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Go

Go isn't just an abstract strategy game, Go is the abstract strategy game.  It has been played in more or less it's present form for almost 2000 years.  It's played all over the world; but primarily in Japan China and Korea. 

The rules of Go are simple;
  •  Black and White alternate placing a stone, anywhere on the board, or you can pass.
  • Groups of stones that are connected horizontally or vertically form a group.
  • A group which has no empty spaces adjacent is removed.
  • It's not allowed to repeat a position (most commonly, a simple capture/recapture loop called Ko)
  • The game ends when both players pass.
The goal of the game is to occupy or surround more of the board than your opponent.

Beginners tend confused by Go because as customarily played moves that are obvious to both players do not need to be actually played.  The game at the right is over - although there are still lots of places to play, and lots of threats and counter threats are still available.  Experienced players understand all about this and instead of playing dozens (or even a hundred!) meaningless moves at the end of the game, they use one of several customary methods to calculate the score.

The important thing for novice players to understand is that if you don't agree with your opponent's assessment of the game, you just keep playing.

Getting Started:  It's really important to play with a more experienced player who will be patient and explain things until you have the gist of the game.  Go is a game you will probably never master, but will always enjoy.
 
Robots:  Go may have fallen to the robot overlords, but the technology hasn't trickled down to me yet.   There's no robot for Go here.

go board

Links
Go rankings at Boardspace
Go at BoardGameGeek
Go win/loss database Sensei's library
Go game archives

The back story: 
I've played Go for more than 40 years, but I'm only a low level amateur.   There are many places to play Go on the web, but most are either intrinsically terrible web sites, or are unfriendly to beginners or casual players like me.  So I've finally added Go here so I have a friendly place to play.



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