Beginner’s guide
How to Play Go
Go is one of the world’s oldest strategy games. Two players place black and white stones on a grid, surround territory, and capture opponent stones. This guide covers everything you need for your first 9×9 game.
What Is Go?
Discover the basics and history of one of the world’s oldest strategy games.
Go is an ancient board game believed to have originated in China more than 2,500 years ago. While its exact origins are unknown, historical records and archaeological evidence show that it has been played for thousands of years. The game later became deeply rooted in Korean and Japanese culture and is now played around the world. It is known as Go in English-speaking countries, Weiqi in China, Baduk in Korea, and Igo in Japan.
Two players take turns placing black and white stones on the intersections of a lined board. Once placed, stones remain on the board unless they are captured. The goal is to surround more territory than your opponent.
Black plays first, and beginners often start on a 9×9 board before moving to larger 13×13 and 19×19 boards.
How Scoring Works
Learn how points are counted and how the winner is decided.
Go Arena uses Chinese area scoring, where your score comes from the territory you surround and the stones you have on the board. Komi gives White bonus points (usually 5.5 or 6.5 in even games) to balance Black’s first-move advantage.
When both players pass, the game ends and the board is scored. You can review every move afterward on Go Arena.
Liberties
Learn how stones connect and interact on the board.
A liberty is an empty point directly next to a stone (up, down, left, or right). Stones that are connected together form a group, and connected stones share their liberties.
A stone with empty points on all four sides has four liberties. Stones near the edge have fewer liberties, and stones in the corner have only two. Connecting stones together allows them to share liberties and can make groups harder to surround and capture.
Captures
Learn how stones are surrounded and removed from the board.
A capture can remove a single stone or an entire connected group. In Go, stones are captured when they have no remaining liberties. To capture your opponent’s stones, surround them and fill their last empty liberty.
Capturing nearby enemy stones can also help protect your own groups by creating more space.
Captured stones are removed immediately and count toward your score.
Life & Death
Learn how groups survive and when they can be captured.
A group of stones needs a safe shape to survive. A group with two eyes—two separate empty spaces completely surrounded by that group—cannot be captured because the opponent cannot fill both spaces.
Groups without two eyes may still be vulnerable, even if they are surrounded. Learning to recognize which groups are alive or dead is a key part of Go strategy.
Special Rules
Learn the rules that handle unusual situations during play.
Ko prevents the board from repeating the same position by stopping an immediate recapture. You must play elsewhere before returning to the capture.
Suicide means you cannot place a stone where it has no liberties unless the move captures opposing stones and creates liberties.
When there are no useful moves left, players pass. Two consecutive passes end the game and scoring begins.
Game Timer
Learn how the game clock works during a match.
Each player starts with main time, a bank of thinking time for the game. When it runs out, byo-yomi begins.
Byo-yomi is overtime made up of a set number of periods, each with a short countdown (for example, 30 seconds). Play your move before a period ends to keep that period. If you play before the countdown ends, that period is restored for your next move. If time expires, you lose one period. Once all periods are gone, you lose the game on time.
On Go Arena, you can choose your main time and byo-yomi settings before a Quick Match.
Ranks
Learn how Go players measure skill and improvement.
Go players use two types of ranks to show skill: kyu and dan. These ranks represent a player’s strength, from beginners learning the basics to experienced and advanced players.
Kyu ranks use numbers that count down as players become stronger: 20 kyu → 10 kyu → 1 kyu. For example, a 1 kyu player is stronger than a 10 kyu player.
Dan ranks represent stronger levels of play. Dan numbers increase as players become stronger: 1 dan → 2 dan → 3 dan and beyond. For example, a 3 dan player is stronger than a 1 dan player.
Go Arena uses a Glicko-2 rating for your public kyu/dan rank. Only rated 19×19 games update that account rank. 9×9 and 13×13 games are casual for ranking; they still count toward your win–loss record.
Create an account to save your rank across devices, keep your game history, and view your wins and losses.
Tips For Beginners
Start on a 9×9 board — games finish in minutes but still teach real strategy.
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Corners First
Corners are easiest to surround with two edges helping you. Then consider sides, then the center.
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Stay Connected
Loose, scattered stones are easy targets. Link your stones into solid groups with shared liberties.
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Don’t Overextend
One-space jumps are safe; long leaps leave cutting points. When unsure, play closer to your own stones.
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Look For Cuts
If two enemy stones are not connected, a stone between them can threaten both. Don’t chase groups that already have two eyes.
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Finish The Game
When the board looks settled, pass. Review afterward on Go Arena to see where you gained or lost territory.
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Play Often
Ten quick 9×9 games teach more than reading ten articles. Play often and your rank will reflect real improvement.
Lessons
Thirteen illustrated lessons that build from the board itself through capture, life and death, scoring, handicaps, and common shapes. Study each diagram carefully—many plates show several related positions at once.
Go is played on a grid of intersecting lines. Stones are placed on the intersections, not inside the squares. A full board has nineteen lines each way and three hundred sixty-one points.
Nine of those points are marked as star points (handicap points). Handicap stones sit on these marks when players of unequal strength start a game. Knowing where they are helps you orient every opening.
A stone (or connected group) is captured when it has no empty neighboring points—no liberties left. Captured stones are removed from the board immediately.
On the edge you need fewer surrounding stones than in the center; in the corner, even fewer. Stones on the same straight line support each other; stones only touching diagonally do not connect.
An eye is an empty point completely surrounded by one color. A group with two separate real eyes cannot be captured—the opponent cannot fill both at once under the rules.
A false eye looks like space but can be reduced so it does not count as a true eye. Learning to tell real eyes from false ones is the foundation of life-and-death reading.
A big empty area inside a surrounded group is not automatically alive. The attacker can keep adding stones to shrink that space until only two points remain—or fewer.
Sacrificing a stone inside the group can force the defender to answer and lose liberties. Follow the sequence on the plate: each reply leaves White with less room.
Some eye shapes are famous for being alive or dead depending on who plays first. A connected run of five vacant points along a line, for example, has well-known living and dying forms.
Compare the safe diagrams with the ones that can still be killed. The same number of empty points is not enough—you need the right connection and eye structure.
Ko stops endless capture cycles: after you take a single stone in a ko shape, your opponent may not retake immediately. They must play elsewhere first (a ko threat), then return.
Seki is a standoff where neither side can capture without dying themselves. The shared liberties stay empty and both groups live. Not every crowded fight is seki—some still have a killer move.
Seki can involve large interlocking groups, not only tiny corner shapes. If either side fills a critical shared liberty, their own stones can die.
When you see a dense tangle near the end of a game, ask whether capturing is possible—or whether both sides should leave the position alone as seki.
Dame are empty points between opposing walls that neither side can usefully claim as territory. Filling them does not change the score under area counting in a meaningful way for beginners—they are just the seams between groups.
A finished board still shows dead stones that have no chance of two eyes. After both players pass, mark dead stones, both select Mark Dead Stones, then both Agree — Go Arena shows Final Numbers with Chinese area scoring.
After both players pass, mark dead stones and both select Mark Dead Stones, then both Agree. Final Numbers uses Chinese area score: stones on the board plus surrounded empty points, plus komi for White.
This plate shows the same finished game after cleanup—territories become easier to count once the dead stones are gone.
Strong players decide the score partly by recognizing instantly which stones are already dead. A stone that looks stranded may still have a clever way to live—or may be hopeless.
Use this full-game diagram as practice: find every group that cannot make two eyes, and every group that is safely alive.
Once dead stones are removed and territories are tidy, you can count each side’s points. Small mistakes in life-and-death judgment change the score by one or two points—enough to flip a close game.
Walk the cleaned-up diagram and tally both sides. Ask whether any “dead” stone might actually have lived.
When one player is stronger, the weaker player takes Black and receives handicap stones on the star points before the game starts. White then moves first against that setup.
Extra “bell” handicaps can sit just outside the corner star points when the gap in strength is very large. The plate shows where those stones go.
Players name common two-stone relationships the way chess names pieces: one-point jumps, knight’s moves (keima), large knight’s moves, and attachments against an enemy stone.
Learning these shapes helps you talk about openings and joseki later. Notice which relations connect your stones and which only approach or threaten.
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