17.4.10 GHODAK RULES
Play ---- 1) Players take turns playing stones on vacant intersections of the board, beginning with black. 2) Exceptions: a) You cannot play a stone at an intersection at which it would possess no liberties, unless the stone would capture a group of your opponent's stones. b) You cannot play a stone if it would return the board to its state immediately preceding your opponents turn. 3) Stones which are immediately adjacent either horizontally or vertically are considered one group and share liberties. 4) Liberties: a) If a stone is either vertically or horizontally adjacent to a vacant intersection, it possesses a liberty. The stone or group of stones possesses a number of liberties equal to such adjacent, vacant intersections. b) A stone or group of stones must have at least one liberty to remain on the board. If the last liberty of a stone or group of stones is removed, those stones are removed from the board. c) A group of stones which completely surround two vacant intersections will always have at least two liberties and may never be captured. 5) You may instead pass and not play a stone on your turn. If both players pass consecutively, the game moves on to resolution. Resolution ---------- 1) Resolution consists of players marking those stones which are dead. 2) A stone or group of stones is considered dead if it cannot avoid capture. 3) Marking a stone a second time will mark it as alive again. 4) Players mark dead stones to be removed simultaneously, but must signal that they agree on the marked stones before the game will be scored. 5) If players cannot agree on which stones are dead, play simply resumes until all spaces have been filled or players reach a point where they can agree on the remaining dead stones. In this way, a game can always be resolved. Scoring ------- 1) A players score is the sum of the number of stones he or she has on the board and the number of vacant intersections his or her stones have surrounded. 2) An intersection is counted toward a player's score if the empty area to which it is a part touches only stones of the players colour or the border. 3) If this area touches stones of both colours, it is not counted toward the score of either player.
