The board & stones

A Go board is a grid of lines. The pieces are called stones — one player takes black, the other white. Stones are placed on the intersections— the points where lines cross — not in the squares. A full board is 19×19; smaller 13×13 and 9×9 boards are friendlier to learn on, so we'll use 9×9 here.

Parts of the board

Intersection

Any crossing of two lines — where a stone may sit, including along the edges and in the corners.

Lines & edges

The grid runs two ways. The outermost line on each face is the edge; the four straight boundaries are the sides and the four turns are the corners.

Star points

The marked dots (hoshi) — reference and handicap marks. The middle one is tengen, the centre point.

Board sizes

9×9, 13×13, and the full 19×19 — bigger boards, same rules, just more room.

Black moves first. Then players alternate, one stone at a time. Once placed, a stone never moves — it only ever leaves the board by being captured (the next lesson).

• Stones sit on points, including the edges and corners.
• You may pass instead of playing, but you rarely will early on.

Try filling a corner. Notice how an edge point simply has fewer neighbours than a point in the centre — that idea becomes everything in the next lesson.