Gois an ancient board game that originated some 4000 years ago in ancient china. It is so to speak one of the grandfathers of all games. Black and white stones get placed one after another on a board with a 19x 19 grid. With just a few minor adjustments go has survived unchanged up until today which might be the biggest prove for it´s inherent quality. It is a game with very simple rules but the resulting complexity (There are more possible variations that the estimated number of atoms in our universe) still makes todays most advanced computers fail to beat a human professional.

Fascinating indeed and you can probably tell by now that go is my passion. And as it is with every passion people have sooner or later they will tell you about how it equals to life. A passionate runner, dancer, musician or even pigeon breeder will tell you how what they love holds so much wisdom if you just look closely enough.

One of the aspects of go, which I think is interesting regardless of if you are interested in the game or not is tewari analysis. It was pioneered by one of the go-saints Honinbo Dosaku in the late 1600 century in ancient japan. What you do in tewari is you analyse a certain situation in a game, in respect to the efficiency of the steps taken to achieve it. Often in life we find ourselves looking back at things thinking: “If I had known just then. I could have done it this way and saved so much time…”

Due to the graphic nature of go, looking back and analysing is a comparably simple task. At the end of a game white and black stones are interlocked with each other. Starting to analyse you subtract an equal amount of stones from each side. With each stone taken you evaluate the efficiency and value of it regarding the final situation.

Eliminating everything unnecessary, stripping a situation down to its core, can be a real eye-opener and when I first got in contact with tewari it helped me get a much deeper insight into the game and thus increased my strategical strength of the game. Looking back at things with a heuristic method like tewari is time well invested.

Now think of a project you have accomplished lately and then recap all the individual steps. From A to B from C to D and so forth up to the final result. Then start subtracting to see if they really added value, start combining to see if things could have been done more efficient etc. Play with those steps as if they were stones placed on a board…

Lessons learned by passion are very intuitive and very unique in respect to the individual and their passion. But I believe that transferring those insights to design and sharing them with others can widen our horizon and help us to become better designers.

So my passion is go. I am curious, what´s yours?