The rules of go are very simple:
- Two players take turns placing stones (that’s the name of the pieces) on the intersections of a grid on an empty board. One player takes black and one player takes white, black goes first.
- Once a stone is placed it cannot be moved unless it is captured. The adjacent intersections of a stone are called that stone’s liberties and a stone is captured when all the liberties of the stone are occupied by the opponent’s stones.
- When you place a stone next to your own stone they create a chain. Your opponent then has to take the liberties of the whole chain in order to capture the chain.
- You are not allowed to place a stone where it would have no liberties, unless that move captures one or several of the stones occupying those liberties.
- The board position may not be repeated two moves in a row.