Baduk is a very special game. Some people regard it as an art or a kind of Tao, refusing to call it a “game.” For many fans it must be an amusing play for leisure, but its role is not confined only to a recreation. In our life Baduk has served for many other purposes. You will be surprised to find a wide variety of functions it has conducted in our society.
Today Baduk is loved by children as well as adults. Kids in elementary schools learn the game of Baduk for the purpose of developing intelligence, emotion, and personality. Since Baduk is a mind sport it will help its users strengthen and preserve their mental functions in many respects. In this context adults players take on the meaning of keeping their brain health in addition to getting rid of their stress derived from work and social constraints. Along with this aim, they engage in Baduk playing in order to make friends with nice persons.
There are some more functions in Baduk, which are so special that one may believe that Baduk is a panacea. I’d like to introduce the functions as a social language and a model for studying other domains.
Baduk even plays a role in our language although most people think it is not connected with the linguistic aspect. The mass media in Korea like to borrow the technical terms of Baduk to describe social phenomena. You can find easily in newspapers the words like Posuk, Jungsuk, Aksoo, Soosoon, Choilgi, and so on. According to a survey, more than 20 Baduk terms are being utilized as the current language. Isn’t it amazing to use so many terms of a particular domain in mass media? The reason is considered to be that Baduk terminology is good to describe human life in a roundabout way. The expression that the myth of Daemabulsa(meaning that a big group never die) has been broken is more euphemistic than the straight talk like “the bankruptcy of a group of companies.”
Baduk is figuratively called the “miniature of life” and contains lots of similarities to our living. Basically it is a game of territorial war and Baduk players are used to the expressions like invasion, attack, capture, escape, strategy, tactics, and etc. Strategically it is characterized by two aspects: economic struggle and military fight. Yi Chang-ho 9 dan who was the foremost professional Baduk player and has a nickname of “Sinsan or Godlike calculation,” is the typical player in the economic competition, while Yi Se-dol 9 dan is the incarnation of a combatant fighter. The game has many things in common with our life which is often depicted as the struggle for survival.
One of the most peculiar things about the use of Baduk is the fact that there are many people who try to extract useful lessons or principles for other disciplines such as philosophy, management, psychology, and so forth. Several western Baduk fans believe that Baduk is the product of profound oriental philosophy, drawing out those philosophical elements included in Baduk. Some famous businessmen are proud of their experiences of applying successfully the principles of Baduk to real business settings. A Thai CEO Korsak, for example, says that he learned the spirit of “co-existence” under excessive competition from the game of Baduk and that he took this to his business not to kill his rival company, but to allow it some profit.
I am often asked by publishers or educators to write or lecture on Baduk and Life or Baduk and Management. While I am doing this job, I find that there exist so many similar things and that we can gain lots of significant lessons from Baduk. I have dealt with the way of thinking, expecting the future, leading a life, developing one’s career in one of my publications. My study on these subjects is based on the rationale that both Baduk and life are “problem-solving.” Some cognitive psychologists say that Baduk is a nice model for studying complicated problem-solving. Our life is filled with endless problems, and we need to solve them wisely.
In addition to the abovementioned fields, Baduk is being investigated to study military strategy, artificial intelligence, mathematics, and other domains. Understanding the game of Baduk can be, therefore, the way of extending various knowledge and knacks along with a life-long hobby.

- THE KOOKMIN REVIEW No.215 - March 22, 2010
- Prof. Jeong Soo-Hyun (Dept. of Baduk Studies, Myongji University) shjeong@mju.ac.kr