Games played with Go equipment

Many games can be played with Go equipment: a supply of white and black stones and a board with 19x19 intersections, other than Go and many more can be played with minor modification.

Games that can be played without modification on the intersections of a 19x19 Go board include:

• Breakthrough, which can be played on just about any board shape one wishes
• Gomoku, Ninuki-renju and its close relative Pente
• Connect6, similar to naughts and crosses, but requires connecting six in a row, and with two stones per move
• Irensei, uniting the seven in a row objective with the Go rules of capturing, suicide and Ko
• Gonnect
• Tanbo
• Capture Go
• Alea evangelii (game)

Games that can be played without modification on the intersections of a Go board reduced in size (perhaps by masking the unwanted sections with paper or tape) include:

• Alak (1x19)
• Five Field Kono (5x5)
• Renju (15x15)
• Philosopher's football (15x19)

Games that can be played without modification on the squares of a Go board reduced in size include:

• Gess (18x18 squares - no reduction required)
• Crossings (8x8 squares)
• Epaminondas (12x14 squares)
• Lines of Action (8x8 squares)
• Reversi or Othello (8x8 squares up to 18 x 18 squares possible)
• Connect Four (most commonly 7x6 squares)

It's also possible to use Go equipment as a low-tech interface to Conway's Game of Life; use black stones in the board's squares as 'pixels', and for each generation use white stones to indicate where new cells will be born. Then remove 'dead' black stones, replace the white stones with black ones to complete the new generation, and repeat the process.

Read more:

• International Go Federation