Card and board games

Go

What the game is

Go is a two-player game of territory played with black and white stones on a grid, usually 19 by 19 lines. It is called weiqi in China, baduk in Korea and igo or go in Japan. Players take turns placing one stone on an empty intersection, and stones do not move once placed.

Basic rules

• Black plays first.
• The empty points next to a stone or a connected group of stones are its liberties.
• A group with no liberties left is captured and removed from the board.
• You may not play a move that recreates the board position exactly as it was after your previous move. This is the ko rule, and it stops endless back-and-forth captures.
• At the end, players count the territory they surround (and, under some rule sets, the stones they have on the board).
• White usually receives extra points, called komi, to make up for Black's first move.

How beginners start

Most teachers start new players on a 9 by 9 board, where a game takes minutes instead of an hour, then move to 13 by 13 before the full board. Handicap stones placed before the game let players of different strength play an even contest.

Editor's notes

Japanese and Chinese scoring rules give the same result in almost every game. Agree which you are using before you start, especially in a club.

Entry last checked: October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Use the contact page.