The game of Go, known also as Wei-Ch’i or Ki in China, and Baduk in Korea, is believed to be among the board games whose current rules are the oldest in the history of civilization. Though some speculation exists as to its exact origin, conservative speculation places the origin of Go at approximately 1700 BC. Go has been renowned in Japan, China, and other Asian countries for its application to the development and teaching of military tactics and strategy formulation. Mao Tse-Tung required his subordinate generals to be knowledgeable in Go strategy, nearly 37 centuries after its invention.

Like chess, the game of Go yields such a vast, indeterminate array of play possibilities that optimization techniques and, for that matter, all algorithmic processes to solve the game entirely have fallen severely short of their objectives. Though chess provides a level of complexity beyond that of human comprehension (minimal estimates indicate a potential for 10¹²⁰ game possibilities), it pales in comparison to Go: approximations indicate that at least 10⁷⁵⁰ games are possible in Go — comparable to the number of possible sets of six complete, consecutive games of chess! Thus, like chess, and possibly more so, there is a need to define a method of play which takes into account the inability of the operator to consider all possible variations of play at any given time; instead, the method should consider the importance of the position laid out at the beginning portion of the game, and subsequently, the ability to capitalize on that position later in the game.

The set of rules for play in the game of Go is surprisingly simple:

• Play starts off with an empty, 19x19-grid board.
• Players alternate placing black and white stones on the board at intersections of the lines on the grid.
• Stones, once played, cannot be moved, unless captures by the opponent.
• Capture is completed on a stone or set of stones when a set of strongly connected stones (called an army) is unable to connect to another stone which would be strongly connected to that army because all such strong connection points are occupied by stones of the opposite color. (Likewise, a single stone is captured when all such strong connection points with that stone are occupied by stones of the opposite color. For the distinction between strong and weak connections, see Figures 1a, 1b.)
• The only instance in which play is not allowed on any unoccupied square is the special case of Ko. Ko occurs when the alternate placement of stones by the players in specific places will create a repeated exchange of single pieces between the players. Figure 2 demonstrates a simple example of Ko. If Black were to play a stone at point 1 on the next move, he would capture the white piece at 2. However, on the next move, White would be able to recapture the Black stone at 1 by moving to 2, and the process would continue ad infinitum. In the case of Ko, once a player takes the piece of his opponent, his opponent is not allowed to act upon it for at least one turn following the capture. However, if his action would secure more than one of his opponent’s pieces, he may proceed immediately.
• Once all the positions on the board are either filled or controlled (i.e., an army has a dominant position such that any attempts by the opponent to capture territory in that controlled area would be futile), scoring is computed in the following manner: each player receives a point for each stone of his opponent he has captured plus a point for each vacant space that player’s army controls. The player with the higher number of points wins.

With the exception of minor variations (e.g., handicap vs. even-game Joseki, or opening), and several technical details, this is the extent of the formal rules governing play and scoring in Go. Thus, in chess, and in Go, the rules of play are simple, and the goal is straightforwardly stipulated. Still, the fact remains that definitely linking the initial conditions to the final goal of winning through an algorithm which adheres to the rules of the game is, in both games, essentially unfeasible.

As previously noted, the establishment of Ko is dependent not only upon a set of material (i.e., stones) of both players, but also on the relation of the material through their position with each other. In other words, Ko is not necessarily extant when four pieces of one color and three of another are placed on the board, or even in close orientation with each other; rather, it is their exact position with respect to one another that creates this concept, and thus, Ko is a positional parameter. In the instance of Ko shown in Figure 2, it is evident that this positional parameter is a positive one for black, because without the support of other friendly pieces, White does not have the potential to capture a black piece in any reasonable number of moves. However, Black has the ability to abstain from his capture of the white piece at 2 until such time as it may be beneficial in the development of a combination to capture other material (e.g., pieces or vacant territory) at some future point in the game.

Similarly, the positional parameter of Sh’cho (or ladder) enables the player to place his/her opponent at a disadvantage for a number of moves, with the final result potentially being the acquisition of material through a combination. In Sh’cho, a player has nearly captured the army of another player, and after each given move of the aggressor army, the defending army only has one available strong connection point with which to save the entire army. The aggressor army in Sh’cho is said to possess Sente, which is approximately defined as the upper-hand or advantage in a series of moves. When a player has Sente, similar to when a player is forcing the other to make certain moves to avoid material capture in chess, he/she is forcing the opponent into a reactive method of play, which has the ability to force the disadvantaged player into making foolish mistakes, sacrifices, or both. However, previously positioned unfriendly pieces which are located in the path of the Sh’cho could easily reverse the possession of Sente in that case, which forces the individual to take into account the features of those pieces consider those unfriendly as positional parameters before elaborating his position (or, more accurately, once the position to commence Sh’cho has been established, the aggressor must pieces when elaborating his/her combinational program for the accomplishment of the capture).

The most prized positional parameter in Go is undoubtedly that of Me (literally, "eye"). An army which has a Me has a point within its interior which is unoccupied and in which, if the opponent attempted to place a stone, the stone would immediately be captured because it is already surrounded by the other army. Examples of Me can be seen in Figures 3, 4, and 5.

However, one Me is not sufficient to dissuade the capture of the pieces forming me; in Figure 6, Black has a single Me which, once filled by either Black or White, will eliminate all strong connection points for that army, resulting in a capture of those pieces. Thus, the ideal formation of an army is one that includes two or more Me. As shown in Figure 7, once an army has two true Me, the pieces forming the Me and all pieces strongly connected to it are free from capture (i.e., they are considered safe). If Black were to attempt to capture the White pieces in Figure 7 by placing a piece at 1, it would immediately be captured, as it would at 2; unless White makes a grave mistake and places a piece at 1 or 2, the entire White army is free from capture.

Similar to chess, a multitude, or arguably infinite number of positional parameters can be imagined in this game; depending on the level of complexity with which the analysis of the position is carried out, the ability of the operator to capitalize on the position, the and the relevance of the position with respect to the intermediate goals of capture and control, the number and variety of positional parameters can be anywhere from a relative few, as described above, to thousands, millions, or even more. However, the positional parameters listed above are generally considered the most important. In addition, the following are generally considered when evaluating the strength of a player’s position:

• Absolutely Realizable Me: A single army which completely surrounds an area so that an opposing army could at most form one Me inside of the Absolutely Realizable Me. Figure 8 shows an Absolutely Realizable Me.
• Generally Realizable Me: An eye or set of eyes which have not yet been formed but can almost definitely be formed regardless of the actions of the opponent. The number of pieces required to form an Absolutely Realizable Me is usually known, and if it takes N stones to do so, the position is referred to as an Generally Realizable Me of order N. In figure 8, for example, White has a Generally Realizable Me of order 2; by filling in spaces 1 and 2, an Absolutely Realizable Me is achieved, and by filling in spaces 1, 2, and 3, Me are achieved. The value of a Generally Realizable Me is generally inversely related to its order and directly related to the number of Me which can be formed from it.
• False Me: Openings which appear to be Me but which can be attacked by the opposing player to eradicate the existence of Me.
• Dame: Pieces which could unarguable be captured by the opponent but are not for the sake of brevity; the pieces are counted as captured at the end of the game when scoring takes place.
• Seki: Vacant positions into which an attack by one army will invariably lead to an effective counterattack by the opposing army, and vice versa; because neither player wants to enable the other to capture his own pieces, the pieces remain unfilled and are counted as uncaptured territory at the end of the match.

In Go, similar to chess, there are values associated with the presence of certain material items positional parameters, which arise from the heightened potential of the system to effectuate positive results. A digression is in necessary to compare and contrast the values associated with the pieces and the positional parameters in ongoing games of Go and chess.

In both games, the unconditional value of all the pieces on the board is the same. This is true because, since we do not know what the goal is, what the initial conditions are, and what the rules of the game are, we cannot predict that any piece on the board would be any more influential than another. Semi-conditionally, however, these values diverge; once we know the rules of the game in chess, we know that certain pieces have more ability to move and to capture other pieces; this creates an imbalance in the material value of the pieces themselves. In Go, however, no stone in and of itself is differentiated from any other; knowing the rules of the game does not give us any reason to believe that any pieces may be more desirable than another. Thus, the semi-conditional value of Go pieces are equal across the board.

In Go, it can be shown intuitively that such a positional parameter as pieces near the corners is more economical in capturing territory; this is so because it takes less pieces to capture corner spaces due to the edges of the board helping to cut off those spaces. Thus, everything else being equal, a strongly connected army of five stones near a corner has a higher predispositon to contribute to the final goal of the game than does a similar army near the center of the army. But is this always the case? If so, to what magnitude is the corner army more valuable?

The answers to both questions are unclear; even as few as 20-30 moves from the end of the game, it is often incomprehensible exactly what will happen in the rest of the match, and how these armies will affect the outcome. Thus, similar to the conditional values of pieces in chess, identical pieces in Go have different conditional values dependent upon their position, but the extent to which this is true is not known. In other words, the difference is not quantifiable, and even if it was quantified by a Go master, another master could argue a different function for evaluating these parameters, and neither would be able to disprove the other. Thus, in both games, the fully conditional value of the material and positional parameters is dependent upon the ability of the player in question to capitalize upon those parameters in connection with the final goal.

Before considering any positional parameters in the evaluation of a play strategy, the question must be answered: Why use the positional style at all? There are three primary reasons for doing so. First, because the game of Go is so complex in its development, it is impossible for a player to link his/her actions at any one time (before the final several moves) with the achievement of the final goal. This makes it impossible for the player to determine that any move is definitely the best to make; thus he/she must use his/her moves to establish a position which creates the potential for combinations, which is the second reason for using the positional style and is more directly related to the final goal than the execution of combinations in chess (because the capture of the opponent’s pieces is directly calculated in the final score). The third reason for implementing the positional style is that superior positions provide the player with more opportunity to take advantage of unexpected outcomes. For example, the merging of armies through successive iterations of play is a factor which can directly affect the assessment of other positional parameters; accurately incorporating this possibility into the assessment of a position will help the player prepare for the correct response should that event take place. In addition, proper positioning of pieces can help ensure that, should the opponent make an irrational or unpredictable move, the player can turn that move into his/her advantage.

Primitive examples of the positional style of play in action are the creation of safe bases (i.e., armies with Me) that are not entirely safe, but that have strong communication with the center; the use of Ko to regain Sente in a region of the board, which enables the player either to formulate a combination or to take advantage of the Sente by making advances elsewhere on the board; and creating a loose network of stones which could potentially be connected, but are not yet because the opponent is not attacking and it would be unnecessary to deploy resources until the opponent attacks. By taking into consideration the potential of certain pieces to aid other pieces and armies, as illustrated in the examples above, the player creates a strong position early in the game which will likely transform the future game into one in which he/she dominates, or has Sente, over the moves of the other player.

This part has demonstrated the innumerable similarities of the material and positional parameters in the games of chess and Go. The vast complexity of the play possibilities forces excellent players to focus on the positions obtained in the near term, with the hope and high likelihood that those positions will lead to positive results toward the final goal. Both games have a long history, both have remained relatively unchanged since their inception, and both have been analyzed exhaustively for a single dominant play algorithm, which remains hidden to this day. Finally, both games have been used extensively by leaders in the development and training of military tactics, a common result of the fact that they were developed as models of ancient conflict.

However, it is the dissimilarities which make the games interesting. For instance, many Go proponents argue that, unlike in chess or checkers, there is some room for error in the process of a game.

Still, this must not be taken as a consolation that a player can recover from any blunder, no matter how fatal, with enough foresight and tactical planning. In a seeming contradiction, Lasker points out:

Go has been played, studied, and taught for many centuries. Like chess, it is revered for its intellectual perplexity, despite its astonishing simplicity. Both games yield a high enough complexity level that they cannot be solved through standard optimization techniques and, as of yet, any attempts at expert systems developed through machine learning. Thus, in both games, it is the proper application of the positional style, carefully executed with the utmost emphasis on experience, general pattern recognition, and foresight, that will continue to characterize the expert style of play.  

Mao Tse-Tung was the leader of the Chinese Communist revolution. Between the years of 1927 and 1949, his guidance transformed a dispersed, negligible Communist political influence into the sovereign power of China. A skilled general in the arts of war and politics, Mao was a skilled player of the game of wei-ch’i (commonly known in Western countries and elsewhere by its Japanese name, "Go"), believed deeply in its principles of challenge and conflict, and required his subordinate generals to be skilled in it as well. What follows is an allegory of Mao’s march to political and military triumph in China, coupled with a descriptive analysis of the revolution’s critical moves which can be modeled with the game of wei-ch’i.

The game of wei-ch’i is first believed to have been invented approximately in the year 1700 BC, making it one of the oldest board games in the world. Its ancient set of rules has likely survived due to its simplicity and similarity to war principles — a field of study which has held the interest of leaders since the beginning of mankind. In addition, due to this simplicity, wei-ch’i can be readily understood by the beginner as well as the expert; this fact facilitates drawing analogies between the game and realistic situations.

Several of the positional parameters of the game of wei-ch’i deserve special mention. The first is the case of Ko (demonstrated in Figure A.1, Appendix A). In this diagram, it appears that White can at most lose one stone with a black move at position 1, thereby making black’s advantage seemingly small. However, because entire sets of pieces in larger armies can be lost with the proper placement of a single stone (especially in the middle and end game), black’s dominant position can be exploited through the proper style of play. For example, should white configure larger armies around this position such that a black play at 1 can capture those armies, this instance of Ko can prove deadly to white. Ko can be an effective tool in the maintenance of hsien-shou (approximately, first-hand or initiative), a concept to be detailed later.

In addition, the positional parameter of Sh’cho (or ladder) can be used to kill an opponent army. The player who maintains Sh’cho against his opponent places him in a position such that the opponent’s only two options are to play a piece at a certain position or else lose the entire army involved in the Sh’cho. Again, creating Sh’cho enables a player to maintain hsien-shou, giving him a strategic advantage.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of wei-ch’i is its resistance to optimization techniques. Similar in this regard to chess, wei-ch’i is estimated to contain approximately 10⁷⁵⁰ possible games of play, a number too large to even begin to search exhaustively. Moreover, wei-ch’i games consist of so many moves and so many subgame conflicts that loss of one, even of considerable size, is not fatal. Finally, wei-ch’i differs from other games of conflict in that success and failure can be measured in terms of degree; a win can be by as little as one point, or as large as one hundred, a fact more synonymous with real-world political and military conflicts.

Wei-ch’i is, after all, a complex protracted battle. Over the process of 361 possible moves (though realistic encounters generally end after 250-300 moves), many decisions must be made, many subgame battles will be won and lost, and many local confrontations will merge to complicate the attempt to find an optimal strategy. Rather, like in chess, the expert must pay attention to the position and development of his pieces and armies, and attempt to organize them in a fashion to control the behavior of the opponent and to induce unexpected outcomes into his favor.

Though newcomers to wei-ch’i can easily understand the rules, they will fail at the game without experience and an understanding of certain principles of conflict. Each principle dictates a tactical style that cannot be defeated by random, uninformed play.

The first principle is that of initiative, or hsien-shou. As previously stated, hsien-shou is a condition in which a player has an advantage over the other because they have the ability to select from a series of moves, whereas the other side is compelled to react to those moves or suffer losses (oftentimes, they will suffer losses in the future regardless of the cunning of their reactions.) Ko and Sh’cho are two mechanisms by which hsien-shou can come about; many others can give a player a first-mover advantage in similar fashion.

The second principle of successful wei-ch’i is that of coordination. Because the wei-ch’i board is so large, it is inevitable that groups will be formed in different portions of the grid and will engage in periodic subgame battles. The successful player, however, will be the one that can coordinate the actions of groups across regions for the achievement of the goal of the larger game. The key section of the board for allowing inter-army communication is the center, because it will generally be inclusive of the shortest paths between armies should an attack or other opportunity create a need for the armies to merge.

Finally, the principle of economy must be stressed. If a player focuses a disproportionate amount of material resources on one particular region of the board, he can be sure that his competent opponent will use the opportunity to influence the much larger remainder of the field of battle. This notion is counterintuitive to much of Western military thought, which focuses on securing and dominating strategic locations. By contrast, the wei-ch’i strategy, similar to that of Maoist military tactics, is to disperse the troops, for "if two men are together, one is being wasted."  

The years between 1927 and 1935 are commonly referred to, from a Communist standpoint, as the Kiangsi period, because the Chinese Communist revolutionary base was located in the Kiangsi province of China (located in the southeast, near Hong Kong.) At that time, the political conflict system consisted of not two groups, as in wei-ch’i, but approximately twenty, and possibly more. Through the processes of self-selection, the weaker political affiliations died out, and within several years nearly all the groups could be placed in one of three categories: the Communists, who consisted mostly of peasants and lower middle-class citizens; the Nationalists, who consisted primarily of the economic elite and controlled the country under the leadership of Chang Kai-Shek; and the warlords, also generally populated by the economic elite and upper middle-class.

Boorman compares the peasant population, which grossly outnumbered the elite, to the edge of the board in wei-ch’i terms. This analogy comes about for two reasons. First, pieces on the edge of the board have little influence on the center, where in the middle and end games of wei-ch’i, the largest groups of occupied stones tend to accumulate. In this sense, the peasants had little ability to influence the established power of the central stage (i.e., the Nationalist system of government in control at the time). Second, a notable feature of capturing area in wei-ch’i is that it take less pieces (i.e., smaller armies) to surround a given size of territory on the edges of the board that in the center (see Figure 1.)

Similarly, the peasantry had fewer economic, social, and political ties than did the elite Chinese, making it easier to persuade them to follow the Communist doctrine. By pursuing peasant support, Mao was establishing a position similar in style to that established in the early game of wei-ch’i: dispersed, economically allocated forces which invade territory subtly but can generally be joined successfully in case of opponent attack.

The aggregation of political forces in the 1930s thus enabled the Communist factions to analyze their strengths and create political leverage. In addition, it helped them to become a major force in the next period of Chinese unrest, the Sino-Japanese War.

Despite the increase in the number of Communist parties in the 1930s, their lack of political influence, relative impoverishment, and geographic disbursement helped to contribute to a disorganization between the groups. During the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945, however, Mao and other Communist leaders executed military strategies which took advantage of their dissidence and increased their military and political presence.

The Japanese attacks, for geographic reasons, tended to commence with raids into the Manchurian province in the northeast. This territory was predominantly controlled (in terms of relative populations) by the Nationalists; Peking, the capital of China, rested just south of that region. Because of this, much of the military force of the Nationalists was consumed in battle with the invading Japanese forces.

In contrast, the Communist camps tended to be located sporadically throughout China. Because the insurgent Japanese armies had to fight the Nationalist armies upon invading Manchuria, they were weakened once they entered into the lands controlled more predominantly by the Communist groups. This fact, combined with Mao’s excellent battle tactics, contributed to what Chinese citizens perceived as a failure of the Nationalist armies and a resounding success of the Communist armies. As a result, Communist forces gained followers, and many of the Nationalist supporters in that region fled. By 1945, nearly one hundred million Communist sympathizers had inhabited so-called Communist liberated areas in central China.

In effect, Mao’s strategy closely followed an expert style of play in a wei-ch’i confrontation. His objective of converging on and controlling the center of the board is exemplary of an aggressive wei-ch’i tactic. At the time, three wei-ch’i games could be envisioned: the Communists vs. the Nationalists, the Communists vs. the Japanese, and the Nationalists vs. the Japanese. In demolishing Nationalists forces upon insurgency into Manchuria and the capital region, the Japanese weakened themselves for their battle with the Communists (analogous to increasing the number of pieces allowed at the beginning of handicap wei-ch’i), thereby assisting the Communists in their game against the Nationalists. An additional tactic which helped the Communists (through very indirect channels) prepare for battle in the upcoming Civil War was their extreme leniency on and respect for the Japanese soldiers they captured at wartime.

This lenient proved an effective political move, because a considerable number of those soldiers became sympathizers with the Communist forces.

Thus, the Sino-Japanese War served as the middle game for Mao’s rise to power in China. By defending the central territory south of Peking and Manchuria and establishing guerrilla bases there, Mao successfully attacked the middle of the wei-ch’i board, preparing for attack of opponent forces and placing his opponent (the Nationalists) in the defensive through hsien-shou.

The Civil War between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communist Party lasted four years, 1945-1949. Due to the relative loss of Nationalist forces from the Sino-Japanese war in Manchuria and the opportunity of Communist forces to occupy that province following the surrender and retreat of Japanese forces there, Manchuria was populated by twice as many Communist forces as Nationalist in 1945. In addition, the Communist forces held strategically vital regions in the geographical neighborhood of Peking; forces there would become vital later in encircling and capturing the capital city. These guerrilla camps became analogous to the wei-ch’i concept of Ko: by controlling the regions just surrounding one central piece of material, the Communist armies provided themselves with an opportunity to wait for opponent movements and strike at the proper time; it also limited the movements the Nationalist armies could make. In addition, several battles which took place in the vicinity of Peking resembled the wei-ch’i situation of Sh’cho — Nationalist armies, in an attempt to free themselves for attack elsewhere were soundly defeated as Communist troops chased them down, cut off their supplies and left them with no protecting moves to play.

The communist forces won the Civil War in 1949 by a three-stage process: encirclement (similar to the use of stones to encircle opponent stones), detachment (similar to the use of small groups of stones to prevent opponent armies from merging), and annihilation (similar to ‘killing’ opponent armies once they run out of space to grow). The Civil War acted as the ‘end game’ for the Communist revolution; prior to the Civil War, Mao had created a position which his opponents could not understand or predict. By the time the Nationalist regime realized the power of the Communist revolution, there was little left to do but surrender.

This paper aims to demonstrate the similarities between the game of wei-ch’i and the twenty-two-year process by which Mao Tse-Tung developed a scattered, disorganized minority of political dissidents into a sovereign power. By enlisting the support of the peasantry of the Chinese population, Mao drew from a relatively enormous pool of citizens, which only needed proper organization and tactics to realize this revolutionary triumph.

Though this paper only highlights several of the similarities between wei-ch’i style and the Chinese Communist revolution, many more analogies can be imagined by the reader, especially one with in-depth knowledge of the historical facts involved in the revolutionary period. The principal similarities, however, include:

• The use of the edges of the board to form a strong opening.

• The employment of dispersed, economic pieces to create influence over as much of the board as possible.

• The control of communication lines by strategically positioned guerrilla forces.

• The exercise of dominant position to create hsien-shou.

• The reliance on supporting stones and armies on the front and rear lines of battle.

• The correct execution of Sh’cho and Ko to complete combinational objectives.

• Perhaps the primary rationale, however, for using wei-ch’i as an analytic framework in the context of a Western analysis of the Chinese Communist revolution is that, similar to other non-Western systems of conflict, the events and strategies involved in those periods defies explanation using Western schools of thought.

• Invalidation of the Western strategic framework — or, more precisely, Western strategic values — tends to confuse and distort understanding of non-Western strategic patterns by Western scholars, soldiers, and diplomats. … Analysis of the Chinese strategic tradition affords no exception to these general propositions. … this [Maoist] strategy abounds in paradoxes when judged by the standards of conventional Western military doctrine.
• Wei-ch’i thus provides the medium for conveying the tactics employed in the Maoist world of conflict.

• Play commences with an empty, 19x19-grid board.
• Players alternate placing black and white stones on the board at intersections of the lines on the grid.
• Stones, once played, cannot be moved, unless captured by the opponent.
• Capture is completed on a stone or set of stones when a set of strongly connected stones (called an army) is unable to connect to another stone which would be strongly connected to that army because all such strong connection points are occupied by stones of the opposite color. (Likewise, a single stone is captured when all such strong connection points with that stone are occupied by stones of the opposite color.) For a depiction of strong vs. weak armies, see Figure A.1.

• The only instance in which play is not allowed on any unoccupied square is the case of Ko. Ko occurs when the alternate placement of stones by the players in specific places will create a repeated exchange of single pieces between the players. Figure A.2 demonstrates a simple example of Ko. If Black were to play a stone at point 1 on the next move, he would capture the white piece at 2. However, on the following move, White would be able to recapture the Black stone at 1 by moving to 2, and the process would continue ad infinitum. In the case of Ko, once a player takes the piece of his opponent, his opponent is not allowed to act upon it for at least one turn following the capture. However, if his action would secure more than one of his opponent’s pieces, he may proceed immediately.
• Once all of the positions on the board are either filled or controlled (i.e., an army has a dominant position such that any attempts by the opponent to capture territory in that controlled area would be futile), scoring is computed in the following manner: each player receives a point for each stone of his opponent he has captured plus a point for each vacant space that player’s army controls. The player with the higher number of points wins.

Appendix B.

Maoist military strategy flowed from a set of fundamental war tenants, each of which has a considerable correlation to expert play tactics in wei-ch’i. The ten principles of warfare that Mao spelled out are summarized below:

• Attack dispersed, isolated enemy forces first; attack concentrated, strong enemy forces later.
• Take small and medium cities and extensive rural areas first; take big cities later.
• Make wiping out the enemy’s effective strength our main objective; do not make holding or seizing a city or place a main objective. Holding or seizing a city or place is the outcome of wiping out the enemy’s effective strength.
• In every battle, concentrate an absolutely superior force, encircle the enemy forces completely, strive to wipe them out thoroughly and do not let any escape from the net. Strive to avoid battles of attrition in which we lose more than we gain or we only break even. As time goes on, we shall become superior as a whole and eventually wipe out the enemy.
• Fight no battle unprepared; fight no battle you are not sure of winning; make every effort to be well prepared for each battle; make every effort to ensure victory in the given set of conditions as between the enemy and ourselves.
• Give full play to our style of fighting — courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no fear of fatigue, and continuous fighting.
• Strive to wipe out the enemy when he is on the move. At the same time, pay attention to the tactics of positional attack and capture enemy fortified points and cities.
• Resolutely seize all enemy fortified points and cities which are weakly defended. At opportune moments, seize all the enemy fortified points and cities defended with moderate strength, provided circumstances permit. As for strongly defended enemy fortified points and cities, wait until conditions are ripe and then take them.
• Replenish our strength with all the arms and most of the personnel capture from the enemy. Our army’s main source of manpower and material are at the front.
• Make good use of the intervals between campaigns to rest, train, and consolidate our troops. Periods of rest, training, and consolidation should not in general be very long, and the enemy should so far as possible be permitted no breathing space.

McAdams, Mindy. "Introduction to Go." World Wide Web: http://www.well.com/user/mmcadams/gointro.html.

Willems, Scott. "Let’s Go..." World Wide Web: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~willems/go.html.

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