A year ago I made some posts about 2-player 3-color go. Recently I had another multicolor idea that is so simple that it almost certainly has been played before:
Each player controls two colors in a game of 4-color go.
Your score is the sum of the scores of your two colors.
Actually I remember thinking about this several years ago, but I was hung up on a physical game where you can choose which color to use for each move, which doesn’t really work well (no incentive to use more than one color), so I scrapped the idea. Turns out all we need to fix this is to enforce a turn order:
Player 1 plays a black stone.
Player 2 plays a white stone.
Player 1 plays a blue stone.
Player 2 plays a red stone.
(repeat)
One could also try this “double move” variation:
Player 1 plays a black stone.
Player 2 plays a white stone.
Player 2 plays a blue stone.
Player 1 plays a red stone.
(repeat)
Having to work with two colors has some interesting consequences: to a certain extent it’s possible for your stones to help each other, but if they’re in direct contact they will hurt each other by taking liberties. So you might try to segregate your colors, building each group out of a single color. However, when the opponent is playing forcing moves against your group (possibly using both their colors), your stones could be forced to work together to defend.
How to play?
This variant could be played with Vsotvep’s multicolor tool in the same way we played several other variants on the forum. But even more conveniently, it can be played live on the Variant Go Server! You simply select “Four color go” in the settings, and then once the table is created it is possible for one player to take multiple “seats”.
Here is an example 5x5 game I played against myself.
This was the final position, I think it’s not possible for red/white to kill, despite blue having only one eye!
Anyone interested in trying out a real game?
