Go (the Board Game) Tutorial
Go Club in Los Angeles
Go Game Download
Go Game Software
Go Game Tutorial
Basic Rules
- Two players, black and white, take turns placing a stone
(game piece) on the points (intersections) of a 19 by 19 board
(grid). Black moves first.
- Stones must have liberties (empty adjacent points) to remain on the
board. Stones connected by lines are called chains, and share their
liberties.
- When a stone or a chain of stones is surrounded by opponent stones, so
that it has no more liberties, it is captured and removed from the
board.
- "Ko rule": A stone cannot be played on a particular point, if doing
so would recreate the board position after the same player's previous turn.
- A player may pass instead of placing a stone. Two consecutive
passes end a game, beginning the scoring.
- A player's score is the number of empty points enclosed only by his stones
plus the number of points occupied by his stones. The player with the higher
score wins.
This is the essence of the game of Go. The possibility and threat to capture
opposing stones provides strategic variation and makes the game interesting.
Go Tutorial Resources
-
The Interactive Way To Go (http://playgo.to/interactive/)
is an excellent resource to learn the basics; includes Java applets.
-
British Go Association's introduction to Go (http://www.britgo.org/intro/intro2.html)
-
The Rules of Go (http://www.toycrossing.com/go/index.shtml)
-
How To Play Go (http://unkx80.netfirms.com/weiqi/howtoplaygo/)
-
Samarkand (http://www.samarkand.net/Academy/learn_go/overview.html)
is owned by Janice Kim 3p and has a very good beginner introduction.
-
goproblems.com (http://www.goproblems.com/)
has over 3000 problems for practice in a Java applet.
-
GoBase (http://gobase.org/studying/problems/academy/)
has a collection of 750 problems used in Korea to help develop players of
amateur dan strength.
