Well Japanese, Chinese, and Korean chess differ from each other and form Western chess although they all have the same Indian ancestor. You can find the rules at:
I think shogi is most fun due to the piece drop (that you can use any piece you capture) and that all pieces except the king and golden general can be promoted.
they are basically the same although the elephants cannot cross the river, the commander and councilors cannot leave the palace, and the cannon must shoot over another piece to capture otherwise they are like western Chess
Concerning Western chess, there were a variety of rules but during the last 500 years the rules we have today became more or less universal. Some older ruleset and alternative forms can be found at
They are not, but there is an argument to be made that their existence is part of the reason why Western chess has only one ruleset.
Itās hard to unify the rulesets of go because of tradition but also because of diplomacy. Japan is never going to accept āfrom now on, everyone uses Chinese rulesā, and China is never going to accept āfrom now on, everyone uses Japanese rulesā.
On the other hand, I could imagine the European and American go federations coming to an agreement and unifying the AGA, British and French rules, and calling those the āWestern rulesā. Because there is a lot less cultural attachment to these rules, and they are already almost identical except for some superko details that no one cares about.
It would still be great to have a āStandard Go Rulesā, even if you donāt call it by a countryās name.
But rules is only one thing. Before that comes, it could be great to have a unified Go organization, which can provide a unified ranking etc. I canāt help but thinking this really hurts the gameās growth and visibility.
On the other hand one should not underestimate the factors of revanchism and national pride in the development of Korean and Chinese Go during the 20th century as a way of getting back at Japan and I would guess that the success of Korean, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Go also prompted the Japanese attempts to revitalize and popularize Go (e.g., Hikaru no Go)
You can still have national pride in your national go players though. Supremacy of a country over the other may be even more apparent if there was a unified ranking and official world competitions to compare them.
There is a world amateur go championship which has taken place in various countries. I guess Chinese rules were used when the competition was in China and Japanese rules in Japan?
Itās a bit weird that there is no professional world go championship though.
Well absent a world go federation itās hard to have it being official, but in the current world Iād say at least being consensually recognized as the reference championship by the go community.
The criteria you listed are just the basic minimum for an international tournament, and are satisfied by many others (Samsung cup, LG cup, Ing cup, Chunlan cupā¦). Thereās nothing that set this one apart from others, other than its marketing decision to brand itself as āBC Card World championshipā instead of āBC Card cupā.
At least the others have some history, this one lasted four years and gone.
As of June 2012 the IGF has 74 members on all continents.
Europe counts 37 members, Asia 17, the Americas 15, Africa 3 and Oceania 2. The total number of players is well over 40 million, the overwhelming majority in East Asia.
True, but the IGFās power is very limited. At least it helps organizing events like the Amateur World Championship that was mentioned above.
But for the professional scene, itās in the hands of each national federation.
At the european level (rather than world), the EGF is another attempt at unifying many national Go federations. It works pretty well. While it does not enforce a single European ruleset, it at least runs the European tournaments, runs its professional program and provides a unified European ranking.
