Kingo

Kingo is a Go variant. It differs from Go in the following aspects:

• There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.

• On your turn, you must pass or place a pawn or king of your color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color. Likewise, when comparing positions as per the ko and superko rules, pawns and kings of the same color are considered the same.

• Your score is the number of kings of your color on the board. Capturing an enemy king is an immediate win.

• Situational superko is used.

• Komi is a whole number, and the button is used to break ties.

In a similar variant called Jingo, captures are required to be made with kings, which enables doing away with the ko and superko rules. This results in an intriguing but quite different game, as false eyes become true unless they arise from captures. All other Jingo rules are the same as in Kingo.

Luis Bolaños Mures designed Kingo and Jingo in September, 2017.

Example

Marked stones represent kings; regular stones represent pawns.

Black to play and win (no komi)