Unfortunately, Go is a game that has no easily-defined end-state. Unlike Connect-Four or Chess or Othello (or pretty much every other game most people know), a game of Go ends when both players agree it ends. Yes, there is the possibility that all 361 points (on a 19x19 board, which is tournament size) could be filled, but the chances of that happening are so slight that it's a non-issue.
There are a number of excellent Go tutorials out there, for people who don't know the rules, and I would suggest you read up on them. It's a fascinating game. I mean, the game has only eight(!) rules!
- Black moves first into an empty board.
- You can place a piece on any open spot on the board (save when noted below).
- You capture a group of pieces when there is no spot on the board that the opponent can play that would connect to that group, either horizontally or vertically. (These are called liberties.)
- The edge of the board does not count as a liberty for anyone.
- You cannot repeat the same board position with the same person to move.
- You cannot move so that you occupy the last liberty of your own group.
- Anyone may pass their turn at any time.
- A game ends when both players pass in succession.
That's it for the game. Everything else is dependant on your choice of how to score a game. Most games are scored using a territory-surrounded + pieces-captured formula. Territory that you control is defined as any open points that can only trace a path to the edge of the board or your pieces. Any open space that can trace back to pieces of both sides isn't controlled by anyone.
Most games on a 19x19 board generally end after about 150-200 moves. At this point, it is usually clear who has won, but not always. A tournament game of Go is usually untimed (though I think custom dictates a certain limit, which I'm not sure about).
Thus, retrograde analysis really wouldn't be able to offer much, unfortunately.
------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Vote paco for President!
Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
Please read these before you post! —
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
- a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
| |
For: |
|
Use: |
| & | | & |
| < | | < |
| > | | > |
| [ | | [ |
| ] | | ] |
Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.
|
|
