Game of Go is played by two players — one uses black stones, another uses white stones; number of stones is not limited.  Stone is a disk of a size of a medium coin.

Game starts with an empty board (except for a game with a handicap).  Go board is a flat rectangular grid of 19 by 19 lines forming 361 points of intersection (two smaller sizes may be used: 13x13=169 for a short game and 9x9=81 for an extra short game).  Pitch of the grid lines is normally equal to the size of the stone.

Moves are made in turns; first move is made by the Black (except for a game with a handicap).  The aim is to get more points than the opponent by surrounding either empty areas of the board or opponent's stones thus capturing them.

To provide compensation for the right of the first move (komi) Black gives to White several (normally 5) stones as a prisoners before the game starts (except for a game with a handicap).  Komi for the smaller size boards is less (4 for 13x13 board and 3 for 9x9 board).

Move comprises placement of a stone to any unoccupied point of the board (rules 7 and 8 prohibit certain moves).  A stone, placed on the board, can be neither moved nor removed from the board (except for a situation when opponent captures stone as a prisoner).

A group of stones gets removed from the board as prisoners after opponent's move that deprives it of the last point of liberty.  Points of liberty are unoccupied horizontal and vertical points directly adjacent to the stones of a group.

It is prohibited to make a move to the board point where as a result of such a move the newly placed stone won't have any liberties; it is also prohibited to make a move that deprives player's own group of the last point of liberty.

It is prohibited to make a move that results in a repetition of position (stone allocation) on the entire board (ko rule).

A player having a turn for a move, has a right to bypass his next move at any time; game is considered to be finished when both players have bypassed their moves one after another.

Upon game completion the dead stones (stones that can't avoid being captured) are removed from the board, and are added to the prisoner stones without actual playing of the capture moves.

The player receives one point for each unoccupied point of his territories, and one point for each prisoner stone he has captured from his opponent.

The player who scored more points is considered to win the game; in case the numbers of points are equal, the white player is considered to be the winner (except for a game with a handicap).

If the player makes a move prohibited by the rules, his opponent should return the stone to the player, and suggest him to make another move.