I am an artist, data designer, and 9k player based in Victoria, BC, Canada. I want to propose a unique, large-scale community event for the server: One Stone Zen Go.
The concept transforms Go into a collective, asynchronous human relay: a single ongoing game where each registered OGS player is permitted to make exactly one move.
The Concept: A player joins the game page queue. When their turn strikes, they play their single, permanent stone, and are then permanently cycled out so the next human player in the queue takes over.
Real-World Proof of Concept: I recently hosted this as an interactive art installation at the 2026 U.S. Go Congress in Boston. The community fully embraced the high stakes of making a single, irreversible choice. We reached move 189, players ranging from 30-kyus up to a 9-dan professional (Michael Redmond) AGA posted about this Congress-wide zen go.
This project is being featured in an upcoming issue of the European Go Journal as part of my art exhibition about whether there is still a move for us to make. One Stone Zen Go helps explore who is “us”. I am turning the Congress-wide go game kifu into a physical artwork and potentially the OGS hosted game can be made into one.
I would love to collaborate with you on how we might handle the queue or queue-balancing mechanics to test a trial game.
Almost all the Rengo games I played ended up in a timeout. I’m guessing the chances of timeout will increase proportionally with the number of players.
If the system can be redesigned to allow registration on the fly then it won’t be difficult to restrain registrations to players who didn’t play a move yet.
Do players register without color assignment until they actually play their move? Or they are placed in a queue with color already assigned? And then given some time to play the move or release their turn to next player on list of their color?
