Gakken Igo Trainer (19xx, LCD, Model# ?)

Igo Trainer is a strategy game designed to teach you to play (and get better at) a Japanese game called Igo (also known as just Go). Here's a description of the game and a bit of it's history I received from Israel Rodriguez, a fan of the site:

"IGO (better know in the west as GO) is an old Asian board game that claims to be one of the oldest games that are still played in the world. The game is pure strategy and has incredibly simple rules but incredibe depth. This game takes minutes to learn but decades to master, it's really an amazing game. The game has different names depending on the country, in the west it's know as GO, in Japan it's known as IGO, in China it'sWEIQI, and in Korea it's BADUK or BATUK. Actually, the Japanese organizations and tournaments are the most acclaimed and recognized among the profesional world of GO, professional tournaments are played in Japan with big money prizes for the winner.

The game is played in a 19x19 lines grid painted in a board, making a total of 361 intersections, where you place the stones. Normally, it is played by 2 people, one has black stones and the other has white stones that are placed one after the other in the board trying to make territory and/or capture the opponent stones. Again, it's all pure strategy. How the points of each player are considered depends on the rules set you use, since there are some variations among them, Japanese rules set is the most used in the world. A regular match has from 200 to 300 moves and can take more than 2 hours to end.

The best resource on GO information, learning and clubs in America is the American Go Association (AGA) www.usgo.org. If you go there, you'll be able to download a pdf file of a booklet called 'The way to GO' it's quite a good place to start."