This is the chapter “A tango” from Kris Burm’s (creator of the project GIPF games) book The Right Move. The original and other extracts were published at http://krisburm.be/en/extracts

“The Right Move” is a manifesto on abstract games as a form of art. For the moment its full version is only published in Dutch.

A tango

The interaction of reason and sentiment in what are often called brain burners, even in the pejorative sense, shows a duality that can also be found in other typical indicators of their stratification. The most obvious being, of course, that you play with two players. This implies that you must in part play the game but in equal measure undergo it. You are informing and being informed. In this sense a kind of communication is created, an idiom that only exists when playing. It is a dialogue between two players each of whom begins an argument but of which neither one knows to which conclusion he will come. Along the way they will continuously come up with ideas and strategies for the following phases of the game, but again and again it will remain to be seen whether those intentions will be applicable. You are served up bits of truth: pieces on the board as fixed and unmistakable facts. After every move the new situation is what it is, there’s no way around it, yet you remain in a state of unknowing about the extent to which you’ve understood these bits of truth. That is the slack line between what you think you see and not knowing what you’re not seeing. Every other move you have to build upon what you saw, what you thought you saw and what you didn’t see. And while you’re dealing with it, you wonder what the other player will see and won’t see.

This again indicates a duality: you’re playing against someone, but also with someone. The conflict that is inherent in an abstract game, brings along with it a connectedness for the duration of the game. It’s a tango, a battle for dominance on the dancefloor, with the understanding that the one you want to dominate is at the same time your companion. The better you can anticipate each other’s movements and the more instant inspiration induces flamboyant executions, the larger the satisfaction is once the dance is done — for both parties. When players are aware of this connection, they can tap into a whole other repertoire, not necessarily of moves but with regard to the attitude with which the game is approached and played. Playing is a duel, sure, but it is also creating something together. It initiates a process that is determined by action and reaction on the one hand, and by respect for one another and for the game on the other hand. By the way, in the Far East this is an important philosophical notion amongst players. They stand in solidarity by honoring the game they are playing. And they do so by not playing solely to win, but also to surprise and amaze each other, to show beautiful and, when possible, never before seen maneuvers.

Nobel Prize winner Yasunai Kawabata claimes it as follows in “The Master of Go”: “That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.”

(c) Kris Burm, 2014, “The Right Move”

Original