Lets consider the number of black stones after a turn-cycle consisting of a white and a black move.
This number increases by one every turn-cycle. Hence the game is finite.
Any error?
//Edit: I see the incompleteness now. But it proves that the game is either finite, or black gets in a position where they can’t legally place all stones. And the same argument works for white.
I didn’t get that last part.
If you can’t place all your stones, the rest of your turn is skipped. That’s where a cycle would happen, if it could - near the end of the game when players are removing more stones than they’re adding.
I’m working on a new type of boards:
"board": {
"type": "gridWithHoles",
"bitmap": [
[ 0, 3, 3, 2, 0 ],
[ 3, 3, 3, 3, 2 ],
[ 1, 3, 4, 3, 2 ],
[ 3, 3, 3, 3, 2 ],
[ 3, 1, 1, 1, 0 ]
]
}
What do the numbers represent?
0 means no node, 1 is a node with an edge to the right, 2 is a node with an edge down, 3 means 1 and 2, 4 is a node without additional edges.
Ah so each node (“intersection”) only has to care about right and down to avoid double counting. Except the intersections might not be intersections anymore 
It looks cool, it means we can revive
with live play or less tedious correspondence play
Yeah, it still needs some work though.
I was thinking about variants where the board changes at certain points in a game. What do you think about this idea?
Drift Go
After every move, the board shifts in a toroidal-like translation, e.g. the top row becomes the bottom row.
Interesting idea, that sounds fun!
By the way, I am a part of some groups which are running leagues/tournaments/casual games of toroidal Go on the Variant Go Server, and wondered whether it’s possible to add some sort of sound or countdown + visual indicator to notify when one is low on time?
(for example with less than 20 or 30 seconds remaining).
(I’ve been in games in which players have timed out 3 times now, as there is no notification or sound prior to running out, so if one is reading deeply, it’s very easy not to notice the clock. 
)
Presumably it is possible, but you might want to ask that projects developer (the site links to a discord server).
Link to VGS: https://go.kahv.io/
Link to Go Variants: https://www.govariants.com/
The go variants team is still working on implementing time control
Recently a new developer joined our team. Welcome @Eviza !
Here’s the current front page layout:
benjito
martin3141
Jon_Ko
| Visualise territories for Baduk and inheriting variants | (benjito #119) |
| Absolute time control with timeout detection and handling | (martin3141 #124, #152) |
| Navigate game move-by-move | (martin3141 #168) |
| Work towards making board patterns freely combinable with variants | (Jon_Ko and benjito) |
| Games filter | (martin3141 #171) |
| Layout and style rework of Navigation Bar | (Eviza and martin3141 #176) |
| users don’t need to log in every day | (#177) |
| “Next-to-play”-indicator | (Eviza and martin3141 #178) |
| scoring of variant Baduk | (benjito 123) |
| game creation of variant pyramid | (benjito #165) |
| overlapping tiles of rhombitrihexagonal (“polygonal”) board pattern | (martin3141 #175) |
| End of game handling for variant Fractional | (Jon_Ko #145) |
If you have ideas for improvements or variants to add, please let us know - we appreciate it!
Question about Keima Go: Keima Go (B) – European Go Congress 2023
Each player plays two moves in a row. The stones must have a keima (knight’s move) distance. The first move must be valid on its own, suicide is not allowed.
Here are other available descriptions:
“you have to place two stones instead of just one on each turn you don’t pass” (Senseis Library)
“Ein Keima-Go-Zug besteht aus zwei direkt nacheinander gespielten einzelnen Go-Zügen (einer Farbe), die zusammen die Form eines Keimas (Rösselsprung) bilden müssen.” (Hannoverscher Go-Verein e.V.)
In your opinion what should happen when the first placed stone can’t form a keima with any second placement?
Does it not make sense to say you must play keima if possible anywhere, otherwise you may play a single stone? The endgame must be pretty weird if you forbid all single moves.
I mean the game is pretty weird already if you’re playing two stones at a time fixed to be in a shape of a keima
You could say the question is how much weirdness you want. Or how tractable you want the problems it causes to be. I feel that the opening and middle-game weirdness would be enough for me.
Having to play keima in the endgame opens up a new field to study, which could be interesting, but should not have to be part of the package.
It’s not exactly like endgame is a well defined concept, it’s kind of just roughly when most groups are alive, and the size of the moves being played is getting roughly below a certain point etc. It’s kind of fuzzy as opposed to say “the endgame always starts at turn 120” etc.
It sounds more strange to me to try to change the rules to fill in a couple of dame or other niche things
The endgame does not have to be well-defined, as I was not suggesting a rule depending on a definition of it. Only having to play a keima if possible (rather than always) would just start to make much difference at the stage of boundary plays.
As I suggested, it is a question of how many new problems you want to take on at once. I quite like the incremental approach; you may prefer throwing in at the deep end (this brings back memories of learning to swim, which was happily not that traumatic!). I like the idea that my intuitions about the boundaries would not need too much adjustment.
I think that does make sense. I could see both options leading to interesting and enjoyable variants. The first option may introduce new “pathological” problems for the scoring phase, but that could be interesting in its own way.
So I take it that you would prefer option 2 then, correct? ( The second placement is skipped)
Or maybe a third option?
I would prefer a third option: keima if possible.
