Go is a 2-player strategy game with a few simple rules.
One player takes black stones, and the other takes white. The black player goes first, unless there is a handicap.
In this interactive tutorial, you'll be playing as black. Go is normally played on a 19x19 grid, but a smaller 9x9 grid is easier to start with.
In Go, both players take turns to place a stone on the board.
Unlike chess, you place stones on the points where the lines cross, not in the spaces between them.
Also, once you place a stone, you can't move it. Try it out:
Each point on the board is connected by lines to 2, 3 or 4 other points. If any of those connecting points are empty, each one counts as one liberty for that stone.
You can take away a liberty of an opponent's stone by placing a stone on it.
When all of an opponent's stone liberties are filled, you've captured the stone, and you remove it from the board.
Stones connect with neighboring stones of the same color.
When stones connect, they share liberties, so you need to surround the whole group to capture the stones, rather than surrounding one at a time.
At the end of the game, the number of points you surround counts toward your score.
With Chinese counting rules, your score is number of stones of your colour on the board + number of points surrounded
Japanese counting rules are slightly different but it doesn't change the game much.
You can't place a stone somewhere where it would have no liberties.
But if you're placing a stone that captures a neighbouring group, that's ok: you count the number of liberties at the end of the turn.
You can't make a move that would bring the board back to the state it was just in.
Without this rule, there could be situations where the players could endlessly capture each others stones and the game would never end.
A situation where a player can't capture a stone without breaking this rule is called a ko. The player has to play somewhere else first.
You can pass a move at any time. When both players pass consecutively, the player with the highest score wins.
The white player usually gets a few bonus points - komi - to compensate for black going first.
Now you know the rules of the Go you can start playing some games. OGS is a good online server.
It's a good idea to play for a while on a small board (9x9 or 13x13) before playing on a full sized board.
Normally the weaker player starts the game with handicap stones on the board, so that both players have an equal chance of winning.
When you've played some games you'll get a rank - this goes from around from 30 kyu (weakest) to 1 kyu, and then after after 1 kyu you have 1 dan, 2 dan... up to 9 dan (strongest).
The number of handicap stones should be equal to the difference in rank of the players, from 2 stones up to 9 stones. If it's only one difference, that player goes first as black, and white doesn't get komi.