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The Basics:

The idea is to capture as much territory as possible, and in the process usually some prisoners as well.

A board game played on a square board that has vertical and horizontal lines drawn on it.

The number of vertical/horizontal lines (a grid) can be:

A full size 19x19 board - typically made from good quality wood

Players can put a "stone" on any unoccupied intersection of a vertical and horizontal grid line. This also includes lines on the edge of the board.

A group of stones lives if it has 2 or more "eyes", these are 2 separate empty spaces (line intersections greater than 1) enclosed by the group.

No suicide is allowed i.e. putting a stone in an "eye".

Rule of "Ko" (perpetual capture) says if a "Ko" situation arises then a player must miss a turn before placing a stone in the "Ko" eye.

Any stone or group of stones, that has one eye, or none, and is completely encircled by opponent stones becomes a prisoner.

A stone handicap can be given to the weaker player (usually from 1 to 9 stones). Handicap stones can be placed on any empty gridline intersection, provided it does not commit suicide, usually they are on the small black dots found on the board.

At the end of a game players count up how many squares they have and how many prisoners (exchanged for territory) and the winner is the player with the most territory.

Typical finished game prior to counting territory & prisoners:

Some Examples:

Figure 1 - Black group either lives or dies depends on whose turn its is and they play on the position of the yellow X:

Figure 2: Which groups live and which die depends on whose turn it is and where they play:

1. If black plays first on the position of the yellow cross the 3 white stones die
2. If white plays first on the cyan or green cross the group of two or three black stones die's respectively