Go — known as Baduk in Korea and Weiqi in China — is the ancient game of territory and influence. Two players place black and white stones on the intersections of a grid, competing to surround more of the board. The Board Gaming Hub build is single-player versus an AI and offers three board sizes: 9×9 for a quick game, 13×13 for a middle ground, and the full 19×19. The rules are short; the depth is famous.
Placing stones
Black plays first. Stones go on the intersections of the grid lines, not the squares, and once placed a stone never moves — it can only be captured. Same-color stones connected horizontally or vertically (never diagonally) form a single group that lives or dies together.
Liberties and capture
A group's liberties are the empty intersections directly adjacent to it. As long as a group has at least one liberty it stays on the board. Fill its last liberty and the whole group is captured and removed. You may not play a stone that would leave your own group with zero liberties (a suicide) — unless that same move captures an enemy group and thereby gains a liberty.
Ending the game: pass, pass, then mark the dead
When neither player wants to add stones, they pass. Two consecutive passes end the game. The board then enters a scoring step: click any group of stones that cannot avoid capture to mark it as dead — those stones are removed and count for the surrounding player. Press Confirm / Final Score when both sides agree, or Resume Play if there is a disagreement to settle on the board.
Territory vs area scoring
There are two scoring traditions, and it helps to know both:
- Territory scoring (Japanese) — count empty intersections you surround, plus prisoners you captured.
- Area scoring (Chinese) — count empty intersections you surround plus your own live stones on the board.
They usually give the same winner, differing by at most a point or two. This build uses area (Chinese) scoring: your score is your stones on the board plus the empty territory you enclose.
Beginner strategy
- Start in the corners, then the sides — corners are easiest to enclose because the board edges do part of the surrounding for you.
- Keep your groups connected and give them room to make two separate eyes (enclosed empty points), which makes them uncapturable.
- Do not chase every stone. Trading a small capture for a large framework of influence is usually the winning choice.
- Learn on 9×9. A small board teaches life, death, and capture in minutes before you scale up to 19×19.
Want another two-player abstract? Chess and Othello are close cousins in the strategy shelf.