We are really excited to announce the addition of the game Go to PlayStrategy!

Go is an ancient abstract classic, that we've been wanting to add for a while. It was probably the most obvious omission from PlayStrategy's catalogue so we are pleased to have rectified that!

The game of Go is traditionally played on a 19x19 board, but we have added three board sizes: 19x19, 13x13 and 9x9. The rules of Go are the same no matter the board size, and you can read the rules of Go here: playstrategy.org/variant/go19x19 as well as finding detailed examples of gameplay on wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_Go

Adding Go gave us some technical challenges as there are some aspects of Go gameplay that are different to other games we already have on the platform. Firstly, there is the option to 'Pass' your turn in Go (unlike the forced Pass in Othello). You will find a hand icon between the takeback and resign buttons. This can be configured in your preferences (playstrategy.org/account/preferences/game-behavior 'Confirm pass action') to be a single click activation or, by default, to require clicking the hand a second time to confirm the Pass. Secondly, games of Go end with players agreeing on the 'dead stones' in the game. The exact flow of how this works is covered in the 'Dead Stone Offer' section of playstrategy.org/variant/go19x19. Selecting dead stones is not considered part of the actual gameplay, hence, in the case the game is using real-time clocks, these are paused and a separate timer is started to ensure the game does not get stuck with a player not responding. Thirdly, there are established forms of 'compensation' in games of Go for balancing the game, namely Komi and Handicaps. These are detailed in the 'Compensation' section of playstrategy.org/variant/go19x19, but it is worth pointing out that to play a rated game in any of the Go board sizes, you will need to use a Handicap of 0 and a Komi of 6.5 - the settings to balance the starting player advantage.

We will have information on when the 'Introductory' tournaments are shortly, but you will already see the three Go variants added to our regular schedule of tournaments on the website (weeklys and shields). Unfortunately, we identified some issues with the bot late on in our testing which means the bot is unavailable to play at the moment - but we hope to have our usual bots available later this week. Similarly, we noticed that the gameplay for 19x19 Go is a bit slow and delayed. We will also be attempting to rectify that this week, but we didn't want this to stop us launching Go today!

So all that's left to say is "Go Go Go and play some Go!"

453

Congratulations Playstrategy!

Keep growing the website.

I wish you that many new players will come and join to play Go and the rest of the variants.

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The bots have now been fixed for Go! Our current bots that play go are @PS-Random-Mover, @PS-Greedy-One-Move and @PS-Greedy-Two-Move (Only 9x9).
The bots are very simple and are good for a beginner to practise against, but wont provide any real challenge.
The bots will only ever offer 0 dead stones and will only accept 0 dead stones.
Enjoy practising go, and playing some games against the bots.

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Bot not accecpt rated challenge

@M_DinhHoangViet what is the error you are getting?

Which bot are you trying, what time control are you trying, and which board size are you trying?

Are you using a Handicap of 0 and a Komi of 6.5 as mentioned in the original post?

1

Oh okay you set up the time to an illimited time control : the bots don't accept correspondence

1

Oh, thank you @tititogepi

1

Any recommendations for go learning?