How to play Go fully

In ancient China, Go was a highly respected art. Currently, Go has been introduced to Vietnam, but few people know about it. To learn how to play Go, please refer to the full instructions on how to play Go below.

The most complete way to play Go

1. Rules of Go

Both are board games, but Go is completely different from how to play Chinese chess, chess, or checkers. Therefore, you cannot apply the rules of chess and Chinese chess to this game of Go.

Chessboard

The Go board is square in shape, made from wood, and consists of 19 horizontal lines and 19 vertical lines intersecting to create small squares, with 361 intersection points. These intersections are the locations to place the chess pieces.

On the chessboard, the center intersection of the chess board has a black mark. This is the central star. Besides, on the chessboard there are 8 additional black points. This score is for stars 1 to 8.

Troops and groups of troops

- Chess pieces will consist of two colors, of which 181 are black pieces and 180 are white pieces. These pieces are placed on the chessboard at 361 intersections.
- Chess pieces standing next to each other will form a group.
- An empty intersection with no pieces next to the group of pieces will be gas.
- If you run out of gas, that army or group of troops will be eliminated

2. How to play Go

When playing Go, you need to apply the principles below. This is the basic rule for new players.

Rule

- Like playing chess, playing Tien Len, playing Ta La, playing Lieng., playing Go also requires turns. The person holding the black piece will be the first to go.

- Feeling unnecessary, the player skips the turn. However, if both players quit, the game will end.

- When placed, a piece must have 1 gas and cannot move anymore.

- Do not repeat moves: This means you will not be allowed to repeat moves from the previous state on the chessboard. For example, if the black piece moves to position a to capture the white piece, the white piece will not be allowed to move to a.

Qi of the chess pieces

- The gas of a chess piece means that all intersections around the placed chess piece are empty.
- Black pieces will create troops with more energy by creating groups of troops.
- If pieces A and pieces B are located at two diagonal intersections, they are not considered linked to form a group of pieces.
- The gas of your army/group of troops will be lost when the opponent's army is placed on the gas of that army/group of troops.
- If a piece/group of pieces no longer has energy, that piece/group of pieces will have to leave the chessboard.
- Therefore, according to the rules, the white and black pieces can be anywhere on the 361 intersection points of the board, as long as that place has energy to survive on the board.
- Black pieces are not allowed to enter black spots on the chessboard. The white piece will move. However, we must not place troops in a position where we run out of gas. But if you capture the opponent's piece, you can enter the point where you run out of air.

3. Live and die playing Go

When playing Go, many times your army/group of troops will be surrounded by the opponent's army. Therefore, you need to consider the status with the following 3 cases: Alive, dead or undetermined.

* The army was surrounded

The situation we need to consider when playing Go is that the black piece surrounds the white piece, leaving the white piece with no way to escape.

- In order for the white piece to be destroyed, the black piece needs to squeeze out all of the white piece's air by placing the black piece in the white piece's air square. Or if a white piece enters the remaining space in the surrounded group, that group of white pieces will be removed from the chessboard.

How to play Go fully Picture 1

- In this chess game, even though the black pieces have surrounded the white pieces, the white pieces still have a lot of air because they cannot squeeze out all the air. Therefore, these white troops lived.

How to play Go fully Picture 2

* Eye space

When you have large enough land, you will create a large eye space. Thus, it is not easy for your opponent to eliminate your troops.

How to play Go fully Picture 3

- Eye is a point surrounded by 4 troops. Therefore, the eye space will be points surrounded by many pieces. Such as the image above with the eyes marked "o".

- With this eye space, we consider the black patch on the left and the black patch on the right side to be alive.

How to play Go fully Picture 4

- In case a few white pieces appear in the eye space of the black piece, the black pieces do not need to be afraid because if the white pieces are filled, the white pieces will lose their energy, thereby being eliminated from the chessboard.

- The black group on the right has an eye space, but the black pieces can easily divide the space in half to create lives if the white pieces can jump in. For example, if the white piece moves to position A, the Black piece will move to B, or if the white piece moves to B, the black piece will move to A.

* Fake eyes and real eyes

- The eye is a point that is not the eye space. Therefore, you need to pay attention to whether it is a fake eye or a real eye.

How to play Go fully Picture 5

- These two groups of pieces have two eyes at the points marked A, B, C, D. If the white piece lands at point B or D, it will cause some black pieces to be removed from the chessboard because B and D are fake eyes.

- To determine whether a group of white or black pieces is a real eye or a fake eye, you need to look at its doors. The artificial eyes are cross-shaped markers. This point is to connect the eye-forming pieces into a seamless group.

How to play Go fully Picture 6

- When the white mandarin occupies the two eye openings in the center, it becomes a false eye. If Trang occupies at least 1 eye at the border, then this eye is a false eye.

4. How to calculate points when playing Go

To know who is white and who is losing when playing Go, you need to calculate the score as follows:

- The number of points for each person = Total number of chess pieces + number of lands covered by his pieces.
- Whoever has the higher total score will be the winner.

Basic instructions for playing Go

After the complete instructions on how to play Go above, readers should invite friends and relatives to learn this game of Go. Just play a few times and you can play Go professionally and better. If you are learning how to play seahorse chess with everyone in your family, please join us in the great tips for playing seahorse that we have shared.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 07 August 2024