The game of Go is one of the most popular games in the world and is on par with games such as chess, in any of its Western or Asian variants, in terms of game theory and as an intellectual activity. It has also been argued to be the most complex of all games, with most advocates referring to the difficulty in programming the game to be played by computers and the large number of variations of play. While the strongest computer chess software has defeated top players (Deep Blue beat the world champion in 1997), the best Go programs routinely lose to talented children and consistently reach only the 1-10 kyu range of ranking. Many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to be a better measure of a computer's capacity for thought than chess.

As a result of its elegant and simple rules, the game of Go has long been an inspiration for mathematical research. Chinese scholars of the 11th century already published work on permutations based on the go board. In more recent years, research of the game by John H. Conway led to the invention of the surreal numbers and contributed to development of combinatorial game theory (with Go Infinitesimals being a specific example of its use in Go).