Rules of the game

If you believe that a game must be easy to learn and difficult to master, than Go is nothing short than the best game ever developed. It does not have a universal set of rules, but the most basic concepts are the following:

1) One player controls the White pieces and the other, the Black pieces (Black goes first). They will alternate turns.

2) The board starts empty and, in his turn, a player may put one stone in one empty intersection of the board lines (called a 'point'). A player may choose not to place a stone, passing his turn.

3) Stones interact with others that are orthogonally adjacent to them. If two or more stones of a single player are next to each other, they form a 'chain'.

4) Empty spaces next to a stone or a chain are called its 'liberties'.

5) If all liberties of a piece or chain are taken by opponent's stones (which means, if the opponent completely surrounds them), then this piece or chain is captured.

6) When a piece or chain is captured, these pieces are taken from the board and given to the opponent. These stones are called his 'prisoners'.

7) A player may never suicide a piece or a chain, playing it such that it would immediately be captured...

8) ...but a player may place a stone that immediately captures opponent's pieces, thus freeing the liberties it requires to stay in game.

9) Then there's the 'ko' rule: a player may not make a move that reverts the game to a previous position (this rule means to prevent the game from entering an infinite cycle).

10) The game ends if the two players consecutively pass their turns.

11) Then, all stones that would be unable to resist capture are removed from the board and given to the opponent as 'prisoners'. If players don't agree on which stones are 'dead', then resume game and find it out.

12) A player's score is equal to the number of empty points a player was able to encircle (his territory) minus the number of his pieces his opponent captured as prisoners. White gets an extra 0.5 points in order to break ties. The player with the best score wins.

But how do I play...?

Although the rules of Go are very simple, it is a fantastically complex game to play, one in which just knowing the rules does not mean you can play it effectively. That's why we decided to add some extra information to get you going, but don't get frustrated if the game seems daunting at first or if you feel you're missing something – Go does require experience.

1) Edges of the Board. Keep in mind that a stone is captured if all his liberties are taken by the opponent, not if it is encircled. If your stone is on an edge of the board, it can be captured by three enemy stones, and if it's on a corner, just two will suffice.

2) Eyes. An 'eye' is a liberty (a free point) surrounded by allied stones. Because a suicidal move is illegal, an opponent may not place a stone there. Creating eyes is an important defense technique.

3) Life and Death. As a chain of stones is encircled by an opponent, the future of the chain may be inferred. If so, it may be 'alive' or 'dead'. A chain is alive if the opponent cannot capture it, which happens if the player may give it two eyes. A chain is dead if the opponent is bound to capture it, which happens if a player may only give it one eye or less.

Two chains of opposing players may also have a mutual life, called 'seki'. This happens when one or both of the two eyes of each chain are shared. In this case, whoever plays the first stone in one of these eyes would lose his whole chain – and so a truce is reached.

4) Ko fight. The ko rule prevents a player from returning the game to a previous position, even when doing so would allow him to retrieve a lost position. In such circumstances a player may make his move elsewhere (changing the game) and in his next turn play the same move he was not allowed to in the previous turn. A succession of this pattern may follow, which is called a ko fight.

5) Handicap. If a player is considerably more skilled than his opponent, then handicapping may be used. In this case, the stronger player will play as White, and allow Black to start the game with one or more stones, depending on their difference in skill. The larger points of the board are the usual points Black places his extra stones.

6) Different Scoring. How to calculate scores in Go varies according to region, and here we have followed the Japanese version. The major alternative is the Chinese system, in which a player's score equals to the number of points (intersections) a player surrounds plus the number of points they control (have a stone on it). Only very rarely would the Japanese and Chinese system points disagree as to who is the winner.