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Your Move/Readers Write: Li Keqiang’s Go Metaphor; More on Legal Go Positions

Li Keqiang’s Go Metaphor: In a departure from previous years, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang did not cite any traditional Chinese sayings or poems at a recent news conference after the annual National People's Congress. Instead, he used a go metaphor to convey his message. "In weiqi - a chessboard game invented by the Chinese - one has to both plan the big picture and also get the key moves right," he said, explaining his strategy in managing China's economy. - Based on a report in the South China Morning Post; thanks to Melanie Manion and Dave Weimer for passing it along.
More on Legal Go Positions: “A colleague of mine 30 years ago offered a very clever way of accurately estimating the number of legal go positions, (Number of Legal 18×18 Go Positions Computed 3/17)” writes Eric Osman. “His name is Peter Sichel and his clever way was this: generate random board arrangements, and see what percentage of those are legal. If you want more accuracy, generate some more! The estimate for the number of legal positions is merely your percentage of legal ones multiplied by the total number of possible positions which of course is 3 to the square of 19 power.”