Go (Capture)
A friendly first-capture Go on a 9×9 board.
How to play Go (Capture)
Place stones on the intersections. A stone or group with no adjacent empty points (no "liberties") is captured and removed. In this beginner-friendly version, the very first capture wins, so chase the computer’s stones while keeping your own breathing room. You may not place a stone that would immediately have no liberties.
How to win at Capture Go
This is Capture Go, also called Atari Go, the friendliest way into the ancient game of Go. You and the computer take turns placing stones on the intersections of a 9x9 grid. The single rule that matters is liberties: the empty points directly next to a stone or a connected group. Remove a group's last liberty and it is captured. In this version the very first capture ends the game, so the whole contest becomes a chase; hunt the computer's stones down to zero liberties while keeping your own groups breathing.
A stone with just one liberty left is in atari, one move from capture. Your main weapon is the ladder: put a lone enemy stone in atari, and when it flees to its last liberty, chase it diagonally step by step. If the zig-zag runs all the way to the edge of the board, the stone can never escape and you capture it. But beware, if one of the opponent's stones is already waiting along the ladder's path, the chase fails, so read it out before you commit.
Double atari and the other winning blows
Most games of Capture Go are decided by one of three tactical shapes, and all three have names worth knowing. The ladder, shicho in Japanese, is the zig-zag chase above. The net, geta, is its patient cousin: instead of chasing, you play a loose cap that leaves the enemy stone room to wriggle one step in any direction and no way out at all. Nets catch stones that ladders cannot, because there is no escape run for a distant stone to interrupt. The queen of them all is double atari: a single move that puts two separate stones or groups in atari at the same time. Your opponent saves one; the other dies, and here the first death ends the game. Double ataris sprout from cutting points, the junctions where enemy stones touch only diagonally, so drive a stone through those gaps and both halves become targets.
One habit from full Go has to be left at the door. Sacrifice tactics, throw-ins, and snapbacks all involve letting the opponent capture something small to gain something bigger later. Here there is no later. Any capture, even of one worthless-looking stone, wins on the spot, so never leave anything in atari as a gambit, and before every single move, scan for the reply that would take one of your stones off the board.
Capturing and liberty tips
- Play toward the center early: a stone there has four liberties, on the edge only three, in the corner just two.
- Keep your stones connected, because one big group shares its liberties and is far harder to surround.
- Learn the ladder, and always check for a friendly enemy stone that would break it before you start the chase.
- Never fill in your own last liberty; the rules forbid a move that would leave your own stone with none.
- When a stone cannot be laddered, try a net, a looser move that traps it without a running chase.
- Keep a running count of the lowest liberty number on each side; whoever owns that weakest group is the one really under attack.
From Emperor Yao to AlphaGo
Go, known as Weiqi in China, Igo in Japan, and Baduk in Korea, is among the oldest strategy games still played, with well over two thousand years of recorded history; Chinese legend goes further and credits the sage-king Yao with inventing it to teach his son judgment, four millennia back. The full game is about surrounding territory rather than a single capture, and its staggering complexity kept it beyond the reach of computers long after chess had fallen. Only in March 2016 did DeepMind's AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, one of the greatest players alive, four games to one in Seoul, and a move it played in the second game looked so strange that professional commentators assumed a mistake before recognising something genuinely new. Capture Go strips all of that down to the one idea a beginner must own first: liberties and capture. The Japanese professional Yasuda Yasutoshi spent years teaching exactly this first-capture form in schools and care homes, and his method spread worldwide for a simple reason. Territory, eyes, and life and death make no sense until capturing is instinct, and a few dozen rounds of this little game make it instinct.
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Go (Capture): frequently asked questions
How is this different from real Go?
It uses the same rules but skips territory scoring: the first player to capture any stone wins, which makes it easy to pick up.
What is a liberty?
An empty point directly next to a stone or group. Remove the last one and the group is captured.
What exactly is a liberty?
A liberty is an empty intersection directly next to a stone, up, down, left, or right. A connected group shares all of its members' liberties, and when they reach zero the whole group is captured and removed.
What does atari mean?
Atari is when a stone or group has only one liberty remaining, a single move away from being captured. Spotting atari, both yours and the computer's, is the heart of Capture Go.
How does a ladder work?
You keep an enemy stone in atari and it flees to its last liberty; you chase diagonally, re-applying atari each move. If the staircase reaches the board edge the stone is trapped, but a friendly stone already on the path lets it slip free.
What is a double atari?
A single move that puts two separate enemy stones or groups in atari at once. Only one can be saved, and since the first capture wins here, a double atari usually ends the game. They most often appear after a cut through diagonally touching stones.
How is Capture Go different from real Go?
Real Go is scored by surrounded territory and involves eyes, life and death, and the ko rule. Capture Go removes all of that scoring, since the first capture simply wins, so it teaches liberties and capturing on their own.
Why will the game not let me place some stones?
You cannot play a stone that would immediately have no liberties, a move called suicide. In full Go the one exception is a play that captures an enemy group first and frees the space, but here capturing ends the game anyway.
Is Go (Capture) free to play?
Yes. Go (Capture) is completely free on Inkplay, with no download, no sign-up, and no in-game purchases. Open the page and play instantly on desktop or mobile.
Can I play Go (Capture) unblocked?
Yes. Go (Capture) runs entirely in your browser with no download, install, or plugins, so it loads instantly and keeps working even on school or work networks where bigger game sites get blocked.
More games to play
In the mood for more? Try Chess, Tic Tac Toe, Connect Four, Reversi, or browse all board games and the full games list on Inkplay. Go (Capture) also appears in Strategy Games.