Go
Alternate Names
Go is the Japanese name for the game more formally called I-go (“The Enclosing Game”). Its older Chinese name is transliterated as Wei Qi or Wei-Ch’I (pronounced way chee). Korean transliterations include Baduk, Badug, Paduk, Pa-dok or Patok.
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
A Go board or Goban, 180 white counters, and 181 black counters are required for play, but rarely will all counters be used. Go counters are called “stones”. The Goban represents the uninhabited world bounded by the sea. It is an 18x18 square grid where stones are placed at the intersections and thus there are 19x19, or 361, intersections on the board where a counter may be placed. Throughout this work I refer to square grids by the number of square cells in their columns and rows, but go boards, of which variants use different sizes, usually speak of the grid in reference to the number of lines that compose them. For clarification, an 18x18 square grid is the normal board and is usually referred to as a 19x19 grid in Go parlance. Further, 8x8 square grids and 12x12 square grids are also used for smaller, simpler and faster games of Go. In the Go parlance these are to be called 9x9 or 13x13 grids, respectively.
History
Go is often said to be the world's oldest board game. It should certainly be considered a contender for that title, but no one board game can conclusively be proven to be oldest. Go is so old that its origins lie somewhere within scant historical references, legend and myth. It is widely accepted by historians that it is no less than 2500 years old, but claims older than that have often come under some degree of skepticism and scrutiny. All of the oldest accounts of Go come from China and it is almost certainly a Chinese game. Legend credits the invention of Wei Qi (as it is today called in China) to the Chinese Emperor Yao (2357-2256 BCE) which he used in an attempt to sharpen the wit of his mentally slow son, Tan-Chu. Another legend says that the Emperor was Shun (2255-2206 BCE) and it was his son, Shokin, who was the dimwit. Yet another legend accredits Go to U, a vassal of Emperor Ketsu, who is also said to have invented playing cards.
Wei Qi is mentioned in Chinese poems and allegories dating to the Tenth century BCE, as well as in the Analects of Confucius, the Chinese philosopher from the sixth century BCE. The spread of the Chinese Han Empire in the Second century CE carried the game to Korea where it is played and highly regarded to this day under the name of Baduk. Wei Qi probably came to Japan around 500 CE and was at first only popular with Japanese aristocrats and royalty. Eventually leaking out into mainstream Japanese culture, Wei Qi came to be called Go and was taken to new levels of sophistication unseen in any other game with the possible exception of Chess. It was the Japanese game of Go that came to the Western hemisphere in the late 1800's, although it remains largely unknown to most Americans outside of Universities or Asian enclaves to this day.
Go is often considered the most perfect and most challenging board game from several perspectives, ranking much higher than other games including Chess. Go players are ranked according to their strength.
Objective
The object of Go is to surround more unoccupied territory on the board than your opponent. The game ends when both players agree that neither can increase their territory or the number of prisoners. After all captured or dead stones have been removed, each player counts the number of points they have enclosed and then deducts this from the number of points lost as prisoners. The player with the highest number wins.
Play
Each player controls one color of stone. Alternate turns entail the placement of one stone of your color at any vacant intersection on the board. Black places the first stone. The stones do not move on the board once placed, but are removed when they are captured. Stones of the same color that are orthogonally adjacent to each other are said to be part of an army (also called a chain). Any stone that is on the board is part of an army as even single stones are thought of as a sort of one-man army (or one-link chain). The vacant neighboring points of armies are called liberties. A single stone, without neighbors, near the center of the board has four liberties. A single stone placed on the edge of the board has three liberties and a stone at the corner has two liberties. For armies of multiple stones, the liberties are all of the neighboring vacant intersections. If, at any point, a single stone or army becomes deprived of all liberties by enemy stones, it (or all stones constituting the army) is captured, removed from the board by the opposing player, and kept in a stock of his captured stones to be counted later.
Each white stone on the board has exactly one liberty.
A stone placed at the corner has two liberties, on the edge three liberties and at any other location away from the corners and edges a stone will have four liberties
Capture: the white stone has lost all of its liberties and will become captured by black.
After the capture this how the board will appear.
The chain of white stones has lost all of its liberties and is captured.
After the capture this how the board will appear.
Suicide is forbidden. A player commits "suicide" when they place a stone where it has no liberties. The exception to this rule is that a suicide play is allowed if it enables a player to capture one or more of the opponent's stones. By doing so, the player would regain at least one liberty.
Strategy
Variations
Go variations can be classified and described under five broad categories as they are here: regional variations, board variations, number of player variations, rule variations, and piece variations.
Regional Variations on Go
Tibetan Go is played on a smaller board (16x16 square grid, usually described as a 17x17 lined grid) and commences with six each of black and white stones set at specific locations on the board.
Tibetan Go Opening Position
Sun-Chang Go (Traditional Korean Go)
Other Boards Used for Go
Using a portion of the goban or a smaller board, a smaller, simpler, and faster game is often played. 8x8 and 12x12 square grids (or in standard Go parlance, 9x9 or 13x13 grids, respectively) are common sizes for smaller boards used.
Nearly any kind of grid or board can be used for a playable Go-like game, but square, hexagonal and other regular tessellations are usually preferred because of their regularity. These will allow players to learn tactics that can be applied to any region of the board. Go variants can be classified based on the number of connections that can be made to a normal node (or cell). A normal Go game has four-connections........
Alak is a one-dimensional (played on a line) variation of Go that was first described by A.K. Dewdney in his book The Planiverse. In 2001, Alan Baljeu modified the game into its present form. Unlike Go, placement is compulsory if a move is available. If no move is available, the game is over.
Black and white take turns placing stones on the line. Unlike Go, this placement is compulsory if a move is available; if no move is possible, the game is over.
No stone may be placed in a location occupied by another stone, or in a location where a stone of your own colour has just been removed. The latter condition keeps the game from entering a neverending loop of stone placement and capture, known in Go as ko.
If placing a stone causes one or two groups of enemy stones to no longer have any adjacent empty spaces--liberties, as in Go--then those stones are removed. As the above rule states, the opponent may not play in those locations on their following turn.
If placing a stone causes one or two groups of your own colour to no longer have any liberties, the stones are not suicided, but instead are safe and not removed from play.
Play continues until a player cannot place a stone on their turn. At this point, the number of stones on the board is counted; the winner is the one with the most stones.
Hexago was invented by Stephen Wynn in 1972. Here, Go stones are placed in the cells of hexagonal grid of 127 cells.
Rosette, invented by Mark Berger in 1975, is played on the same grid as Hexago, but here smaller stones are used and played at the intersections of the hexagonal grid's lines.
Board used for Hexago and Rosette
Round Go was introduced by Harald Schwarz during the European Go Congress Summer 1996 at Abono Terme in Italy.
Round Goban
Go boards with (typically) 5 connections per point.
Other 4-connection boards used for Go
Go for 3 or More Players
Other Rules for Go
One-Capture Go or, simply, Capture Go The winner of Capture Go is the first player to capture a single one of the opponent's stones.
Tanbo is played with a standard goban and Go stones. During the game stones of both colors will be added to and removed from the board, the objective is to be the last player top have stones remaining on the board.
Other Pieces used in Go
Sources
Schmittberger, R. Wayne. New Rules for Classic Games. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1992. ISBN 0-471-53621-0
Tanbo