01 · How to win: control more of the board
Go is played by Black and White, usually with Black first. Players take turns placing one stone on an empty intersection. All stones are equal and never move once placed; only captured stones leave the board. Passing means placing nothing and handing the turn to your opponent — it does not give you two moves.
This site uses area scoring. At the end, both players first agree which stones are dead; then each side's score is its stones on the board plus the empty points surrounded only by its own stones. White gets an extra 7.5 points, called komi, to make up for Black moving first. The higher total wins — capturing first does not decide the game. Later sections walk you through the counting.
Serious games usually use a 19×19 board (19 lines each way); this lesson starts with 9×9. The exercises are separate short setups: finishing one is not winning a game, and they do not join into one game.
02 · Find A8: stones go on intersections
On this site's 9×9 board, columns are lettered A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J from left to right (I is skipped so it isn't confused with 1), and rows are numbered 1 to 9 from bottom to top. Find column A, then row 8: their crossing is A8, one point below the top-left corner. Stones go on the line crossings, not in the middle of squares.
Locate A9 at the top-left and J1 at the bottom-right first, then find each exercise's target. Read what the task asks: in a counting exercise, clicking an existing stone selects that group to inspect; in real play you can never place a stone where one already stands.
03 · Groups and liberties: count each empty point once
Stones of the same colour that touch horizontally or vertically form one group; touching only diagonally does not connect them. The empty points directly next to a group (horizontally or vertically) are its liberties. Occupied points are not liberties, and neither is the space off the board. Count around the whole group, not just the stone you clicked.
On an empty board, a lone stone in the middle has 4 liberties, one on the edge has 3, and one in the corner has only 2. Nearby stones reduce these numbers. If two friendly stones touch the same empty point, that point counts once, not once per stone.
After reading this section, go to Practice step by step at the top of the page and choose the six Liberties and Connections examples. Find the empty points yourself first, then click the named stone and compare with the numbered answers and coordinates. The numbers are just answer labels, not a move order. If your count differs, check whether you counted a diagonal point or counted a shared point twice.
04 · Atari and capture: from one liberty to none
A group with only one liberty left is in atari. If your opponent plays on that last liberty, the group has no liberties and the whole group is removed from the board: a capture. Remove every stone of the group, not just the one next to the new stone. The points that open up may become liberties of the stone just played.
Next, do the four capture exercises: corner, edge, centre and a multi-stone group. Before playing, say the coordinate of the last liberty; afterwards, count how many stones came off and check that the whole group is gone. One capture is a local gain, not the result of the whole game.
05 · When an empty point is illegal
This site forbids suicide. To check whether a move is legal, go in this order: imagine the stone placed, remove any enemy groups that now have no liberties, then look at your own group. If it still has no liberties, the move is illegal, and the board and turn stay as they were.
Being surrounded is not automatically suicide: if your move captures the surrounding stones, the points they leave give your stone liberties. Go back to the practice area at the top and choose the four Suicide and Exception examples to compare a rejected move with a legal capturing move. Predict the result before clicking.
One more limit is ko, which stops players from capturing back and forth forever. This site uses positional superko: a move may not recreate any board position seen earlier in the game; passing is exempt. Unlike suicide, a move can have liberties and still be illegal because it repeats a position. The 14 exercises do not include a full ko fight, so finishing them does not mean you have mastered ko.
06 · Why not fill in your own empty points?
An empty point surrounded by your own stones may become an eye. A group with two truly separate, well-protected eyes usually lives, because the opponent cannot fill both at once. But "two empty points inside" is not the same as two eyes: the points may be joined into one space, or the stones around them may be capturable.
A false eye looks like an eye but cannot protect the group. Seki is a standoff where neither side dares to move first, so both groups live. These are just the names; judging life and death takes more practice. If you are unsure during scoring review, don't force the opponent's stones to be marked dead — resume play or look at it together.
07 · Ending and scoring: after two passes, review
When you think there is nothing useful left to play, pass. If your opponent passes right after you, the game moves to scoring review. That does not mean the computer has proved every group alive: first both players check for dead stones. Groups both agree are dead come off the board; if you disagree, resume play and keep going.
Dead stones are groups that cannot be saved whatever the reply and that both players agree to remove before scoring — not any enemy stones you would like gone. A surrounded group may still live through its eyes; if in doubt, do not mark it. In the review screen, clicking one stone marks its whole group; clicking any stone in that group again cancels the mark. This is only a mark, not another capture.
The button order is: one player presses Pass → the other presses Pass → both check the dead-stone marks and the score preview. Fix a wrong mark by clicking the group again. If you disagree, choose Resume play and keep taking turns; don't force a result just to finish. In local play the person at the screen checks for both sides, then presses Confirm score; in an online friend game both players must confirm the same proposal. Only then read the result's stones, enclosed points and komi.
Under this site's area rules, count the living stones left on the board, then the empty areas that touch only that colour. Empty areas touching both colours belong to no one. Captured stones do not add extra points, because area already counts them. Add White's 7.5 last.
Arithmetic example (not the result of the practice board below): Black has 30 stones and 10 empty points, total 40. White has 28 stones and 13 empty points plus 7.5, total 48.5. White wins by 8.5. Do not use the number of captured stones in place of empty points.
A quick button tour: open a fresh 9×9 Play board and choose Local two-player. Play Black C3 and White G7, then pass once for each side. Mark no dead stones. The preview should read Black 1, White 8.5: each side's single stone scores 1, the rest of the empty board touches both colours so it belongs to no one, and White adds 7.5. Now choose Resume play and check that you can keep playing. These deliberately early passes only show you the interface; they do not settle life and death, and two moves is not a sensible game.
Before moving on, explain in your own words: what a liberty is, when a whole group is captured, why you can sometimes play inside a surrounded point, and why two passes still need a review. Then play a few short games on the Play page and check the final score breakdown. These 14 tasks practise local rules only; they are not a complete game or a full life-and-death course.