Kingo

[luigi]

Kingo is an attempt to make the game of Go even more intense and unforgiving. It differs from Go in the following aspects:

• There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
• On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color. Likewise, when comparing positions as per the ko and superko rules, pawns and kings of the same color are considered the same. Positional superko is used.
• A player's score is the number of kings of their color on the board. Capturing an enemy king is an immediate win.
• Komi is a whole number, and the button is used to break ties.

Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which enables doing away with the ko and superko rules. This results in an intriguing but quite different game, as false eyes become true unless they arise from captures.

Thoughts?

[phillip1882]

do captures work like in go? what if players both have same number of kings after two passes?

[luigi]

do captures work like in go? what if players both have same number of kings after two passes?

Yes, groups are captured the same way as in Go. Groups can include both kings and pawns of the same color.

Fractional komi can be used to avoid ties, but my personal preference is using the button.

[alphaville]

Kingo is an attempt to make the game of Go even more intense and unforgiving.

The game of Go is already very intense and unforgiving without adding silly rules to it.

[luigi]

The game of Go is already very intense and unforgiving without adding silly rules to it.

Of course. This is just an experiment, hence the word "attempt". Constructive feedback would be welcome.

[leichtloeslich]

Ignoring the "captures have to be made with kings" option for the moment, I see two extreme-case strategies resulting:

1. All moves are king moves by both players, in which case the game deteriorates into capture-go, or

2. All moves are non-king moves until the very end of the game, at which point players fill dame + their own territories up with kings.

The 2. option sounds more likely to be a sensible strategy and should be roughly equal to normal go with japanese scoring without counting prisoners (I think).

But it is an interesting idea. One of the main features of go is that stones that are extremely important in one moment can easily be thrown away at some later point. Speculatively giving up that flexibility to gain a king-point-lead may add strategic depth, but it could also make players afraid of fighting, so I'd say you should try to play some games at your local go club and report back on what kind of gameplay results from this rule change.

[hyperpape]

Ignoring the "captures have to be made with kings" option for the moment, I see two extreme-case strategies resulting:

1. All moves are king moves by both players, in which case the game deteriorates into capture-go, or

2. All moves are non-king moves until the very end of the game, at which point players fill dame + their own territories up with kings.

I'm not sure #2 would happen. Being conservative about making kings might be right, but I think they'll get played before the endgame. Anytime you make a very strong group, including but not limited to an unconditionally alive one, is a good candidate. Or if you have a dragon you have to save, you'll probably play many kings while doing it (strong connections, responding to peeps, etc).

The option to play a king will also make certain previously slow moves more appealing.

I'm pessimistic about go variants in general, but I'd be open to playing a Malkovitch of kingo against someone near my level (I don't think it would play well with the normal handicap system).

[skydyr]

I suspect that playing a significant number of kings early may constrain you enough that an equally strong player who doesn't play them until near the end can harass your unsacrificable groups enough to easily win on territory by filling it with kings in the endgame and devolving into a sort of territory counting with group tax.

And if you don't play a significant number of kings early, then by definition, it's not significant .

[hyperpape]

Let's be concrete: do you think players would average 5 kings in the opening 100 moves?

I agree that the vast majority of moves wouldn't be king moves.

[jussius]

Ignoring the "captures have to be made with kings" option for the moment, I see two extreme-case strategies resulting:

1. All moves are king moves by both players, in which case the game deteriorates into capture-go, or

2. All moves are non-king moves until the very end of the game, at which point players fill dame + their own territories up with kings.

The 2. option sounds more likely to be a sensible strategy and should be roughly equal to normal go with japanese scoring without counting prisoners (I think).

But it is an interesting idea. One of the main features of go is that stones that are extremely important in one moment can easily be thrown away at some later point. Speculatively giving up that flexibility to gain a king-point-lead may add strategic depth, but it could also make players afraid of fighting, so I'd say you should try to play some games at your local go club and report back on what kind of gameplay results from this rule change.

Both strategies are obviously bad.
For the 1. option: Even if you normally played only kings there are always sacrifice tesujis, throw-ins etc. that you would have to play with pawns.
For the 2. option: Once your group is completely alive, adding further (strongly connected) stones to it should always be kings. Same if your group is already so heavy that losing it would lose you the game anyway.

There's actually an interesting dynamic here since eventually you want to start adding kings to your groups (i.e. as soon as it's obvious you're not going to sacrifice the group). But as soon as you add your first king to it, you wish all the previously played stones in that group were also kings, so you want to "king" your groups as soon as possible. But the sooner you do, the more your opponent can exploit the fact that the group is ultra-heavy and all threatening moves become absolute sentes/ko-threats. Also you would often want to play exchanges against your opponents groups that would normally be considered bad just before he "kings" that group to make him add as many pawns as possible to the group before it gets kinged.
Then of course there's also the fact that not every stone in every group is strongly connected to the rest of the group...

[jeromie]

I'm pessimistic about go variants in general, but I'd be open to playing a Malkovitch of kingo against someone near my level (I don't think it would play well with the normal handicap system).

I've thought a little bit about how this variant would change my strategy, and I'd be willing to play a Malkovitch of kingo. There hasn't been any activity on that part of the site for a while, and it could use a game to spice things up anyway. If you set up the game, I'll join in.

[hyperpape]

Created: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14552.

[lightvector]

There are some interesting end-of-game details with these rules, if I've understood them correctly. For example, with black to play, what is the best endgame and the result? (No komi, kings are marked with circles).

$$B What is the result?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . W X . O . W W . |
$$ | B W X . . X X W . |
$$ | B W X X X X W . W |
$$ | B W W W W W . W W |
$$ | B B B B B W . W X |
$$ | . . B . B W . W . |
$$ | O O . B B W . W B |
$$ | X . O B . B B B B |
$$ | . O O . B . . . . |
$$ ------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B What is the result?
$$ ------------------
$$ | . W X . O . W W . |
$$ | B W X . . X X W . |
$$ | B W X X X X W . W |
$$ | B W W W W W . W W |
$$ | B B B B B W . W X |
$$ | . . B . B W . W . |
$$ | O O . B B W . W B |
$$ | X . O B . B B B B |
$$ | . O O . B . . . . |
$$ ------------------[/go]

[EdLee]

If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.

Hi luigi,

After Jeromie and hyperpape started their game,
I suddenly realized I'm unclear on the basic rule:
Do you mean any pawns and territories have no effect on the scoring to determine who wins ?

Example: W has ( 100 points, 5 kings ), B has ( 10 points, 6 kings ) -- B wins ?

It occurs to me the komi is a mystery ( pure pawns ? pure kings ? mix of the two ? )
If pawns have zero effect on the scoring, then it's meaningless to have pawns in the komi.

Thanks.

[jeromie]

Ed,

I think the earlier discussion pointed to the fact that scoring will end up being equivalent to territory scoring with group tax + kings you played before scoring started. (Theoretically, players can fill all of their own territory except two one point eyes with kings before passing.)

Komi, on the other hand, is not clear to me. In the rules as written I would assume no komi, but I think that will give black a slight advantage. It also encourages white to be aggressive about placing kings to make up the difference, though, and since aggressive play was a desired quality of the game that might work for this variant. It doesn't have to be balanced for professional level play.