Go Rules for Beginners: Stones, Liberties and Capture

Go is one of the oldest board games still played today, and it has some of the simplest rules of any strategy game. There are no pieces with different moves, no special openings to memorize before you can play. Two players place stones on the intersections of a grid and try to surround more of the board than their opponent. Everything else follows from a handful of rules, and this guide covers all of them.

The board and the stones

Go is played on the intersections of a grid, not inside the squares. The full-size board is 19×19, but beginners usually start on 9×9 or 13×13, where a game takes ten to twenty minutes instead of an hour. One player has black stones, the other white. Black moves first, then players alternate, placing one stone per turn on any empty intersection.

Once a stone is placed, it never moves. It stays where it is until the end of the game — unless it gets captured.

Liberties

A liberty is an empty intersection directly next to a stone — up, down, left or right. Diagonals don't count. A single stone in the middle of the board has four liberties, a stone on the edge has three, and a stone in the corner has only two.

Stones of the same colour that touch each other along the lines form a group (also called a chain). A group shares all of its liberties: to capture it, your opponent has to fill every one of them.

Capturing

When you place a stone that takes away the last liberty of an opponent's stone or group, those stones are captured and removed from the board. Captured stones are called prisoners.

A stone or group with only one liberty left is said to be in atari. It's the Go equivalent of "check": if the owner doesn't do something — usually add a stone to gain liberties — it will be captured on the next move.

The suicide rule

You can't place a stone where it would have no liberties, unless that move captures something. If your move removes the last liberty of an enemy group, the capture happens first, which frees up liberties for your stone, so the move is legal.

Ko: no endless repetition

Sometimes two players could capture a single stone back and forth forever. The ko rule prevents this: you may not make a move that returns the board to exactly the position it had after your previous move. In practice, after your opponent captures in a ko, you have to play somewhere else first (a "ko threat") before you're allowed to recapture. MindLounge uses the stricter positional superko rule: no move may recreate any board position that has appeared earlier in the game.

Passing and the end of the game

Instead of placing a stone, a player may pass. When both players pass one after the other, the game ends. You pass when no move left on the board would gain you anything — every border is settled and placing more stones would only fill your own territory.

Before counting, players agree which stones are dead: stones still on the board that could not avoid capture. Dead stones are removed and treated like prisoners. Then the score is counted — see How Go Scoring Works.

On MindLounge, dead stones are not removed automatically: the board is counted exactly as it stands when both players pass. Capture any dead enemy stones inside your area before you pass.

Komi

Because Black moves first, White receives extra points called komi to balance the game — usually 6.5 or 7.5 points on a 19×19 board. MindLounge uses a komi of 7.5 on the 9×9 board. The half point means a game can't end in a draw.

The whole game in one sentence

Place stones to surround empty space, capture groups that run out of liberties, keep your own groups alive, and whoever controls more of the board at the end wins.

Common beginner questions

Can I play on the edge of the board? Yes — the edge lines are part of the board, and stones there simply have fewer liberties.

Do I have to capture when I can? No. Unlike checkers, no move in Go is compulsory. Often the best move is to leave a weak enemy stone alone and play somewhere bigger.

Can a captured stone come back? No. Captured stones stay off the board and count for the capturing player under territory scoring.

What if I run out of good moves? Pass. There is no penalty for passing, and once both players pass in a row, the game is over.

Is a bigger board harder? The rules are identical on 9×9, 13×13 and 19×19. A bigger board simply means longer games and more room for strategy.

Where to go next

• Your First Go Games on a Small Board — practical advice for the first ten games.
• Life and Death in Go — why groups need two eyes.
• Play Go against the bot — no account needed.