Progressive Go

    Keywords: Variant

MrTenuki: This idea has just come to me recently (April 2008): since Go is often compared to chess, why not introduce ideas from [ext] progressive chess into Go?

The idea is simple: Black plays 1 stone, White plays 2 stones (one after the other, with suicide being disallowed), Black plays 3 stones, etc., with captures being resolved after each stone. Komi should be either zero or be calculated based on the total number of stones played by each side, I guess. To solve the problem where players cannot save stones put into atari simply because too many stones are being played each turn, several new rules must be introduced:


1. One may not put a stone in atari and capture it in the same turn. For example, the following move (the two black+circle's + B3) is illegal:

[Diagram]
corner  

(Black is free to play two of the three stones, though, just not all three of them in the same turn.)

Variant: In lieu of Rule #1, another possibility would be forcing the turn to end immediately after a stone is placed to put an opponent's group in atari (by analogy of Scottish progressive chess, even though atari is technically not check because rescuing stones in atari is optional).



2. If capturing one or more stones of your opponent would put at least one of your own stones into atari simultaneously, you may not save the stones that are now in atari during the same turn. For example, the following move (W2 + white+circle), which fills a ko during the same turn of taking the ko, is illegal:

[Diagram]
corner  

(One is free to play multiple threats, of course-- but remember that your opponent gets one extra move next turn.)


Likewise, snapbacks still work, as the following move (W2 + white+circle) is illegal:

[Diagram]
corner  

(White may play the first stone as a ko threat, though.)



3. Another important rule is that one is not required to play the maximum number of stones allowed for any move. In other words, a "partial" pass is permissible. For example, if you're allowed to play 10 stones this turn, you can actually play anything between 0 to 10 stones.



It seems to me that this would be a strange game, as life & death statuses might change, and almost no territory is secure (because one can always use 10 stones to create a living group in the center, and almost every cutting point can be cut). Here's a weird 5x5 example (obviously, the moves are not meant to be optimal):

[Diagram]
Move 1  
[Diagram]
Move 2  
[Diagram]
Move 3  
[Diagram]
Move 4  
[Diagram]
Move 5  

(This is one possible way to prevent White from making a seki with the next move.)

[Diagram]
Move 6  

(White omits the last four stones.)

[Diagram]
Moves 7-8  

B7 = pass, W8 = pass.


Final Score:
Black: 7
White: 2 + 1 prisoner = 3.
Black wins by 4 points.

(Notice how important it is to get tedomari in this game ;-)


Progressive Go last edited by MrTenuki on February 18, 2012 - 21:07
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