Go

Game invented in China 2500 years ago

Go in the Little Golem app

Rules

The playing pieces are called stones. Black moves first, then players alternate placing one stone on an empty intersection. Stones do not move after placement.

Adjacent stones of the same color form a group. Empty intersections adjacent orthogonally to a group are its liberties. If a move removes the last liberty of one or more opponent groups, those stones are captured and removed from the board. A move that would leave the played stone or its group with no liberties is illegal unless it captures opposing stones at the same time.

The ko rule forbids immediately recreating the previous board position by recapturing a single stone. A player may pass. Two passes start scoring.

On Little Golem, scoring is handled by a score proposal:

After two passes, a player marks dead stones and sends a score move.
The opponent may accept the proposal with accept.
The score counts territory plus captured prisoners, with komi added for White.
A player may also resign.

Go has simple rules but is extremely complex.

Rules of Go on Wikipedia.

Variants on Little Golem

Sizes 9x9, 13x13, 19x19, 27x27, 37x37

There are five different board sizes. The standard game is 19x19. All non-toroidal sizes use komi 6.5 unless the game setup explicitly stores another komi value.

Hahn Pointing System

The Hahn Pointing System is a new method to determine the tournament winner using points earned as a result of each game in place of the players win/loss record. Professor Sang-Dae Hahn of Myongji University developed the system to foster aggressive, fighting games with an emphasis on reading.

The Hahn system is based upon the scoring used in bangneki. Points are awarded to the winner and the loser of the game based upon the result. A single game is worth 100 points. The 100 points are divided between the winner and the loser based upon the difference in count at the end of the game.

A difference of 0.5 to 10 in the count results in the winner receiving 60 points and the loser receiving 40 points.

A difference of 10.5 to 20 in the count results in the winner receiving 70 points and the loser receiving 30 points.

A difference of 20.5 to 30 in the count results in the winner receiving 80 points and the loser receiving 20 points.

A difference of 30.5 to 40 in the count results in the winner receiving 90 points and the loser receiving 10 points.

A difference of more than 40 points results in the winner receiving all 100 points and the loser receiving no points.

The tournament winner in a Hahn pointing system scored tournament is the player with the most points, regardless of the player’s win/loss record in the tournament. Therefore, a player with 580 points and a win/loss record of 5-2 beats a player with 570 points and a perfect win/losss record of 7-0.

Random board

Players play from a position, where there are already 100 stones on the board. The positions have been checked for equality by the computer.

random

Toroidal go

Toroidal Go is played on an 11x11 board with wrap-around edges. The top edge is adjacent to the bottom edge, and the left edge is adjacent to the right edge. This changes liberties, captures, and territory near the edges. Little Golem uses komi 4.5 for Toroidal Go.

toroid