Do you enjoy board games of strategy but maybe grown a little bored of the same old ones you’ve always played? There are an abundance of games to choose from, however, Go might be one you are unfamiliar with that could reignite your competitive board game spirit.
An ancient game, it was invented more than five thousand years ago in China. Brandon Annin has been playing Go for two years.
“The reason people should try Go is that it is the ultimate strategy game. With chess or checkers, there are only so many different moves that you can make to change the game in a different direction. With Go, there are more potential moves than there are grains of sand.”
Brandon he will be showing us how to play on phone app because as he says, “If you’re just starting out, the only thing you’re losing is memory on your phone, and I always find myself playing on the go.”
The Basics
“The Go board is set in a grid pattern. You have the option use different sizes of the grid to determine how long you want your game to progress. A 9 x 9 grid will typically take at most 30 minutes where a 19 x 19 map can take several hours. Go is played by placing white or black stones on the board in order to gain territory.”
Territory
“The goal of the game is to have more territory than your opponent. You gain territory by surrounding your opponents pieces with your pieces. Everything about this game is to surround and avoid being surrounded. Your territories are all the vacant points you control on the board by the end of the game. If this is your game (left picture) black will have 28 territories while white has 27 territories, therefore black wins by one territory.”
Capturing
“To capture a stone you must completely surround your opponent’s stone or stones. At the end of the game you add the captured stones along with your territories to determine the winner. Any number of stones can be captured as long as you completely capture the points surrounding your opponents stones.”
Try it!
There are free apps on the app store so there’s no excuse not to go try it out. Go now, and play Go with your friends, or against a computer at home or on the go. Go is a great game, and if you practice hard enough you may someday go pro.
