For someone interested in strategy, I’m really mediocre to bad at board games.  I do enjoy learning the concepts behind them and the frameworks of the best ways to handle games.

A former colleague once told me that I was playing the equivalent of 3D chess against her colleague who was playing checkers.  She even called me a grandmaster (not sure if deserved, but one of the nicest things I’ve ever been told).  I replied not any form of chess, but rather I was playing Go.

Chess is a game of attrition and confrontation.  Grind your enemy down.  Lose a major piece early and if your opponent is competent, you’re as good as dead.  A very Western concept.

Go, on the other hand, is based on different principles.  More about time and controlling space, I call it the water game – surround, envelop, drown your opponent.  In Go, when a situation looks dire, unlike chess, a few key well-placed moves, sometimes even just one, can change the course of the game.

No board game can precisely mimic life.  Life isn’t turn based, constrained by rules, and the pieces aren’t set.  But Go is a good one.  I have a book that explains its connections with the 36 Stratagems – Chinese in origin, based in Taoism and extremely insightful.   It pretty much summarizes a good portion of human strategy.

The focus of fluidity in Go versus a more confrontational style also probably works better in the real world.  There is a place for direct conflict, but the fluidity of human beings and the costly nature of fighting makes it impractical.