How Go is scored
Surround territory, keep your groups alive, and count at the end.
Go ends when both players pass in turn, which they do when there is nothing left worth playing. Then you count. The version here uses area scoring: your score is the empty points you surround plus the stones you have on the board, and White receives 6.5 extra points as compensation for moving second. The half point exists so that games cannot end in a draw.
Area scoring, step by step
- Count the empty points completely surrounded by your stones. That is your territory.
- Add the number of your own stones still on the board.
- White adds the komi, 6.5 points here.
- Higher total wins. Because of the half point, there are no ties.
Why komi exists
Black moves first, and the first move in Go is worth something. Komi hands White a fixed compensation so that the advantage of moving first does not simply decide the game. Different rulesets use slightly different numbers, commonly between 5.5 and 7.5.
When to pass
Pass when every remaining move would fill your own territory or add a stone that does no work. Beginners usually play on far too long, filling in their own points and handing back the lead they built. If a move does not make territory, capture something, or save a group, it is probably worth less than passing.
The other half of that advice is to notice when your opponent passes. If they stop playing and you are still finding moves worth making, take them. If you are only tidying, pass and count.
Dead stones and the part that confuses everybody
At the end, stones sitting inside your opponent's living territory with no way to make two eyes are dead, and they come off the board before counting. You do not have to spend moves capturing them, and doing so just fills the territory you were about to be awarded.
If you cannot agree whether a group is dead, the honest resolution is to play it out. The result of the fight settles the argument and costs nothing, because filling neutral points changes no score under area scoring.
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
- How do you win a game of Go?
- By having the higher score after both players pass. Here that is surrounded empty points plus your stones on the board, with White adding 6.5 komi.
- What is komi?
- A fixed number of points given to White to compensate for Black moving first. This site uses 6.5.
- What is the difference between territory and area scoring?
- Territory scoring counts surrounded points plus prisoners; area scoring counts surrounded points plus stones on the board. They almost always give the same winner.
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.
Playing Go on 9x9
Small board, whole game, twenty minutes. Why 9x9 is the best place to start Go, what changes on it, and the opening principles that work.
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.