Playing Go on 9x9
Surround territory, keep your groups alive, and count at the end.
A full size Go board is nineteen lines by nineteen and a game takes a couple of hours. The nine by nine board plays the same game in twenty minutes, which is why it is the right place to learn. Every idea in Go appears on it, just faster and closer together, and you get to finish and count, which is the part beginners skip and the part that teaches most.
What changes on a small board
Fighting starts immediately. There is no quiet opening phase where both players take corners, because the corners are already next to each other. Groups become connected or dead within a dozen moves.
Territory is tiny, so a single group living where it should have died can swing the whole game. Life and death matters more here than anywhere else.
Opening principles that actually hold
- Play in a corner first. Corners are the cheapest place to make two eyes.
- Take the side before the centre. Centre territory is expensive on any board and almost worthless on this one.
- Stay connected. Two weak groups are far worse than one solid one, especially with so little room to run.
- Do not invade everything. On 9x9 a failed invasion hands your opponent the game rather than a few points.
How to improve quickly
Finish your games and count them, even the lost ones. The single fastest way to get better at Go is to find out that the group you abandoned was alive, or that the thirty points you thought you had were twelve.
Then play the same opening again. Repetition on a small board teaches shape faster than reading about shape does, because you meet the same fight three games running and get to try a different answer each time.
Play a game
Reading about a game is practice for playing it and nothing more. The board is open, it is free, and nothing needs installing.
Common questions
- Is 9x9 real Go?
- Yes. The rules are identical and the ideas are the same. It is the standard teaching board and strong players use it for quick games.
- Should beginners start on 9x9 or 19x19?
- 9x9. You finish games, you count them, and you see the consequences of your mistakes in minutes rather than hours.
- What board sizes can I play here?
- 9x9, 13x13 and 19x19, against the computer or a friend.
More on Go
Liberties and capture
A group of stones lives by its liberties, the empty points next to it. When the last one is filled, the group is captured. The one rule the rest of Go is built on.
Two eyes and life
A group with two separate eyes can never be captured. What an eye is, why one is not enough, and how to tell a real eye from a false one.
The ko rule
Ko stops a single capture repeating forever. What the rule is, why it exists, and how ko fights work when a one point capture is worth more than it looks.
How Go is scored
How a game of Go actually ends and who wins. Area scoring explained, why White gets komi, and how to count without arguing.
This site is built around Xiangqi, Chinese chess. If you enjoy Go, the rules of Xiangqi take about five minutes, and there is always somebody to play.