How to Play Go

The goal

Two players, black and white, take turns placing stones on the intersections of a grid. The goal is to control more of the board than your opponent by surrounding empty points (territory) and capturing enemy stones.

The core rules

• Black plays first. Players alternate, placing one stone per turn on any empty intersection.
• A stone or connected group has “liberties” — the empty points directly next to it.
• When a group's last liberty is filled by the opponent, it is captured and removed.
• You may not play a move that leaves your own stone with no liberties (suicide), unless it captures.
• You may not immediately recreate the previous board position (the ko rule).
• You may pass instead of playing. Two passes in a row end the game.

Life, death, and two eyes

A group is alive if it can make two separate internal empty points called eyes — the opponent can never fill both at once, so the group can never be captured. Learning to make two eyes (and to deny them to your opponent) is the single most important skill in Go.

Ending and scoring

When both players pass, the game ends and the board is scored. GoingBoard uses area scoring: your score is the number of points you control — your stones plus the empty territory you surround. White also adds komi (7.5 points) to offset black's first-move advantage. The higher score wins.