Page:Smith - The game of go.djvu/52

 III

RULES OF PLAY

players play alternately, and the weaker player has the black stones and plays first, unless a handicap has been given, in which case the player using the white stones has the first move. (In the olden times this was just reversed.) They place the stones on the vacant points of intersection on the board, or “Me,” and they may place them wherever they please, with the single exception of the case called “Ko,” which will be hereafter explained. When the stones are once played they are never moved again.

The object of the game of Go is to secure territory. Just as the object of the game of Chess is not to capture pieces, but to checkmate the adverse King, so in Go the ultimate object is not to capture the adversary’s stones, but to so arrange matters that at the end of the game a player’s stones will surround as much vacant space as possible. At the end of the game, however, before the amount of vacant space is calculated, the stones that have been taken are used to fill up the vacant spaces claimed by the adversary; that is to say, the captured black stones are used to fill up the spaces surrounded by the player having the white [sic] pieces, and vice versa, and the player who has the greatest amount of territory after the captured stones are used in this way, is the winner of the game. However, if the players, fearing Rh