Relative Go

Black's first move  

We can't really say "where" on the board is this stone at this point. It is white who next makes the first meaningful move.

White answers  

Now we'll note the position of white stone relative to the black stone and other way around. These relations will not change during the game. In other words, will always be in keima to .

 

Black expands to the direction he likes, as long it's not too far away from other stones (see next diagrams).

, Illegal move  

Here come the real edges of the board. In this diagram, is an illegal move because we are playing on 9x9 board. This shape simply wouldn't fit on such board because there are 8 vertical lines between and (more than 7).

, legal move  

With , white stabilizes all stones in horizontal direction. Stones can no longer be placed right of or left of . We know and are on edges but we dont know their exact height. Next two diagrams illustrate this.

 

Black can "push" other stones up or down, which he like better. Of course, black doesnt have to place on an edge at all.

 

From here on, game continues just like normal go. No extra rules.

Extra rules

Consider the following play: White places his first stone (+18,+18) relative to the black stone and immediately defines all edges. After that game is the same as normal go (with two useless stones in the corners) and the idea of this variant is wasted.

Normal go with two useless stones  

To prevent this I'm forced to introduce some new rule to balance the game. The best I could think of Is a rule to forbid placing stone too far from other stones.

 

White can be placed on positions marked a and closer to (such as c), but can not place on and outside b-line (such as d).

The restricted distance here is the distance of tengen from edge, meaning that White's first move cannot be placed "outside" physical board if is at tengen.

Previous example  

According to rule described above, is an illegal move on 9x9 because it's 1 intersection too far from (max lines between and would be 3 in 9x9).

Differences to normal Go

Disastrous.

• How to play corner joseki when there are no corners?
• Corner fuseki gets replaced by tengen fuseki (?)
• One skillfully placed stone can turn good framework into a useless formation.

There are probably some easy sequences which allow changing play to normal go. But if players choose not to do this immediately, succesful game can teach a lot.