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| author | Franklin Schmidt <fschmidt@gmail.com> |
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| date | Sun, 02 Apr 2023 10:30:03 -0600 |
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--- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/src/America.html Sun Apr 02 10:30:03 2023 -0600 @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +<html> + +<!-- Mirrored from users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/America.html by HTTrack Website Copier/3.x [XR&CO'2014], Sun, 06 Nov 2022 06:48:48 GMT --> +<head> +<title>HOW GO CAME TO AMERICA</title> +</head> +<body text="#000000" link="#0000ff" vlink="#551a8b" alink="#ff0000" bgcolor="#c0c0c0"> +<a name="HOW GO CAME TO AMERICA"></a> +<p><hr> + +<br wp="br1"><br wp="br2"><h3><strong>HOW GO CAME TO AMERICA</strong></h3> + +<p><strong>© 2002 Milton N. Bradley</strong> + +<p>It is possible that Go was first brought to America by some of the many Chinese laborers or the +(far fewer) Japanese and Koreans who immigrated here primarily in the mid to late 19<sup>th</sup> century. +But if it was, it was restricted to those (at that time very insular) communities, and therefore had +no impact on "mainstream" American life. So it wasn't until Edward Lasker, a young German +engineer and internationally known Chessmaster, immigrated to these shores in 1914 that Go +truly began its still far from complete process of integration into our society. + +<p>That story is told in the following article by Jerald E. Pinto (originally entitled "How The Young +Edward Lasker Learned About Go, And How He and The World Chess Champion Nearly Went +To Japan To Study With the Masters"), as a tribute to Dr. Lasker (1885 - 1981) on his death, and +first appeared in The American Go Journal, Vol 16, # 2, (June 1981) - reproduced here with their +permission. + +<p>On an autumn afternoon several years ago, I visited Edward Lasker in his apartment on Riverside +Drive in New York, and heard this story of his first steps as a Go player: + +<p>"One day I was at the library of the University of Berlin. At that time, that is, in 1905, I was a +student of electrical engineering. With me at the library was a fellow student, a mathematician, +and we happened on a large magazine with a treatment of Go. Korschelt, the author, gave many +old Japanese games and explained the game quite thoroughly, but what struck us was the article's +title :Das Go Spiele, ein Konkurrent des Schachs, that is 'Go: A rival of chess' which seemed a +humorous claim. Well, we glanced through the article and learned the rules in the few minutes +that takes. + +<p>Then one day at the cafe in Berlin where the Chessplayers used to gather in the afternoon my +friend Max Lange and I saw a Japanese reading a Japanese paper, on the back of which we +noticed a Go diagram. We thought 'Well, that's remarkable'; we knew, of course, about chess +columns, but Go columns? We didn't know what to think, so we waited until the fellow was +gone and took the paper down from the newspaper rack. We put ourselves to deciphering the +diagram. The problem lay in decoding the Japanese numerals the diagram used, but although we +hadn't actually played more than a game or two of Go, we worked things out without too much +trouble. So we went through the game, but after 120 or 150 moves things came to a stop, and +there was some notation. + +<p>We waited until a few days later we saw another Japanese customer at the cafe, whom we +approached to ask whether he would mind telling us what that notation meant. Oh, first it seemed +obvious to us that it must say 'White resigns', since Black had an enormous army and there +didn't seem to be any reasonable continuation for White, or else something like 'Game +adjourned'. Well, the gentleman said, 'Certainly, "Black resigns!" When we heard that we +decided that we would really have to give a good look at the game, and we took the newspaper. +About 3 weeks later Max Lange called to say that he had found a sacrificial continuation for +White ending in the capture of the Black army 22 moves later. Then we really started to play Go +in earnest. We used a piece of cardboard and two different types of coins. However when we told +the other Chessplayers that here was a really interesting game, they just smiled at us and said, +'Don't be silly!' (Ed. Note: Nothing has changed in the intervening 92 years, and this is still the +attitude of the vast majority of Chessplayers that I have encountered!) + +<p>About 2 years later, Emanuel Lasker (Ed. Note: no relation), The world chess champion, returned +to Germany after 14 years in America. Soon after I met him I revealed that my friend and I had +found a game that rivaled chess, but the other chessplayers were too silly to even look at it. +Lasker was skeptical, but he listened to me explain the rules, and said,'Well, let's play a game.' +'Alright', I replied, 'but first I'll show you a few important things which aren't in the rules, but +which you have to know.' 'No, no, no, let's play a game.' we played, and of course I won, but +Lasker immediately recognized the deep strategical and tactical possibilities which Go holds +despite its simple structure. After just one game. He's the only man I ever showed the game to +who grasped this at once. 'Look, this is what we'll do', Lasker said, "I suppose you have a fellow +student at the University who is Japanese and may know the game. If you find one I'd like to +arrange a Go evening once a week at my home.' Indeed, there was a Japanese in my class who +knew the game; he surprised me in fact by saying that every educated Japanese knew the game. I +still recall his name: Yasugoro Kitabatake. At first he gave us 4 stones, but we improved +gradually, and after 2 years we beat him already. + +<p>Then one evening Kitabatake came to us with an interesting proposal. 'There's a Japanese Go +master passing through Berlin, a professor of mathematics on his way to London as an exchange +professor. Would you like to play him?' 'Of course we would.' Lasker replied, 'and I'll play him +in consultation with my brother Berthold, if you don't think he'll mind?' 'Of course he won't.' +'Well' continued Lasker, 'do you think he'll give us a handicap?' "Certainly', laughed Kitbatake. +'And how many stones?' 'Nine of course.' (Ed Note: At least equivalent to Queen odds in chess.) +'That's impossible', Lasker replied decisively. 'The man in the world who can give me nine +stones and beat me doesn't exist!' Kitabatake just smiled, and soon we found ourselves at the +Japanese club playing the master on nine stones. + +<p>No matter how long we took to plot our combinations the master never took more than a tenth of +a second for his reply, and he beat us terrifically. I don't think we had a single live group at +game's end. Lasker was the most discouraged and disappointed of men. 'Look Edward', he said +(this was in 1909 or 1910 don't forget). 'the Japanese have never had a first-class mathematician. +I'm sure that we can beat them at Go, the ideal game for the mathematical mind. Let's go to +Tokyo for a few months to play with the masters. I think that we'll be able to catch up to them +without too much difficulty.' + +<p>Naturally, I didn't think that it would be so easy to catch up to them, but I was enthusiastic about +the plan. However, I had recently graduated from the University and had just got my first job, as +an engineer for the German General Electric Company, and I couldn't tell m y boss that I wanted +a vacation of several months to travel to japan. But I told Lasker I would try to be assigned to my +company's office in Tokyo. + +<p>The next day I went to my boss with my cunning plot. 'There are 41 engineers in this +department", I began. 'I am certainly not so arrogant as to say that I am better than any of them +(MB Note: Ed Lasker later became a millionaire, so he was probably being unduly modest!), and +I don't see how I can expect to excel them to such a degree that I have a promising future here. +So I would like, therefore, to represent the company in one of the foreign offices.' 'Where?' my +boss asked. 'Tokyo, for example.' was my diabolical reply. The boss came back to me later after +speaking with the head of the Foreign Department. 'Sorry', he said, 'we only send Englishmen or +Germans who speak fluent English to Tokyo or any other foreign office. English is the +commercial language throughout the world.' The English had practically everything +monopolized in those days. Nothing daunted, I asked to be transferred to the London office to +learn English while drawing a nominal salary. Eventually they acquiesced in my request and I +was sent to live and work in London in 1912. I was in London when the first World War broke +out in August, 1914.' + +<p> From London, Lasker arrived in New York City in 1914. He made the united States his +permanent home, a turn of fate which is a distant reverberation of that awful defeat at the hands +of a traveling Go master. Soon after his arrival in New York Lasker saw Japanese waiters playing +go at Lee Chumley's restaurant in Greenwich Village. He was introduced by the headwaiter +Koshi Takashima, an avid Go player, to another patron of the restaurant who played Go, Karl +Davis Robinson. Robinson knew of one other Go player in New York, the editor-in-chief of +Harper's Magazine, Lee Hartman. The three formed a Go group at Lee Chumley's that soon +became quite large and took a room on the second floor of the restaurant. This group was the +nucleus of the New York Go Club and organized Go in the United States: the same 3 men +founded the American Go Association the same year Lasker published GO AND GO MOKU. +(MB note: 1934). + +<p>It was Max Lange who first of all made it to Japan, and Lange taught the game to his brother-in-law Felix Dueball, who became the first Westerner of genuine Dan strength. Emanuel Lasker +remained a tremendous Go enthusiast throughout his life and included an important chapter on +the game in his book Die Spiele des Menchen. On hi s death his Go set was presented to the +West Point Military Academy. (MB note: In my visit to the Academy about 10 years ago I +enquired about this, and found no one who even knew what I was talking about!) + +<p>The story which I call "How The Young Lasker Learned Go" was told by Lasker in print in his +article "From My Go Career" in #'s 7 and 9 of Go Monthly Review of 1961, and in his Chess +Secrets I Learned From The Masters (Dover, 1969)." + +<p><hr> + +<br wp="br1"><br wp="br2"> +<p><a href="Compare.html"><Font Color="#0033FF"><strong>Continue</strong></Font></a> + +<p>Click Here To Return To<a href="index.html"><Font Color="#0033FF"><strong> Milt's Go +Page</strong></Font></a> + +<p><hr> + +<br wp="br1"><br wp="br2"> +</body> + +<!-- Mirrored from users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/America.html by HTTrack Website Copier/3.x [XR&CO'2014], Sun, 06 Nov 2022 06:48:48 GMT --> +</html>