Jul Gonu

Opening Position

Alternate Names

Jul-Gonu. There are many traditional games originating from Korea called Gonu. Jul means lines and thus this game may be translated as line board game.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

Jul Gonu is played at the intersections a 3x3 square grid. Four each of black and white counters are also required for play.

History

There are many Gonu games, which are traditional board games originating from Korea. They are typically played on a makeshift board drawn in the dirt, sand or stone with distinguishable stones used for counters. The fact that the boards are drawn probably adds to their fluidity and there are numerous variations of Gonu games. Typically, they are simple children’s games. They may be blockading games, or they may utilize jumping capture, capture by custodianship, or some combination of blockading and capture.

Objective

Both player’s objective is to reduce their opponent to one counter or block any legal move by their opponent. The first player to do so is the winner.

Play

Counters are played at the intersections and the game opens with the counters positioned as shown above. Alternate turns entail the orthogonal movement of a single friendly counter to an adjacent vacant intersection on the board. This game utilizes the Ko rule, which means that any play is illegal if it would have the effect of creating a position that has occurred previously in the game, i.e. it would make the board look exactly as it did in a previous stage of the game.

This game combines the normal attempts at blocking an opponent’s moves of a blockade game with custodianship capture. This means that a counter may be captured and removed from the board if becomes surrounded on two opposite sides by opposing counters. Typically, a capture of this kind means that all three counters involved in the capture are in an orthogonal straight line without any vacant intersections between them with the two capturing counters at either end and the captured counter in the middle. This game, however, also allows for capture of counters at the corners of the board if both adjacent intersections become occupied by opposing counters.

Custodian capture diagram

Custodian capture at the corners diagram

There is no custodianship of multiple opposing counters and thus, more than one opposing counter cannot be captured in a turn.

Strategy

Variations

Sources