Immanuel deVillers - 81 Little Lions: An Introduction to the 9x9 Board for Advanced Beginners - Revised Edition (2019)

As profound as Go is, there is one aspect of its beauty that even a complete beginner can appreciate: Its community. In the short period since I decided to study this wonderful game, I have met many amazing, dedicated individuals who took their time to patiently teach and inspire me. I am truly indebted to every single one of them and they have my admiration.

Someone once told me that by emulating those we admire we may hope to become like them someday. Well, it will take time and effort before I can apply that advice to the Go board, but I figured there was a way I could (in fact, I believe anyone can) follow their example right now: By using the little I already know, and the few skills I already have, to help others.

This new, revised edition of 81 Little Lions is a modest attempt of doing that, hopefully a first step on that path, and I want to thank Immanuel deVillers for having written such a helpful guidebook in the first place and for gently giving me the opportunity to work on it.

Also, my gratitude to all of you who have helped me so far: For every game, every piece of advice, every word of encouragement. May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your backs, may the sun shine warm upon your faces, may the rains fall soft upon your fields, may your boards be made of kaya, your stones of slate and shell, your bowls of mulberry

And here is to the loveliest girl in this world, who helped me find some mistakes in this edition and is a source of continuous inspiration and joy in my lifethe day she starts playing Go with me, I will have reached complete bliss. Maria Amlia, my heart is always with you.

Last but not least, my best to you, reader. I hope you will enjoy this book.

Lucas Flix de Oliveira Santana,
The Editor

After channeling these waters, Yu divided up the newly drained land (still afloat on water confluent with the surrounding oceans) into nine great square sections bordered by rivers.

On the grid of a Go board, especially the 9x9 board that beginners learn on today (conceivably the original size of those used in prehistoric times), it seems not implausible that the first Go players would have beheld, like Chikamatsus Immortals, not a map of the Sky, but a map of China.

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There were a number of motifs in the story-telling of Mongolia and Tibet that functioned like those of water in the Tale of the Nisan Shamaness. Although Go is not mentioned in The Secret History of the Mongols, important events in Genghis Khans life were marked off by the appearance of the number 9. In this fashion, in some versions of the longest folk tale in the world, the semi-mythical early Tibetan frontier warlord Gesar (cf. the Byzantine word Caesar) played a divinatory Go game before making important decisions.

[Peter Shotwell, The Game of Go: Speculations on its Origins and Symbolism in Ancient China, 1994-2008, p. 33, p. 44.]