The scoring is basically the same as area scoring, but is done with a special technique involving "Ing bowls". Both players must start with exactly 180 stones; the Ing Foundation makes special bowls that allow players to count their stones easily. Prisoners come back to the owner. After the game finishes, both players fill their empty territory with their stones. The one that gets rid of all of them is the winner. Black pays White eight points (komi) by allowing four white stones in Black's territory to be placed at the beginning of the counting phase. As Black wins ties it is 7.5 in effect. The ko rule makes a distinction between "fighting" and "disturbing" ko. Multi-stone suicide is allowed. This ruleset was invented and promoted by Ing Chang-ki.
Differences
In most cases the differences between the rule sets are negligible. The choice of rule set rarely results in a difference in score of more than one point, and the strategy and tactics of the game are mostly unaffected by the rule set used.
References
[1] Commentary (http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html) on the Tromp-Taylor rules by Bill Taylor [2] How to play Go (http://www.britgo.org/intro/intro2), British Go Association
[3] Interview with Zhu Baoxun (http://ranka.intergofed.org/?p=940), Ranka Online. "The differences are more significant theoretically than practically. During the last 100 years no professional or amateur tournament has ever been stopped because of the differences of rules. In practice, the differences will cause problems only in very rare situations, maybe once in 10,000 games." — Zhu Baoxun, deputy chief arbiter of the First World Mind Sports Games, October 12, 2008.
[4] Comparison of Some Go Rules (http://www.britgo.org/rules/compare), British Go Association [5] http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html
[6] Super Ko (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/superko.html), Robert Jasiek
[8] http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html
[9] Elementary Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/element.html) of James Davies
[10] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 1: "The two sides [are] known as Black and White[...]"
[11] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 1: "Go is a game of strategy between two sides usually played on a 19x19 grid (the board)."
[12] New Zealand Go Society Rules of Go (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~barryp/rules.htm): "Adjacent intersections are those intersections connected by lines of the grid, with no intervening intersections."
[13] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 1: "The two sides, known as Black and White, are each provided with an adequate supply of playing tokens, known as stones, of the appropriate color."
[14] Tromp-Taylor rules of go (http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html): "Each point on the grid may be colored black, white or empty." [15] Simplified Ing Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html) of the EGF: "The position is the distribution of black, white, and no
stones on all the unique intersections of the grid. For a play, this is given after all its removals."
[16] Simplified Ing Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html) of the EGF: "Stones of the same colour are connected if they are
adjacent or if there is a chain of adjacent stones of their colour between them. Likewise, empty intersections are connected if they are adjacent or if there is a chain of adjacent empty intersections between them."
[17] New Zealand Go Society Rules of Go (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~barryp/rules.htm): "A liberty of a stone is an unoccupied intersection adjacent to that stone or to any stone connected to that stone."
[18] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 1: "The board is initially vacant [...]"
[19] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 2: "The players alternate in moving, with Black playing first."
[20] New Zealand Go Society Rules of Go (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~barryp/rules.htm): "A play consists of placing a stone (of that player's own colour) on an unoccupied intersection, then removing any of the opponent's stones that then have no liberties (if any), and then removing any of that player's own stones that then have no liberties (if any). A move consists of 1. making a play [...] or 2. saying 'pass'." [21] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 5: "It is illegal for a player to move so as to create a string of his or her own stones which is completely surrounded (without liberties) after any surrounded opposing stones are captured." [22] Simplified Ing Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html) of the EGF: "A play may not recreate a previous position from the
game."
[23] Elementary Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/element.html) of James Davies: "Two consecutive passes end the game."
[24] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 12: "Territory: Those empty points on the board which are entirely surrounded by live stones of a single color are considered the territory of the player of that color."
[25] Though the Simplified Ing Rules use the word "territory" differently, they describe what is here defined to be a player's territory as consisting of "the empty regions that are adjacent only to intersections with stones of his colour." The Commentary to the rules further specifies: "During scoring an empty region does not provide any points if a) it is adjacent to at least one black intersection and adjacent to at least one white intersection or b) the whole board is empty."
[26] Official AGA Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html), Rule 12: "Area: All live stones of a player's color left on the board together with any points of territory surrounded by a player constitute that player's area."
[27] Simplified Ing Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html) of the EGF: "The score of each player is the number of all intersections a) with stones of his colour, and b) of the empty regions that are adjacent only to intersections with stones of his colour."
[28] Simplified Ing Rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/siming.html) of the EGF: "For the final position, either the scores are unequal and the winner is the player with the greater score or the scores are equal and the game is a tie."
[29] Ko Etymology Discussion (http://senseis.xmp.net/?KoEtymologyDiscussion) at Sensei's Library
[30] AGA Official Rules of Go (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/AGA.html): "Neutral Points: Any empty points left on the board at the end of the game which are not completely surrounded by either player's stones are known as neutral points, and are not counted toward either player's territory or area."
[31] Position after move 45 of 53 in a game taken from the go rules of the First World Mind Sports Games. (http://www.intergofed.org/wmsg/ members_documents/2008_July_16/WMSG-GoRule-Appendix1_Revised.pdf)
[32] http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/completerules.pdf
[33] Diagram taken from Robert Jasiek [s n a f u ] (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/diffasts.html) (German)
[34] European Go Culture Centre Homepage (http://gobase.org/studying/rules/ikeda/?sec=e2030601)
[35] Fairbairn, John, "The Rules Debate" (http://www.gogod.co.uk/NewInGo/C&IP.htm), New in Go (http://www.gogod.co.uk/ NewInGo/NewInGo.htm), Games of Go on Disc, , retrieved 2009-06-09
[36] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Japanese.html [37] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Chinese.html
[38] http://go.yenching.edu.hk/kor-rules/Untitled%20Document.htm [39] http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/IngRules2006.pdf [40] http://go.org.nz/index.php?title=Rules_of_the_game
[41] [s n a f u ] (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html) (German)
[43] International Go Federation webpage on the WMSG (http://www.intergofed.org/wmsg/wmsg_members_documents.html) [44] British Go Association (http://www.britgo.org/rules/aga)
External links
Rules comparisons
• A listing of rules pages (http://senseis.xmp.net/?RulesOfGo)
• Another listing of rules pages (http://www.usgo.org/resources/internet.asp#Rules)
• Comparison of some go rules (http://www.britgo.org/rules/compare.html) summarized in a table
• Go (Weiqi, Baduk) rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html)
• Go rule dialects (http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/achim/go_rule_philo.html)
Specific rule sets
• Official American Go Association rules (http://www.usgo.org/resources/downloads/completerules.pdf)
• Official Japanese rules as amended in 1989 (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Japanese.html)
• Official Chinese rules (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/Chinese.html)
• Ing's SST laws of Goe (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wjh/go/rules/SST.html)
• "Logical" rules (http://www.cwi.nl/~tromp/go.html) (Tromp-Taylor ruleset)
• 2008 World Mind Sports Games rules: (http://intergofed.org/wmsg/members_documents/2008_July_16/
WMSG-GoRules_Revised.pdf) (English) (http://intergofed.org/wmsg/members_documents/2008_June_13/
WMSG_rules(C)/WMSG-WeiqiRule.pdf) (Chinese)
• "Mathematical Rules" (http://www.brooklyngoclub.org/jc/rulesgo.html) of Go by Jean-Claude Chetrit
• "Simple" rules (http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/simple.html)
• A collection of essays (http://www.usgo.org/resources/internet.html#Rules) assessing and comparing the
various rule sets
Go handicaps
Within most systems and at most levels, handicap is given to offset the strength difference between players of different ranks in the game of Go.
Part of a series of articles on
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