Welcome to the Singapore Weiqi Association!

For people new to Weiqi, please find out more about Weiqi and sign up for our classes now!

This web site is mainly to promote Weiqi in Singapore and increase Weiqi skills of Singapore Weiqi players through online games and lessons. Any suggestions or comments, please contact us.

This is a simple tutorial to get you started on how to play the game of Weiqi. If you are interested to learn more about the game, you are welcome to enrol in Weiqi lessons conducted by the Singapore Weiqi Association. For more information, please see our Lessons page.

 

1) About The Game Of Weiqi

Weiqi is an ancient game originated from China, with a definite history of over 3000 years, although there are historians who say that the game was invented more than 4000 years ago. The other name for Weiqi is Go, used by Europeans and Americans alike, although this term actually originated from Japan. Other names for Weiqi include Baduk (Korean), Igo (Japanese) and Goe (Taiwanese). This game is getting increasingly popular around the world, especially in Asian, European and American countries, with many worldwide competitions being held.

Figure 1

The game of Weiqi is played on a board as shown in Figure 1. The Weiqi set comprises of the board, together with 180 black and white stones each. Figure 1 shows the standard 19x19 board (i.e. the board has 19 lines by 19 lines), but there are 13x13 and 9x9 boards in play. However, the 9x9 and 13x13 boards are usually for beginners; more advanced players would prefer the traditional 19x19 board.

Compared to International Chess and Chinese Chess, Weiqi has far fewer rules. Yet this allowed for all sorts of moves to be played, so Weiqi can be a more intellectually challenging game than the other two types of Chess. Nonetheless, Weiqi is not a difficult game to learn, so have a fun time playing the game with your friends.

Several rule sets exist and are commonly used throughout the world. Two of the most common ones are Chinese rules and Japanese rules. Here at Singapore Weiqi Association we use Ing's rules. All the rules are basically the same, the only significant difference is in the way counting of territories is done when the game ends. Sections 2 to 4 are common to all the rules.

 

2) Getting Started

A Weiqi game is started with the board empty. Stones are placed on the intersections of the board. The player holding black stones plays first, and each player place a stone on the board on his turn. Players are free to place their stones at any unoccupied intersections on the board.

However, once the stones are placed on the board, they are not to be moved to another location. Also the stones are not to be removed from the board at will, subject to the rules explained in the following Sections. Besides, players are not allowed to stack a stone on top of another stone on the board. These are the rules that make Weiqi unique compared to most other board games, including International Chess and Chinese Chess. The beauty of Weiqi also lies in the simplicity of its rules.

 

3) Liberties

Liberties refer to the unoccupied intersections (or points) that are horizontally or vertically adjacent to the stone. Note: points diagonally next to a stone are not liberties of that stone. Liberties of the three black stones are marked as X in Figure 2. A stone in the middle has four liberties; a stone at the side has three liberties; and a stone at the corner has two liberties.

The rule says that stones without liberties must be removed from the board. For example, in Figure 3, the three black stones have no liberties and therefore they must be removed from the board as shown in Figure 4. However, the reverse is also true: stones with at least one liberty must remain on the board.

Making a move that causes your stones (but not your opponent’s) to have no liberties is known as suicide. Usually suicide is forbidden, but some variations of the rule allow for suicide, whereby the suicide move causes the stones without liberties to be removed from the board and it is the opponent’s turn to play.

A chain consists of two or more stones that are connected to each other horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally. The liberties of a chain are counted together as a unit. An example is Figure 5, where the two black stones have a combined total of six liberties marked X. When white has played at all the positions marked X, such that the two black stones have no liberties at all, then white will remove the two stones together. At no time is white allowed to remove any of the two stones individually. As the saying goes, "One for all, all for one".

Let’s take a look at Figure 6. What if black decides to play at 1 as shown in Figure 7? Notice that the black stone marked 1 has no liberties, but the three white stones (marked with triangle) have no liberties either. This rule determines the result: the player that causes stones of both players to have no liberties will have his opponent’s stones removed. Hence, black will remove the three white stones, with the end result shown in Figure 8.

 

4) Ko

We start off with Figure 9, and black 1 takes away the white triangle stone in Figure 10, resulting in Figure 11. Now we can see that white may want to play at point A in Figure 11, and the pattern goes back to Figure 9. Then black decides to play at 1 at Figure 10 and so on, and the game will never end. Such a pattern is known as ko.

So when black 1 takes the ko in Figure 10, the rule for ko says that white has to wait one turn before he can take back the ko. This simply means that white cannot play at A in Figure 11 on his turn immediately after black takes the ko (white can play elsewhere), but he can play at A on his next turn. If white managed to take back the ko, the same rule applies to black: black has to wait one turn before he can take back the ko.

Figure 12 shows other valid examples of ko, involving the point A and the black triangle stone.

 

5) Ending A Game

A game is ended when both players agree that a game has ended – both players will pass on their consecutive turns. If one player passes but his opponent choose not to pass and make a move on the board, then the game will not end. When a game has ended, the winner is found by comparing territories (see next section – Section 6 on Territories).

Alternatively, if one player surrenders, his opponent automatically wins the game. In Weiqi, a player may not place more than one stone on the board on his turn, so it is usual to place two stones on the board to indicate that he surrenders. This is especially useful in overcoming language barriers between players with different cultural backgrounds.

 

6) Territories

The objective of Weiqi is to obtain more territory than your opponent. It does not really matter what is the difference – so long your territory is more than your opponent’s, you win the game.

When we count territory, we count the number of points surrounded by the stones. In Figure 13, black owns a territory of 9 points; white too claims 9 points as his territory.

When calculating who wins the game, due to the fact that stones can be captured or removed from the board, we take into account the number of stones as well. Therefore we find the sum of territories and number of stones for a player, and see if it is more than the opponent’s sum.

Consider Figure 14, a game played on the 13x13 board. Black and white has 39 stones each. Black has surrounded 45 empty points while white has 46. Adding them together, black has 84 points and white has 85 points. Hence white wins this game.

Note: the way of counting presented above is not the official Ing's rules way of counting, but the effect is exactly the same.

 

7) Komi

As the black player plays the first move on the board, black has an advantage over white. So in competitions or even friendly games, black has to compensate his advantage by automatically reducing his territory by a fixed amount known as the komi. In 19x19 board games, the komi is 8 points, so if black has a total of 183 points originally, he would have 8 points deducted and left with only 175 points. This ensures fairness in a game.

Currently, for 9x9 and 13x13 board games, there is no standardized komi. Note: we are applying the Ing's rules, other rules specify a different number for the komi (5½ points is common).

 

These should be enough for you to play your first game of Weiqi. Good luck!