1. General Flow of the Game

In Go, one player has the black stones and the other player the white stones. Each plays one at a time and in contrary to chess, black starts. As the black player has the first move advantage, in even games he gives to the white player 6.5 arbitrary points, called "komi". In handicap games, black can put stones on the handicap points (marked in red on image) and the number of stones are decided by the rank difference between the two. Generally handicapped games are with no komi. The moves are played on any points (intersection) on the board but can't move after been put. Every stone and points have the same exact value.

The Goal of the game is, to possess the most points on the board which is achieved by completely surrounding the points (bottom image). Here, black has 9 points.

The game is ended if both players agree that no valuable points or moves are left on the board (explained on rule n.5), or one resigns the game beforehand.