Renju

British Go Journal No. 54. October 1981. Page 8.

Matthew Macfadyen

It may not be considered proper for a go journal to devote space to so demeaning a use of the board as five-in-a-row but the Ishi Press have seen fit to devote their latest book to it. In some ways it's a bit like learning go again, a new Japanese vocabulary, new tesujis - certainly the Ishi Press seem to have recaptured some of the turgidity of some of their earlier volumes on go. (The translator is not acknowledged.)

Despite having its rules carefully tuned to remove the first player's advantage, Renju is not nearly such a deep and meaningful game as go, but precisely because of that it is possible to become quite good quite quickly. I would prefer not to take the game as seriously as the authors obviously do, but their claim that the game is too deep ever to be analysed by computer seems well worth chasing up. Anyone with a go board looking for some light relief will find plenty of material in this relatively slim volume to keep him amused for a while.