GUO BAILING was one of the most famous guoshou - Chinese "meijins" - who led the go world at the tail end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Born around 1586, he was from Wuxi in Jiangsu Province, where he was the scion of one of the illustrious families of the region. He is also known by his personal name, Guo Wennian. The main source is his biography in "Cangxian-ji" (Green Mountain Collection) by his fellow townsman Qin Songling.
He was gifted and loved reading. He also like playing go. A famous eulogistic poem about him suggests he learnt go at the age of eight, but in any event Qin says that when in his 11th year, by watching others play, he understood about territory and void areas, sente and gote, the relationship between attack and defence and methods of managing them - and declared that go was not difficult!
He played older players yet always won. His name reverberated around Wuxi.
At that time an important official called Ye Xianggao (1558-1627), who was a Provincial Education Commissioner and later a Grand Secretary, came to Wuxi on business. Ye graduated as one of the super-brilliant jinshi bureaucrats in 1583 and became a Minister in 1607, so this must have been between these dates, around 1600. He liked to play go and was at the level of taking two stones from a guoshou. He wanted to seek out the strongest player and play with him. Guo was therefore invited to attend.
When Ye saw he was a mere boy he was quite astounded. Initially he did not believe Guo was his opponent, and then against his expectations he lost three games in a row.
In an early echo of a similar story told about Go Seigen and the Chinese President Duan Qirui, someone whispered to Guo in the course of these games that he was playing against a senior minister and should let him win one game. Although young, Guo was already rather mature and angrily replied that, although go was a minor art (in the phrase of Mencius), it was not possible to treat people like that when playing go. It would be shameful to let his opponent win just because he was a senior minister. And if he was a good official, surely he would feel sorry for a child. Ye saw that Guo's skill was supreme and that he was morally upright and completely virtuous. He therefore invited him to go to Beijing with him.
Guo's education was not yet complete and so he declined, but his fame spread until the nobles in Beijing heard of him (this was in the Wanli era: 1573-1620) and he was finally prevailed on to go there. There was a senior guoshou, one of the most famous in Beijing, called Lin Fuqing, who looked down on the young Guo. One day, in the presence of some nobles, Lin challenged Guo, saying, "I have never played you since you came to Beijing. I would like to play you today. It would give everyone the greatest pleasure."
The nobles were overjoyed and offered silver as a prize for the winner. Guo several times declined. Lin thought he was afraid and became all the more haughty, so that eventually Guo had no option but to play. Lin then lost three games in a row, to his great embarrassment. The nobles heaped even more praise on Guo.
Thereafter his fame spread throughout the empire and famous players came from all four corners to challenge him. He played them one by one and beat them all. In the Wuxi-xian Zhi (History of Wuxi County) it is written: "When Guo opened the gates and let the enemy in, no-one dared look up at him. And so for several decades all go players regarded Guo Bailing of Wuxi as their paragon."
Among other works, he wrote a manual on handicap openings for four-stone games, "Si Zi Pu," and the first version of the massive classic on endgame and life-and-death problems, "Guanzi Pu". This appeared in 1660, though did not take its final shape until 1689, after his death. He died in 1662, aged nearly eighty. Around a couple of dozen of his games survive. Some are given here in downloadable sgf format.
Game 1: A three-stone game. Note that this is Chinese-style three stones. Game 2: Against major rival Zhou Lanyu. Game 3: Against another top rival, Lu Fuqing.
