What you need
A board with a grid of lines and two sets of stones, black and white. The full board is 19×19, but beginners should start on 9×9, as the British Go Association recommends, then move to 13×13. Our printable 9×9 board comes with 80 stones to cut out; buttons, coins or beads work just as well, and you can even play on paper with X and O.
Setup
The board starts empty. One player takes black, the other white. Black plays first. Stones go on the intersections of the lines, not inside the squares; the 81 intersections of a 9×9 board are called points.
How to play
Placing stones
Players alternate. On your turn, put one stone of your colour on any empty point, or pass. Once placed, a stone never moves, unless it is captured and removed.
Liberties and capture
The empty points directly next to a stone, up, down, left or right, are its liberties. Stones of one colour that touch along the lines form a string and share their liberties; diagonal neighbours are not connected.
When you fill the last liberty of an enemy stone or string, it is captured: remove it from the board and keep it as a prisoner. A stone in the middle has four liberties, on the edge three, in a corner two.
No suicide
You may not play a stone that would leave your own stone or string with no liberties, unless that move captures enemy stones and so frees up liberties.
Ko
Sometimes one stone captures one stone and could be captured straight back, endlessly. The ko rule forbids recreating the previous board position: after a ko capture, the other player must play elsewhere for at least one turn before retaking it.
Life and death
A group with two separate empty points inside it, called eyes, can never be captured, because the opponent can never fill both at once. It is alive. Groups that cannot make two eyes and are surrounded are dead; they do not need to be captured move by move and are removed at the end.
Scoring and winning
When neither player can gain anything, each passes. Two passes in a row end the game. Remove dead stones; they count as prisoners.
With the territory scoring taught by the British Go Association, each player counts one point for every empty point they have surrounded and one for every prisoner. The higher total wins. Area scoring, used in Chinese rules, counts surrounded points plus your stones on the board; it usually gives the same winner.
Because Black moves first, White usually receives komi, extra points such as 6.5 or 7.5; the half point prevents a tie.
Common variants
- Handicap: a weaker player takes black and places two to nine stones on the marked star points before White’s first move, with little or no komi.
- Board size: 13×13 for intermediate games, 19×19 for the full game.
- Paper go: draw a grid and play with O and X marks on the intersections, rubbing out captured stones.
Tips for first games
- Start in the corners, then the sides; territory is cheapest to enclose there.
- Before you play, count the liberties of any group that is short of them, yours and your opponent’s.
- A stone with one liberty left is in atari; save it or let it go, but do not ignore it.
- Do not try to kill everything. Make your groups live with two eyes first.
Frequently asked questions
Do stones go in the squares? No, on the intersections of the lines, including the edges and corners.
Can I pass? Yes, at any time. Two consecutive passes end the game.
Is suicide allowed? No, unless the move captures enemy stones.
Why does White get extra points? It compensates for Black’s first move; the points are called komi.
Which board should a beginner use? 9×9 first, then 13×13, then 19×19.
