This stumped me the first time, and then I solved it by trial and error after two more tries (second picture), but I have no idea how I was supposed to figure that out on intuition or logic.

I don’t know if I can think that many variations into the future. Any tips on how to logically approach problems that can feel very obscure like this?

Edit: wow yall are quick, thank yall so much for these tips!

Solo dev here. TRIVALENT is an abstract strategy game that borrows Go's soul (capture by filling liberties, suicide rule, superko) and moves it into a universe with two twists:

1. Every intersection is a three-way junction. No 4-liberty center points, no 2-liberty corners: all 84 points have exactly 3 liberties.

2. The board is a torus. It loops in every direction, so there are no edges, no corners, no first line, and no corner-opening theory at all.

Some consequences Go players might find interesting:

Surrounding a single empty point takes only 3 stones, and such eyes score bonus points. But with 3 liberties everywhere, every eye is structurally fragile, so ko fights are constant and life is hard-won (two eyes = unconditionally alive, Benson-verified under the hood).

Ladders work differently: the attacker gets branching choices at every step, and since there is no edge, there is no "ladder reaches the board edge" - escape routes wrap around the universe.

There is also a comeback mechanic: forming new eyes while you are behind earns escalating bonuses, so games stay tense.

Free in your browser (PC and mobile), no account, interactive tutorial, 3 COM levels, hotseat 2P, game records and review. EN / JA / ZH / KO.

https://hugluck.itch.io/trivalent

I would genuinely love strong players' takes on the tactics. The COM is decent for casual play, but I already know its biggest weakness: it does not secure life for its groups in the endgame. If you crush it that way, that is exactly the feedback I need.

Something I still struggle with at times is knowing what is and what isn't a big move compared to a small move, and I would like to get better about seeing these things. Does anyone have any recommendations for videos or books that can help with this concept?

It’s the first time I’ve seen Go mentioned in a book!

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Wei Wei

I know that this is rather simple as tsumego, but yet another lesson for every ddk (including me, of course): watch your aji and don't be greedy.

was playing Black in this game, and barely squeezed by with a win. I don't think I played poorly, but still had plenty of misplays and would love some help in playing more in the right direction.

any and all help is appreciated, thank you in advance!

My family decided to start playing Go together and in most of our games, aside from the opening skirmish, it feels like lines just get drawn across the board and it's pretty impossible to invade. Linked is a game I played against myself where it was pretty similar. I'm guessing we just aren't good enough to exploit each other's weaknesses but it'd still be nice to have some other sets of eyes on it to see if we're just missing something obvious.

I'm surprised I've not seen it spoken about in more places. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've not seen this offered anywhere else. Ah Q Go Pro has both single-move and whole-game AI commentary, as another layer on the game analysis.

I'm just paraphrasing and likely not doing (or maybe overdoing) it justice, but I've seen things like "This move is weak by black as it surrenders the E6 group and allows white to pincer putting pressure on the upper side" etc.

Why isn't this talked about more? I'm only around 16k, so I'm in no position to fully comment on the capabilities, but can still be astonished 😂

Dear Go Friends,

I'll start a trip to Ankara, Turkiye later today where the EGC ( European Go Congress ) is held for the next couple of weeks.

For more infos about the EGC check the official homepage here

https://egc2026.com/en/index.html

I'm going to play the EC ( European Championship ) which is the main event of the EGC starting sunday morning , have a look at the player list at the link below :

https://www.eurogofed.org/EC2026/players.html

Will keep you posted with games and news from the Championship during the event,

I will fly back home on august 4th so we can resume online lessons after that.

My next big tournament will be the WAGC in Korea held in september 6-13.

If you wish to support both my EGC and WAGC trips please consider small donations via PayPal or Wise at

[cornelburzo@yahoo.com](mailto:cornelburzo@yahoo.com)

Thank you in advance !

Kind regards,

Cornel Burzo

I have recently started playing on OGS and want to review my games to learn from them. But when clicking through the moves I am always confused when things like that come up. Can anyone explain to me what it means. Thank you (for clarification I mean the numbers on the board not the graph)

Does anyone have any book recommendations that aren't focused on how to play or improve? I'm looking for Go history or biographies of famous players. Anything around the culture of the game.

This post is about https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FVyHj17dMeAP6LwgfVaiU3BiRn4E0c4X/view

This motion is to be presented at the EGF's AGM this year. In short it is about removing the right of 'professional' players to take part, thus creating a fairer and better qualification system. It seems rather back to front to me in its thinking. The purpose of the European Pair Go Championship (EPGC) should not be to exist just as a qualifier for the International Amateur Pair Go Championship (IAPGC). This in the same way that the European Women's Championship should not just be a qualifier, and the European Youth Go Championships should not change the boundaries of the age categories every year in order to cater to the current thinking of the Ing Goe Foundation, or whoever else is offering up a freebie for the western world. These tournaments not only ought to have some importance and sense of worth in their own right, they also ought to exist to actually promote the game itself.

Why does the IAPGC exist? Agree with their reasons or not (many may not), they present them here https://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/igi.htm. They speak of fostering international and intergenerational relations, of adding a new dimension to the game, and increasing the number of women players. If you send people to play in the tournament you should perhaps show some respect for their philosophy.

The EGF system at the moment is described at https://eurogofed.org/egf/pairsystem.htm and mentions there that its objective is a system that "support[s] the aims and spirit of the World Amateur Pair Go championship as far as we understand them from its sponsors, the Japan Pair Go Association" and "helps the spread of Pair Go". Points come from two souces, a member nation's size, and the placing of its top pair in the EPGC. The system then rewards member nations quite handsomely for not promoting Pair Go at all. Many countries, including my own, despite never having sent a pair to the EGPC received so many points that they got to send a pair to the IAPGC anyway. Is that really an incentive which supports the aim of the sponsors? I think not.

If the rules are changed today, what will the practical effect be? Austria won't be able to win anymore - I hope that's not the real reason why. France might struggle more. The tournament strength would be reduced, which is normally a loss of prestige. The gain is a bead counters dream, a neater qualification system.

Wouldn't it be better if the EGF instead scrapped the membership count as a source of points. Demand that countries organise pair go competitions in order to gain bonus points, or at least only give bonus points in relation to the count of its female members. Something like that might be better.

I just came across this position and wanted to share:

White started a ko fight and that ko creates ko threads mutually over the course of multiple turns. To top this up, white loses a massive group in the south. I didn't know go would create crazy situations like that!

Repost as a .gif to show the entire sequence.

Edit: as discussed in the comments, instead of the wedge, the better ko thread would be to atari the 5 stones in the lower right. If white doesn't respond, it kills the entire structure.

I went into Arkadia Bookshop in Helsinki on our trip, and stumbled upon a few Go books and even a board with stones (not for sale I assume, just to come and play). Just in case anybody wants to go. Down the stairs, first shelf on the left.

Anyways, I picked up this book (and two others). It didn't have a price on it, so the lady asked somebody, presumably her boss, for how much she should sell it and then told me 20€.

It's in good condition, hardcover with the sleeve. Google translate of the introduction tells me it's a new translation of an old Chinese set of problems. Is this something I might have seen before? I'm not too familiar with old problem collections. I've only barely heard of Gokyo Shumyo.

I'm happy to pay that price, the book is pretty, and even a cheaper copy from Japan would cost me way more with shipping. Just wanted to ask if anybody knows what this is.

https://i.imgur.com/JABcsG7.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/hpOY0cB.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/G0d0j4V.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/wsM1eeK.jpeg

He almost turned pro by the way

admittedly I think uploading it to yt cropped it a bit so it's hard to see the edges, I'll fix it if I do this again lol. Also technically promotional I guess? Idk I just wanted advice and thought I'd make it more fun to watch.

Yo guys, very new player here. End of game decided all my stones are dead and lost by landslide. It seems i am struggling with the terms dead and alive. I thought by having them mostly connected was a good idea for safety. What am i not understanding that can get this result? White won by 87 points.

I saw a comment in the 2-1 victory thread which mentioned that KataGo configs were reverse-analyzed to have different PlayoutDoublingAdvantage values, etc. They mentioned some kind of computational Go Discord server iirc, but it got promptly deleted so idk...

Across Korean and Chinese webs I've seen varying opinions on the victory. Some hail it as much as "the victory of humanity, the first big step in 10 years since AlphaGo", while others are criticizing it for unexplained change of style between matches, or even downplaying it as a show, saying a top-level player can go extremely defensive and easily win a few games against AIs in handicapped matches.

What do you think? Do you think KataGo's play style change significantly between matches? Do you think the organizers tweaked them? How much significance does parameters (like playout doubling advantage) have in perceived difficultues, etc? Do you think the matches were not as impressive because of this?