Tibetan Go

    Keywords: Rules, Variant, Culture & History

Tibetan Go has a number of differences compared with how we play go today

Table of contents

Board and starting position:

[Diagram]

Starting position for Tibetan go

The board is a 17 by 17 grid (2 less than the normal size now) and has a fixed opening patern as shown here.

Also:

White begins play


Tibetan Ko Rule:

The ko rule was: may not play a stone on an intersection where the opponent has just removed a stone.

Note that this makes snapback illegal and suicide useless as a ko threat.

Scoring:

There are 20 bonus points for controlling all the 1-1 points, and a further 5 for controlling tengen also.

Points still need investigating:

Play near last move:

There has been some conflict over whether or not moves must actually be made within 2 spaces of the last play. It is probably correct to say that is a mistaken opinion, formed from watching people respond locally to their opponents moves.

Area or Territory scoring:

This article did not mention if area or territory scoring is used.


Articles about Tibetan Go:

John F. The latest state of play is on GoGoD's New In Go site ([ext] http://www.gogod.co.uk/NewInGo/NewInGo.htm). It seems as if the extra rules described by Peter and Andre are either wrong or not mainstream. Personally I suspect they relate to a variant within Tibet. But current mig-mang rules are now quite clear (see NIG).

There are exciting times ahead. There was a Tibetan seminar at Oxford University in 2003. Dralha Dawa Sangpo gave a report on the ancient stone board discovered in Lhasa" He said, "In 1990, Sonam Chogyal, researcher from the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, translated two English articles which are Go in the Snowland by Peter Shotwell and Study on the Tibetan Chess by John Fairbairn, respectively. These two translated articles influenced scholars in Tibet to pay attention to Tibetan chess, and as a matter of fact, now there are already several scholars who engage with studies of the Tibetan chess and published numbers of articles"

We await details, but apparently Brill have undertaken to publish the proceedings. In the meantime, more details on the GoGoD CD.

John F. Update, 2010-09. The proceedings did eventually appear, but without the go article.


[Diagram]

interesting...

Nick George:Does this than live or die according to sente?

IanDavis: This is the equivalent of a ko fight for life I think. If White's next move is small enough and can be ignored, Black can play at the marked point.


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