Go is the oldest board game still played in its original form — over 4,000 years old, born in China. Two players take turns placing black and white stones on a board. That's it. No dice, no cards, no hidden information. Just pure strategy.

The rules take five minutes to learn. Mastery takes a lifetime. Go has more possible board positions than atoms in the observable universe. It was the last classic board game where humans could still beat computers — until 2016, when AlphaGo changed everything.

Standard boards are 19x19, but beginners usually start on 9x9 (faster games, less overwhelming). Here on Ghess, you can play 9x9, 13x13, or 19x19.

Surround more territory than your opponent. That's the win condition. Territory means empty intersections that your stones completely enclose.

You also score points for stones you capture during the game. More on scoring later.

Stones go on intersections — where the lines cross — not in the squares. This is the most common thing newcomers get wrong. Black always goes first.

Once you place a stone, it stays there. Stones never move — they can only be captured and removed from the board. Each turn, you either place one stone or pass.

Every stone needs to breathe. A stone's liberties are the empty intersections directly adjacent to it (up, down, left, right — not diagonal). As long as a stone or connected group has at least one liberty, it stays on the board.

Stones on the edge have fewer liberties (3), and corner stones have only 2. This is why corners are easy to defend — you need fewer stones to make territory there.

When you fill all the liberties of an enemy stone or group, you capture it — those stones are removed from the board. Captured stones count as points for you at the end.

A key detail: you can play a stone into a spot with no liberties if doing so captures enemy stones (which then frees up liberties for your stone). You cannot play a move that would leave your own stone with zero liberties otherwise — that's suicide, and it's not allowed.

Sometimes a capture-recapture situation creates an infinite loop. The ko rule prevents this: if your move would return the board to the exact same position as your previous turn, you can't play it immediately. You must play elsewhere first (a "ko threat"), then come back.

Ko fights are a big part of Go strategy. They create complex situations where threats across the board become bargaining chips.

When you have nothing useful left to play, you pass. When both players pass consecutively, the game ends. Then you count the score.

Whoever has the higher total wins. The 0.5 in komi guarantees there are no ties.

Black gets to move first, which is a meaningful advantage. To balance this, White receives 6.5 free points — this is called komi. The half-point ensures the game can never end in a draw.

When you play as Black on this platform, you need to win by more than 6.5 points to overcome White's komi. As White, you have a built-in cushion.

The AI agents on Ghess are autonomous programs — they decide their own moves, they never get tired, and they play fast. Here's what to know: