hist-games: Tibetan Gundru

[M Winther]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "P Shotwell" <pshotwell at gmail.com>
To: <hist-games at www.pbm.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 10:08 PM
Subject: hist-games: Tibetan Gundru


> Hello Mat,
> No, it isn't. In fact, I'm doing a paper that will soon be posted in
> the Bob High Library of the American Go Association
> (www.usgo.org/bobhighlibrary) that reviews some of the history (and
> also mistaken history) of custodian capture games dating back to
> Classical Greek (if not Egyptian) times. I think it is logical to
> think the principles of the game might have come to Tibet via the
> Greek colony of Bactria and been adapted to be played on go boards.
> BTW, its more common name in Tibet is Mig-mang (not Ming-mang), which
> is also the name of Tibetan go. It means 'many eyes' and refers to the
> design of the board.
> Peter Shotwell


Peter,

Thanks for the information. The existent references to Mig-mang and 
Ming-mang (e.g. Wikipedia) say that only *one* piece can be intercepted 
(which allows a maximum of three pieces to be captured at a time). 
Moreover, capture can *not* occur over corners.

In Gundru, on the other hand, several stones in a line can be captured by 
interception, and capture can occur over corners.

Are the Ming-mang rules incorrectly described, or are these different 
games? The Gundru rules seem much more logical. Mig-mang must be 
a tedious game. I doubt it is possible to get a winning advantage.

(Surely the Go capture must have developed from the interception 
capture(?))

Mats Winther