Charlotte GO Club
The Charlotte GO Club was originally founded in 1977. Over the last 45+ years it has gone through multiple phases of activity and inactivity. We are reforming again after a period of inactivity that was brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. As of Feburary 2023 the club is in the process of reforming and getting our feet back on the ground. If you are interested in staying up-to-date on this process please complete the mailing list form below.
Club Meetings
TBD
What is GO?
Go board game dates backs 2,500 years ago and is believed to have originated in China. At one time, the game was used to determine the future of Tibet after a Buddhist ruler refused to go to war. It is a game of skill that resembles a Chess game, only that it has different rules and challenges the players’ analytical skills and intuition. This territorial game has a grid of 19x19, though Go for beginners comprises smaller boards of 9x9 and 13x13. There is also a portable form of Go (called Flip it) that easy to bring on a trip. People in the early centuries played on a 17x17 grid, but the 19x19 became the official game by the time it was introduced in Korea and Japan.
The game has playing pieces called ‘stones’ where one player uses the black stones, and the other uses the black ones. The game kicks off with an empty board where participants take turns to place the stones on various vacant areas on the board. The black stones play first by being placed in the intersections of the lines, and once they have been placed on the board, they are not moved unless captured. Capture happens when a stone is surrounded by opponent’s stones in all the adjacent positions. Players start the game by staking their claims on parts of the board they want to occupy. At the end of the game, the players count the vacant intersections on their territory and add it to the number of stones captured. The player with the larger total becomes the winner.