Editing Rules of Go (section)

=== Concise statement ===
These rules appear in "The Rules and Elements of Go" by James Davies.<ref>[http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/element.html Elementary Rules] of James Davies</ref> They assume familiarity with the equipment used to play Go, for which one may refer to {{section link||Elements of the game}} below.

''Notes:'' The words ''move'' and ''territory'' are used differently here than elsewhere in this article; [[#Moving|''play'']] and [[#Area|''area'']], respectively, are used instead. A clarification to rule 5 is added in parentheses.
# The [[#Board|board]] is empty at the onset of the game (unless players agree to place a handicap). 
# [[#Players|Black]] makes the first move, after which [[#Players|White]] and [[#Players|Black]] alternate.
# A [[#Moving|move]] consists of placing one [[#Stones|stone]] of one's own color on an empty [[#Board|intersection]] on the board.
# A player may [[#Moving|pass their turn]] at any time. 
# A stone or solidly [[#Connected stones and points|connected]] group of stones of one color is captured and removed from the board when all the intersections directly [[#Board|adjacent]] to it are occupied by the enemy. ([[#Capture|Capture]] of the enemy takes precedence over [[#Self-capture|self-capture]].)
# If a stone or solidly [[#Connected stones and points|connected]] group of stones of one color is enclosed and will eventually be captured, they are removed as captured at the end of the game.
# No stone may be played so as to recreate a former board [[#Positions|position]].
# Two consecutive passes end the game.
# A player's [[#Area|area]] consists of all the [[#Board|points]] the player has either occupied or [[#Territory|surrounded]].
# The player with more area wins.

These rules rely on common sense to make notions such as "connected group" and "surround" precise. What is here called a "solidly connected group of stones" is also called a [[#Connected stones and points|''chain'']].