For as long as we can tell, humankind has played board games. Some of these games involved chance and were designed to entertain as well as to pass the time. But there have always been, among those games certain select titles that stood out as different. These games were not decided by dice or the luck of the draw. These games were based on heuristics and represented a fair test of each participant's mental prowess. These were the logic games.

For as long as we can tell, humankind has played board games. Some of these games involved chance and were designed to entertain as well as to pass the time. But there have always been, among those games certain select titles that stood out as different. These games were not decided by dice or the luck of the draw. These games were based on heuristics and represented a fair test of each participant's mental prowess. These were the logic games.


In this realm of logic games, there are not many titles that come to mind that weren't invented in our modern era. If we think back, we might find 4 or 5 titles such as Chess, Checkers, Tic Tac Toe, and Reversi. What sets these games apart from the majority of board games and tabletop games out there is the fact that they do not involve any form of chance or randomness. Every turn is decided entirely by the decision of its player. Of these games, it would be widely agreed that Chess is the most sophisticated. Does this indicate that if one wanted to improve their mental acuity by playing a logic game, Chess would be the last word. Consider the following Chess joke.

The young apprentice went to his master and asked him: "Which is the best game man made?". The old master though a little bit and said "It's chess I guess, no?" "What about Go?" came the next question instantly. The master said "Aah, Go was already here!"

The master in this joke spoke of a game called Go. By assuming that the logic game of Go has been a fixture since times earlier than man-made games, the master was echoing the same sentiment as once Chess world champion, Emanuel Lasker who said that "While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go." The fact that a Chess champion would have such high praise for a different game - the game of Go raises a few questions. What kind of game could earn this kind of praise? Is there an active community of Go players today?

Here are some answers to those questions. It is widely believed that the logic game of Go was born in China about the early 1st or even 2nd century B.C.E. It has been estimated that there are more possible game sequences than there are atoms in the physical universe. In spite of its unparalleled complexity this logic game can be learned in a few minutes. It is the nuances of its play that take a lifetime to master. Close to 27 million people worldwide play Go but it is most popular in East Asia.

Most Westerners who play Go learned of it from Japanese players, literature, and Television broadcasts although the game is very popular in Korea and China as well. It is widely understood to impart intellectual benefits to young and old alike as it develops analytical skills and even memory. Some in Japan use it for therapy for sufferers of mental illness. There are several online memory trainers and cognitive improvement products and their popularity seems to be rising. If this area is of interest to you, you might do yourself a favor by investigating the ancient logic game of Go before subscribing to one of the online brain training services.