Go is a strategic board game for two players. It is also known as Weiqi in Chinese (Traditional Chinese: 圍棋; Simplified Chinese: 围棋), Igo or Go in Japanese (Kanji: 囲碁 or 碁), and Baduk in Korean (Hangul:바둑). Go originated in ancient China, centuries before it was first mentioned in writing c. 548 BC. It is now popular throughout the world, especially in East Asia.

The game of Go is one of the most popular games in the world, and is in on par with games such as Chess (and its Asian variants) in terms of game theory and as an intellectual activity. It has also been argued to be the most complex of all games, with most advocates referring to the difficulty in programming the game to be played by computers and the large number of variations of play.[1] While the strongest computer chess software has defeated top players (Deep Blue beat the world champion in 1997), the best Go programs routinely lose to talented children; and consistently reaching only the 8–10 kyu range of ranking. Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to be a better measure of a computer's capacity for thought than chess.