Black

  Difficulty: Introductory   Keywords: Go term

Chinese: 黑 (hei1)
Japanese: 黑 (kuroi)
Korean:

Black is one of the two colors used to play the game of Go; the other is white.

[Diagram]

numbered move, stone, marked stones


Black's role in the game

  • plays first
  • takes handicap if necessary
  • at most as strong as White
  • addressed as "he", or Black, in reviews [1]
  • moves on odd numbers in even games (Black playing first, even passing is considered a move)

Characteristics of black stones

  • made of slate (better quality, expensive), glass (common), plastic (poor quality, cheap), or pixels (computer Go, online Go)
  • Black numbers 181 stones in some rulesets, an indefinite number in others.
  • Between 6mm and 10mm thick according to another page on SL
  • Slightly larger than White to make up for an optical illusion

See also

Footnotes

[1] Convention on SL; Janice Kim has also adopted this convention in her (excellent) introductory Learn To Play Go Series books


This is a copy of the living page "Black" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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