is occupying spaces and surrounding the opponent’s stones
in order to
take prisoners. Once blocking all liberties of the opponent’s stone,
you can take
the prisoner by calling Atari, means surrounding or a hit to warn
the
opponent. Once both pass their movie, the game is over and ready to count
the
occupying territory less the prisoner stones. After coming home, I do check
some of the
Go terminology such as Dame, the stone between two groups; Ko
means repeated
capture and the liberty is Katsuro. A two eyes formation is a
guaranty of
live territory without any thread of Atari.
I did make
some progress during my six or so lessons, the Sensei’s yield decreased
from 10
stones to five and then 4. I still can’t figure out some determined placement
on the
corner edge to form a double eyes which is several step ahead of my thinking.
He
encourages me to play more game like more practice more to make progress. I
mention to
him my old college classmate, Chih Ho Su, Ph.D. in Chemistry, is very found
of Go and
very introvert person. He went to his room to check on Su’s Dan, ranking in
class of Go,
and very much like to play him on the internet.
He mentioned
my interest of Go to his fellow passengers from San Diego and later
There were
two ladies joined up for lessons. One day at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, a
friend of
theirs sailed his yacht to meet them and treated them for lunch. I took a
lot of
photos to the black yacht with a helicopter on board. These are American
riches.
From my Go
lessons, I remember two stories on the classical Chinese literature about
two famous
legend, one is about a lesson of the war strategy while the other one is
about a Go
game of a premier while foreign invader was defeated and he kept on
playing and
later found his wooden shoe heel was broken due to nervous.
