This page aims to introduce to people the notation used in Go diagrams.
The reader is assumed to have read and understood the introductory rules of Go.
This section describes everthing necessary to understand diagrams at the introductory level.
Here, we shall use an example game to show how to read a diagram.
We shall begin with a 5x5 empty board. Recall that we start a game with an empty board, unless there are handicaps.
Black plays the first move at .
After the first move, this is the situation on the board now.
Then White makes the second move at .
After the second move, this is the situation on the board now.
Black decides to make the third move at .
White decides to make the fourth move at .
And the game continues...
However, showing one move per diagram is very cumbersome. So, we summarize the process by indicating multiple moves in a single diagram.
This diagram summarizes the sequence of moves shown earlier. The way we read this diagram is to start with an empty board, then Black plays at , then White plays at
, then Black plays at
, and then White Plays at
.
It is often convenient to show a series of moves from a given position, where some moves have already been played.
Suppose we have a position as shown here.
From the given position, Black makes a move at , and White makes a move at
.
Note that to save space, often only this diagram is shown, but not the previous diagram. But it should be easy to infer the starting position from this diagram: simply remove all the numbered moves.
It is also common to show only a portion of the board to save space, as illustrated in this example.
However, from the diagram alone, we do not know what the remainder of the board looks like.
Sometimes, an author wants to indicate that only a non-rectangular portion of the board is of concern. In this case, the lines are left out in the unknown area as shown in this diagram.
It is also common to mark one or more stones with a square, circle or triangle, to facilitate discussions. However, the marked stone is not part of any sequence of moves.
This chapter describes situations that occur in special cases and advice on creating diagrams.
Say in the game, White played at , then
captures two White stones...
... and then recaptures the
stone.
( at
)
We can summarize the three moves in one diagram by putting " at
" as shown here. An alternative notation to indicate this is "
=
".
( at
)
Marked stones come in very handy when we want to play a move at a point that was occupied by an unnumbered stone, like in this diagram.
As a principle, removing all numbered stones should give the initial position! Labelling a ko as follows is therefore wrong:
There was a stone at from the start (otherwise White wouldn't need the ko threat
, of course).
The right way to present this situation is:
( at
)
Authors: