222. The art of Weiqi (Go/Baduk) war (碁#30) - The Dim Mak Challenge

It's been fifty-one days. Fifty-one days of fifty-one black stones and fifty-one white stones vying for control over the weiqi (go/baduk) board. That is longer than the recent hot war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And we are still going strong. Which is a good thing because both of us would love to drop a daisycutter on each others' asses, but the ratings seem to favour death by ninja stealth more. And so, we take things slow and watch the intensity build as we try to force each other's hand to bend to our will. What I find really interesting, is how much of it is emotionally affecting the viewership. Without having a direct say in how the game will progress, it is in some ways more intense for them than it is for us, the actual players. Sure, I spend time calculating the moves. But I don't spend all day on it. In some ways playing one move per day is easier to manage strategically and tactically. What really is trying on my nerves is the waiting game. Waiting for my opponent to make his move - play his stone - so that I can respond in kind. Now for those of you who think it will last forever like a TV show past its use-by-date, you really are poor with numbers regardless of how nerdy smart you project yourselves out to be. The game only has 181 black stones and 180 white stones. And yes, the English websites are wrong. You do not get an infinite number of stones. And the updated Chinese Professional gaming rules miss the point by trying to make the number of stones equal to both sides. War and politics is never a fair fight. It is deliberately meant to be unfair. My opponent requested the match after reading my book '圍棋戰聖: The Weiqi Art of War'. And so it is his game, his world, his establishment. It is my job to take it away from him. And every morning that's what happens. The game is our breakfast newspaper. No Murdoch here. No Great Wall of China, and no North Korean rubbish. This war between us is a good stuff upper lip of calculated Dim Mak targeting. Now on a side note: True Dim Mak is the art of targeting an opponent's vital or pressure points. In an actual battle it rarely works and that's why fighters say it is fake. Real Dim Mak is more like an assassination or surgical strike designed to knock out an opponent 'BEFORE' an actual fight, so that a war is unnecessary. But again, history has proven that it sometimes does not work. In our weiqi game, the war is already happening. Here a successful Dim Mak strike will end it ⚔️圍棋戰聖 Follow on Insta: @baguazhang_