GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ,
ON SOME GAMES AND MAINLY ON THE CHINESE GAME, ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GAME OF CHESS AND THE GAME OF LITTLE ROBBERS (OR LATRUNCULES), AND ON A NEW TYPE OF NAVAL GAME.
I took a stab at translating the Leibniz passage on go. I thought it was quite interesting. One caveat (besides the fact that I am not a translator) is that I translated it primarily from the German and French translations, so I can't vouch for how well it accords with the original Latin. The German translation seems like it might be pretty close to the original, but the French clearly takes a lot of liberties and is quite garbled in places. Anyway, here is roughly what Leibniz had to say.________________________________________________________________________________________I come now to the account of a Chinese game, to which I will take the opportunity to add several remarks. There are several pictorial representations of it in a book of Chinese drawings in the library of the famous Prussian kings in Berlin, one of which drawings I have made an engraving of. This game is one of those that are based on skill alone with no element of chance mixed in. It has the peculiar feature that the players (so it seems) do not take each other's pieces in turn, but rather corner and surround each other so that in the end the player who takes away the other's freedom to move wins, as it were, without murder or bloodshed. This can happen in other games too, but here it is always the case.But on this game listen to Nicolas Triglautius, in the eighth chapter of the first book of On the Christian Expedition to China, from the notes of Matthaeus Riccius, one of the illustrious founders of the mission to China. He has this to say:
The most substantial game among them is of the following type: several people play on a board with three hundred squares [in my opinion the word "several" must be read as meaning that the game is played on a board with more than three hundred squares since there are only two players; this may be the result of a Latin translator who misinterpreted the Italian of Riccius or the French of Triglautius] with two hundred stones, of which some are white and some are black. With these stones each player tries to push other's stones into the center of the board in order to control the remaining squares; at the end, the player who controls the most squares on the board is considered the winner.The magistrates are wild about this game and often spend the greater part of their day playing at it; between skillful players a single game takes a whole hour. Those who have mastered the game, even if they are distinguished in no other area, are nevertheless praised and sought after by everyone. These masters even read at the traditional ceremonies, so that others can learn the strategy of the game from them. (?)Even magistrates usually attach to themselves [meaning: employ] some strong players, to be instructed by them and learn the rules of this game.Thus Triglautius. But a visual examination of the game's design reveals a problem with this account."This is Frigantius's report. But to this description should be added the visual aspect of this game.Namely, that the board is a square, with eighteen squares on a side. Therefore there are in all eighteen times eighteen squares, that is, not three hundred, but three hundred and twenty-four.And the rest of the description doesn't accord well enough with the actual facts: it is obviously not always possible or necessary for one player to push the other into the middle of the board, since it is enough to surround your opponent, either in the middle or in a corner. And the player who has control of the most squares (however one wants to define this) would not be the winner unless, after surrounding his opponent, he alone has a free field.The rest of the description is of little importance; since each one of the two players is trying to push the other towards the middle of the board, it is obvious that he can do so, but that it is not absolutely necessary, because it is enough to keep the opponent surrounded, either in the middle, or in one of the corners. The winner is the player who controls the most squares; what can this mean? that the player who has his adversary surrounded is the master of the battle field.Even though we don't know all the rules, the number of stones and the size of the board make me certain that this game requires very great skill and is extremely difficult. Certainly, it is worth noticing its peculiar manner of play, namely, that the point of the game is not to destroy the opponent but rather only to push him back across the board (unlike in our games). And one can well believe that the creator of this game was some brahmin who abhorred killing and wanted a victory without bloodshed. For it is known that most of the peoples of the East Indies are in these things more Christian than those who call themselves Christian, and as rule avoid killing even in war.
Robert de Neufville
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