Know this version before playing
Open Go in the game library. You play black on a 19×19 board against a white computer opponent. The implementation counts stones and surrounded empty areas, with 7.5 points added to white. Read its end-of-game behavior carefully; this is a browser practice implementation.
Start with liberties
The empty intersections immediately above, below, left and right of a stone are its liberties. Diagonal contact does not directly join stones. Orthogonally connected stones form a group and share the distinct empty intersections around that group. A group with one liberty needs your attention on the next turn.
Understand a capture
After a move, an adjacent opposing group with no liberties is removed. Evaluate the resulting position after any captures, not only the empty points visible beforehand. The game rejects a move if your resulting group still has no liberties. It also rejects a board position that has appeared previously in the game.
Use a three-question check
- Does one of my groups have only one liberty? - Can I immediately capture an opposing group? - Will this move connect useful stones or create another isolated weak stone?
Treat these as observations rather than an automatic priority rule. Saving a small group is not always worth giving up a much larger region.
Balance territory and captures
Chasing a single stone without a broader purpose can concede space elsewhere. Compare a move that protects a connection with one that develops a nearby bounded area. Count the liberties of the whole connected group rather than assuming that a cluster is safe because it contains many stones.
Passing ends the current position
In this version, choosing “Pass / finish” makes the computer pass as well, then scores the board as it stands. This is not a pause button, and there is no separate dead-stone agreement stage after it. Before passing, check unfinished boundaries and threatened groups. Resigning ends the game immediately as a computer win.
Review one local mistake
Choose a group you lost and identify the move where its liberties fell to one. In your next game, aim to notice that situation earlier. A useful learning goal can be as small as recognizing one more threatened group, rather than treating the final score as the only evidence of progress.