My friend Young H. Rhie sent me this:
"You can see nine points in the go board. They are called Hoshi points.
Hoshi means "star" in Japanese. Koreans call them Hwajeom. Hwajeom means "flower point".
The word Hoshi tells us that the go board itself represents the Cosmos. The center-most point is called Ten-gen meaning "The center of the Cosmos".
The Hoshi points of old Korean go boards are not shaped like circular points of current go boards.
There used be shapes of 17 or 25 lotus flowers or ume flowers. 17 points are made for pre-setup points for Sunjang Baduk (old style Korean Baduk).
So Koreans called them flower points.
Though we do not see the flowers on the board, we still call them flower points."
