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I went 4-4 in the self-paired tournament at the Congress this year, and I came away with The Optimist trophy. XDIf you don't like reading too much, you can click here for the interactive way to go instead.
| Go is played on a grid of lines. The stones are placed where the lines cross. Black always goes first, followed by white. The goal of the game is to surround areas of territory. |
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Here is one kind of territory, the eight black stones are surrounding four points of territory. |
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Here is another kind of territory, which is made by surrounding two sides with stones and the other two sides with the edge of the board.
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Stones stay on the board once they are placed and do not move. The spaces next to each stone are called liberties. The black stone at right has four liberties. |
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| When your opponent has occupied 3 out of 4 liberties, then your stone is in atari, which means it can be captured on the next turn. |
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When all four liberties are taken, the stone is captured and removed from the board. The captor keeps the stone, and it counts against his or her opponent at the end of the game. |
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| When two or more stones of the same color touch each other along the board lines they form a group. Groups share their liberties. This group of two stones has six liberties. |
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A group of any size can be captured if it is completely surrounded. A white stone at A will capture both black stones. |
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| These stones are not a group, diagonal intersections are not connected to each other. |
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With enough moves, both stones could be captured. The white stone at 1 places both black stones into atari at once, or double atari. |
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| Black could add a stone at 2 to make a new group, which currently has three liberties. |
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White can still capture the other stone at 3 though, because it is not connected to the black group. |
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