How to play Go

Go is a very traditional entertainment game with a long history. Many Go enthusiasts play Go frequently, even every day. Many parents also cultivate their children's Go skills from an early age. This not only makes the children become well-behaved, but also enhances their intelligence and improves their thinking ability. It is really a win-win situation.

For those who don’t know how to play Go, they want to learn it well. So how to play Go? First of all, we must have time and love for Go, and then master the various rules of Go. After constant practice and thinking, we will make rapid progress. If you learn quickly, I believe you will love playing Go, which will enrich your spare time, and Go is also a very healthy lifestyle, so let’s learn it.

The Go board has 19 lines vertically and horizontally, with a total of 361 intersections (movement points). The chess pieces are divided into two colors, black and white, with 181 black pieces and 180 white pieces. The player holding black pieces goes first, and takes turns placing pieces on intersections. The side that occupies more intersections wins. In order to gain more intersections, both sides must try to "encircle" and "capture" the other side's pieces, hence the name Go.

Methods/Steps

1. The Go board is square, consisting of 19 horizontal and vertical lines, with a total of 361 (19X19) intersections. For easy identification, 9 important points are marked with black dots on the disk. These 9 points are called "stars". With each star as the center, the chessboard is divided into nine areas: upper left corner, lower left corner, upper right corner, lower right corner, top, bottom, left side, right side and middle.

2. Make your move. Two people play against each other, each taking pieces of a different color, and the one with black pieces goes first. The chess pieces are placed at the intersection of the board and cannot be moved after being placed. After that, each side takes turns to move one piece until the end of the game.

3. The "Qi" of the chess piece. "Qi" refers to the intersection where the chess pieces are closely connected up, down, left and right, and is also the way out for the chess pieces. When a chess piece or many chess pieces are tightly surrounded by the opponent's chess pieces and its "Qi" is completely blocked, according to the rules, it should be immediately removed from the chessboard, which is called "Taking the Stone".

4. Prohibited points. "Forbidden point" is the place where the opponent is forbidden to make a move. If the opponent makes a move here during the game, it will be judged as a violation, but the opponent is allowed to make a new move.

5. Robbery. When the Black player captures the piece, the White player cannot counter-capture immediately; if the White player wants to counter-capture, he must first "seek a ko", that is, make a move somewhere else to create a certain threat to the Black player, forcing the Black player to deal with it (the term is "responding to a ko"), and then the White player can counter-capture. This kind of situation in which one party raises the pieces and the other party returns the pieces after "seeking robbery" and "responding to robbery" is called "robbery". If the White player is "looking for a capture", and the Black player thinks that the capture is not very important, he can choose not to respond and fill in a piece at the intersection of the captured piece, and no longer "fight for a capture" with the White player. This is called "sticky capture".

6. Live pieces and dead pieces. All chess pieces on the board that cannot be captured by the opponent are live pieces. There are three forms of live chess: a chess piece has two forbidden points for the opponent, technically called two "eyes", that is, several pieces surround an intersection; a chess piece is surrounded by more empty points, and has the conditions to make two "eyes": neither the black or white chess pieces have eyes, but have a common "public energy"; no one can make a move at the intersection, otherwise the move will be taken away by the opponent, which means that both sides are live chess pieces. There are two forms: one is the chess piece without "Qi", and the other is that some chess pieces still have "Qi" but they do not have the conditions to form two "eyes" and will eventually be eaten by the opponent.

After learning how to play Go, you can ask your family or friends to try it together and see who is better. It will be fun. But you should be aware that playing Go usually takes a long time. People with bad cervical vertebrae should not sit in one position for a long time. When thinking, you can stand up and move around. This will make you feel more relaxed. I hope everyone can have fun.