[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About


Aliases (info)
Pass

Referenced by
BeginnerStudySection
BasicRulesOfGo
Tax

 

Passing
    Keywords: Rules, Go term

In a Go game, players take turns in placing their stones on empty intersection on the board.

However, it is legal (in most rules) that a player avoid placing a stone on the board by making a pass (i.e. not playing a stone / doing nothing). Then it's the other player's turn.

Thus there is no "Zugzwang" in Go.

If both players pass on their consecutive moves the game usually ends and Scoring and Counting starts.

See also: Rules of Go and Basic rules of Go


Bill Spight: Under most sets of rules a pass is free. However, under AGA rules of territory scoring a pass costs 1 point. The passer hands his opponent a stone as a captive, called a pass stone. Two passes end play, but White makes the last pass. The practical effect of pass stones is to reconcile territory and area scoring. Several people have had the idea of pass stones, but the AGA incorporation of them can be traced back to an AGA Journal article I wrote in the '70s on the Chinese rules in which I called them bookkeeping stones. Pass stones sounds better, doesn't it? ;-)

Ending the game with two consecutive passes can lead to positions similar to Zugzwang, in the sense that not having even a neutral move leads to a loss. Such positions involve moonshine kos.




This is a copy of the living page "Passing" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.