Media Credit: Jordan Gomez James Cho, JP Rodman, Rachel Hammond and Nick Sibicky play a round of the board game Go while Cara Henis and Anderson Mills spectate. Originating in Asia more than 3,000 years ago, Go, or Wei Chi, as it is known in China, is an intellectually challenging board game that has caught the attention of scientists and engineers in the field of artificial intelligence.

Thanks to the UT Go club, a game that is historically played by engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians is now moving beyond the specialists.

The game of Go originated in Asia more than 3,000 years ago but was adopted as Wei-Chi in China and Baduk in Korea.

"Traditionally, and up until this point in history, it's been the geeks and the immigrants playing this game," said player Nick Sibicky, a UT graduate student. "Slowly, Go's been able to trickle into the community through movies and pop culture. People see 'A Beautiful Mind,' or they hear it referenced in anime and want to know more about it."

It takes about four sentences to explain the rules of the game, Sibicky said, but the 19-by-19 boardgame uses a grid that allows for more variations than there are atoms in the universe.

Unlike chess, which the game is sometimes compared to, the first player can place either a white or black piece, called a stone, on any intersecting line on the board, creating 361 possibilities. The next player then has 360 possible places to move a stone, creating an exponentially large number of variations.

"Computer scientists who study artificial intelligence are very interested in studying Go," said Sibicky, who's played in Austin since 2005. "Seeing unknown possibilities and creatively having to deal with many different situations at once is something the spirit of human creativity can do very well. Go is one of the last human-created intellectual games that a computer cannot come close to matching."

In order to teach people more about it, the Go, Wei-Chi and Baduk Club, which boasts more than 60 members, according to its Web site, meets every Thursday to practice and learn strategy. Beginners can band together to play against someone with more experience in this two-person game, or members can go online to analyze moves other players have made.

"Go attracts very enthusiastic people for some reason," said Anderson Mills, an electrical engineering graduate student. "It's a great way to sharpen your mind and to improve concentration."

Mills said he has been a Go player since 1999 and applies life lessons that he lifts straight from the board game, including the idea that sometimes, one has to lose small in order to gain big.

"Go promotes understanding and mutual construction rather than destroying or killing someone like you'd find in other games," Mills said. "It's amazing the intellectual pursuit this game has to offer."

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