Page:Smith - The game of go.djvu/93

Rh one of the maxims of the game is not to attempt to achieve too great a victory.

Before proceeding with the technical chapters on the Illustrative Games, Openings, etc., it may be well to say a word in regard to the method adopted for keeping a record of the game. The Japanese do this by simply showing a picture of the finished game, on which each stone is numbered as it was played. If a stone is taken and another stone is put in its place, an annotation is made over the diagram of the board with a reference to that intersection, stating that such a stone has been taken in "Ko." Such a method with the necessary marginal annotation is good enough, but it is very hard to follow, as there is no means of telling where any stone is without searching all over the board for it; and while the Japanese are very clever at this, Occidental students of the game do not find it so easy. Therefore, I have adopted the method suggested by Korschelt, which in turn is founded on the custom of Chess annotation in use all over the world. The lines at the bottom of the board are lettered from A to T, the letter I being omitted, and at the sides of the board they are numbered up from 1 to 19. Thus it is always easy to locate any given stone. In the last few years the Japanese have commenced to adopt an analogous method of notation.