www.roanoke.com

Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Elliot Wheeler of Roanoke, plays a game of Go against Elise Dove, 12, on a recent Thursday night at Pop's Ice Cream.

Ranked players John Greiner, 60, of Eagle Rock and Jim Payette, 58, of Lexington engage in a game of Go.

A Chinese war lasting more than 4,000 years has migrated to the Pop's Ice Cream Shop and Soda Bar in Grandin Village.

Men and children from the Roanoke Valley wage hourlong heated battles in the malt shop, and they love it.

"It's kind of like a dance," said Jim Payette, who travels from Lexington to challenge Roanoke residents. "You defend and then you attack. You defend and then you attack."

It has been a year since locals began to meet weekly at the Pop's shop from 6 to 9 p.m Thursdays to practice playing Go. The weekly meetings are free and open to the community. Players range in age from 11 to more than 60, and skill varies from beginners to proficient.

"It's sort of this viral sort of spread," said John Greiner of Eagle Rock about the group. "It's not formal."

Roanoke players and those interested in Go are preparing for a local tournament Oct. 13 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke.

Payette and Greiner were among a group of eight on Sept. 20 that practiced in the malt shop. The two met on opposite sides of a wooden board 19 inches by 19 inches and prepared to fight in a game of wit and balance as the they covered the checkered board with white and black chips on the points where lines intersect.

The pair stared at the board with wrinkled brows and cups of black coffee at their sides.

"At this point he's pretty much dead," Payette said as he placed another chip around Greiner's chip in the dim glow of shop lights. The move cut off three of the four intersecting lines around Greiner's chip, said Geoff Boyer of New Castle, and should Greiner not protect the last line intersecting the chip, he would lose the chip and points.

Instead of Greiner protecting the one piece in jeopardy, he moved to isolate one of Payette's pieces as his own was captured.

"It's neat that you can make moves that benefit each other," Boyer said of Greiner's decision. It's what the group calls an ongoing negotiation during the game. Players begin with an empty board, and the aim is to gather control of different sections of the board by using chips as borders and isolating the opponent's chips.

"You're always thinking," said Boyer, who plays with the group when he isn't coaching volleyball at Craig County High School.

Boyer, a math teacher, learned the game from Greiner in 2001. In July, he participated in the 23rd annual US Go Congress tournament along with Greiner and Craig Garrett, a Go player from Smith Mountain Lake.

The 2007 tournament was held in Lancaster, Pa., where nearly 500 players from around the world competed over eight days. Boyer was 6-0 and won in his group division; Greiner was 5-1 and won in his division -- a level more advanced than Boyer's; and Garrett won 5-0 with a bye and placed second in his division.

The tournament was a thrill for Boyer, who now teaches others how to play Go.

"You really learn every time you play," he said. "Each person you play, their style is different."

On a rare Thursday night off from volleyball, Boyer coached 11-year-old Jessica Young with a game in an adjacent booth to Payette and Greiner.

Jessica, the daughter of the Pop's owners, said she plays with the amateurs and other advanced players with a handicap, as permitted by universal rules of the game. Players at a beginner's level, according to American Go Association rules, are permitted extra chips on the board before the game begins.

"I just like it because it helps me keep my mind on something," she said. Her friends Isaac Malik, 12, and Elise Dove, 12, also were playing.

Many teenagers and adult amateurs come to the Thursday night games to play, Boyer said, and the handicap is increased or decreased depending on the player's skill level against an advanced opponent in keeping with the game's principle of balance.

Elliot Wheeler of Roanoke went toe-to-toe with Jessica, and the board was covered in white and black chips during their 30-minute game.

"I'm one of the lowest-ranking amateurs here," Wheeler said. "I know how to put the stones on the board."

Wheeler, like everyone else in Pop's on Thursday, enjoys the fellowship, but nothing is more captivating than the thrill of war on the wooden board.

"It's the game itself," Greiner said of the excitement and aura of the weekend events. "We're still making changes in what we think is opening theory, and this is 4,000 years after the game's beginning. I'm telling you now, this is addictive."