Zen Go

    Keywords: Variant

Jenny Radcliffe: My understanding of this exercise - which we are due to try in Monday, so I'll have more information on Tuesday - is that three players take it in turns to play. Black and white also alternate as usual. Thus supposing hypothetically that you have three players, Edwin, Jenny and Chris.

  • Jenny plays black's first move;
  • Edwin plays white's first move;
  • Chris plays black;
  • Jenny plays white;
  • Edwin plays black;
  • Chris plays white;
  • Back to the beginning.

Naturally the purpose is not win or loss, so in a way it is more of an exercise than an actual game. Hopefully it gives a new perspective and feel for the game - but I'll let you know what happens when we've tried it!

I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who's played this - I know I've read about it, but I can't find any references to it online.


Charles Matthews Sounds like a game of go designed by a committee - maybe in more than one sense. Next, rules for Koango, Quango, NGO ... where will it all end?


Jan: I once played this variant. It was fun for a while, but as the players participating weren't very strong we couldn't build nice shapes - so it became fairly pointless after a while. To counter that, we started keeping track of who had captured the most stones on his (or her) turn. But that had the side-effect of losing the idea of selfless play :-)

So I think maybe you'd better set yourselves some goals (such as always tenuki or something) before embarking on this venture.


Jenny Radcliffe: Well, we've had a chance to try it now, and it was extremely interesting. Very weird, but extremely interesting. Definitely an exercise we'll be repeating, I think - it seriously changes your perspective on the game.

Jenny Radcliffe: Obviously technically you can't get a more even game than this - and yet white lost by resignation. Which says something significant about how inconsistently we were all playing; not just each of us playing our own strategy, but each of us being inconsistent as well.

Jenny Radcliffe: As Jan says, it's difficult to remember which colour you're meant to be playing - I recommend breaking with my usual playing rules and picking up the next stone as soon as you play. It helps you remember what you're doing.

Tas I´ve tried this as well. It was very interesting, and a good excercise. Very wierd first to make plans, and then spoil them yourself.

Phelan: It is a very interesting variant. My only problem with it is that it encourages thinking only of the short term, since you have to play what you think is the current best move for the current color, instead of developing an overall strategy, and following it. That's from my experience, though. Perhaps a higher level player can do better.


For an example of a different type of three player Go, see: Three Colour Ongoing Game


This is a copy of the living page "Zen Go" at Sensei's Library.
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