“Suicide a single stone” could be interesting. If the ruleset disallows it, you could just pass and check off the box. It would mean players would have to avoid leaving single points of territory, which is an interesting interaction.
I also think “control 3/4 1-1 points” should be 2/4, so that it doesn’t become impossible in endgame.
I’ve been watching more Celeste bingo lately, and decided to search these forums to see if anyone else thought it might be applicable to Go. Turns out, someone had, and that someone had completely forgotten.
I’m thinking 13x13 board, and objectives are optionally ticked off at the beginning of one’s turn if they apply, thus giving the opponent an opportunity to spoil the tick off if they can do so with one stone.
Tromp-Taylor Rules.
Lockout, 1-line, 3-line, and other variants of Bingo should be supported, though having alternate objective sets/board gen is acceptable.
Possible Objectives
all objectives and especially all numbers tentative and subject to change
control 6 empty points (6 or more empty points on the board must “reach” only your color)
control 18 empty points (cf. “control 6 empty points”)
control 54 empty points (cf. “control 6 empty points”)
capture 2 stones (have 2 or more captured stones; stones must be opponent’s stones not suicided; captured stones are cumulative)
capture 6 stones (cf. “capture 2 stones”)
capture 18 stones (cf. “capture 2 stones”)
suicide 2 stones (place a stone such that at least two stones of your own color are cleared after the placement; suicides are not cumulative)
empty triangle (must not be filled with either a friendly or opposing stone)
b-2 bomber (surrounding stones do not matter)
death bunny (surrounding stones do not matter)
1-point jump cut (place a stone such that it is orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to exactly 2 opposing stones, which are orthogonally adjacent to it and antipodal to eachother)
Manhattan 6 (every point on the board is at Manhattan distance 6 or less from at least one of your stones)
Manhattan 5 (cf. Manhattan 6)
Manhattan 4 (cf. Manhattan 6)
2 corners (2 or more 1-1 points either colored your color, or only reaching your color)
take a ko (the opponent had at least one potential move the previous turn which would have been legal except that it would have violated superko)
Uncompletable Objectives
possible options
have multiple boards going simultaneously
9x9, 13x13, 19x19?
only 13x13?
multiple Go boards starting at the beginning?
boards starting staggered by a certain number of moves?
play on all boards each turn?
choose one board to play on each turn?
define default award criteria for each objective which will award unawarded objectives based on the final board state?
use the final score as a tiebreak?
carefully choose objectives which are difficult or impossible for neither player to eventually get?
I feel like the last option, possibly with specific objectives having end-of-game award conditions, seems the most natural.
Influence
In Celeste Bingo there’s a tension between progress and non-progress. It seems like influence vs. territory would be analogous in Go. Optimally, the set of objectives and the board gen would make both influence and territory roughly equally appealing, and make playing for objectives to the detriment of your board state, and just playing good go and grabbing convenient objectives equally appealing.
EDIT: Co-op Blackout with 10s/move could be interesting. No restriction on table-talk; so discuss routing as much as you can with 10s/move.
EDIT: 0 komi with a 2 stone pie seems good here. One player places 2 stones, one of each color, on the board, the other decides which color to play, Black plays first. This would be after revealing the bingo board.
tenuki 3 (play 8 or more manhattan distance from your opponent’s last stone the 3 previous turns; the first 4 moves do not contribute to the total, but move 5 may)
tenuki 5 (cf. “tenuki 3”)
tenuki 7 (cf. “tenuki 3”)
movement sampler (at least one different stone for each of the following relations to one’s prior stones when played: attached, diagonal, 1-point jump, small knight, large knight, elephant eye)
tengen (5 or more of the central 9 points are either your color, or are empty and only reach your color)
tsuke 3 (have at least 3 stones which created new strings of size 1 when played and attached to opposing stones which were not themselves attached to any stone of either color prior to the move)
dumpling (create a dumpling shape; surrounding stones don’t matter)
atari 3 (play 3 or more moves which create a new atari and/or self-atari; adding a stone to a group already in atari without increasing its liberties counts as a new self-atari; creating a double(or more)-atari, atari and self-atari, or double(or more)-atari and self-atari, all count as only 1 new atari)
atari 5 (cf. “atari 3”)
atari 7 (cf. “atari 3”)
diamond (create a diamond shape (ponnuki but with no requirement to be made via a capture); surrounding stones do not matter)
doomed invasion (place a stone which has direct uninterrupted line of sight to stones of the opposite color in at least 3 of the 8 directions, no direct uninterrupted line of sight to any stones of the same color, and would require 6 or more orthogonal steps over empty points to reach a stone of the same color)
Edited Objectives
OLD: control 6 empty points (6 or more empty points on the board must “reach” only your color)
NEW: control 6 empty points (6 or more empty points on the board must “reach” only your color; if the game goes to scoring before this objective is ticked, whoever has more points (if either) gets the objective)
Deleted Objectives
TEXT: take a ko (the opponent had at least one potential move the previous turn which would have been legal except that it would have violated superko)
REASON: Too easy for the opponent to prevent.
Edited Rules
Tromp-Taylor Rules.
0.0 komi.
One 13x13 board.
Two stone pie: after the bingo board is revealed, one player places one white stone and one black stone on any two points, and the other player then chooses whether to play black or white. Black then plays first.
At the beginning of each turn, the player may tick off any objective they meet the criteria for. A player is never required to tick an objective, but if they later no longer meet the requirements for that objective, they can no longer tick it unless they meet the requirements a second time. A player may not place a stone and then tick off an objective.
If both players finish scoring the game and the bingo has not been won by either player, the game is drawn unless specified otherwise by the specific bingo variation being played. Note that some objectives include alternate requirements if unchecked by the end of the game: these must be scored when applicable after both players have agreed on dead groups or activated the strict Tromp-Taylor scoring phase, but before seeing who won the bingo. Any objectives ticked this way are considered to be ticked in simultaneous pairs one for each player for the purposes of deciding winners, so if one player is ahead on objectives in lockout, they will win if they have enough objectives ticked after scoring to get to 13 total objectives, regardless of how many objectives their opponent gets after scoring.
1st line tesuji (play a stone on the 1st line which is 3 or more manhattan distance from the nearest stone of the opposite color, and 5 or more manhattan distance from the nearest stone of the same color; if, before the stone was placed, no point on the 1st line would fulfill this requirement, the required minimum distances drop to 2 to the opposite color and 3 to the same color; if, before the stone was placed, no point on the 1st line would fulfill this weakened requirement, then any 1st line move fulfills the requirements for this objective)
tortoise shell (create a tortoise shell shape (like a ponnuki surrounding 2 points instead of 1); surrounding stones do not matter; no capturing is required)
dragon 13 (create or extend a string of 13 or more stones; if the game ends with this objective unticked, it goes to the player (if either) with the longer longest string with ties broken by the second longest string and so on down the line until the tie is broken or both players run out of strings to compare (if one player runs out of strings first, they lose the tiebreak) (a player with multiple strings of the same length must use each of them in turn for successive tiebreak rounds)
dragon 26 (cf. “dragon 13”)
dragon 52 (cf. “dragon 13”)
tic-tac-toe (have two orthogonal or diagonal lines of 3 or more friendly stones; they may not share any stones if in the same row, column, or diagonal; they may share a maximum of 1 stone otherwise; no stone may be used for ticking more than one of {“tic-tac-toe”, “connect 4”, “pente”}; if a stone used for ticking one of those objectives is captured, a new stone placed on the same point may be used towards another of the objectives)
connect 4 (cf. “tic-tac-toe”; 4 instead of 3)
pente (cf. “tic-tac-toe”; 5 instead of 3)
Leeroy Jenkins (attach to an opponent’s solid wall of at least 4 stones; the manhattan distance over empty points to the nearest friendly stone must be 3 or more; the portion of the wall which fulfills the length requirement may be concave towards the attaching stone, but not convex; only steps in one orthogonal dimension count towards the length requirement)
puppy go (play your last 13 moves at manhattan distance 3 or less to the opponent’s last move; if the last move was a pass, any non-passing move adds to the streak of puppy moves)
Want to Add (but don’t know how to balance)
PROPOSAL: crosscut
PROBLEM: discourages the opponent from hane’ing
PROPOSAL: hane
PROBLEM: discourages the opponent from attaching
Modified Objectives
OLD: manhattan 6 (every point on the board is at Manhattan distance 6 or less from at least one of your stones)
NEW: manhattan 6 (every point on the board is at Manhattan distance 6 or less from at least one of your stones; if the game ends without this being ticked, the player with the shortest manhattan distance from any of their stones to the furthest empty point (if either), gets the tick)
OLD: Manhattan 5 (cf. Manhattan 6)
NEW: manhattan 5 (cf. manhattan 6)
OLD: Manhattan 4 (cf. Manhattan 6)
NEW: manhattan 4 (cf. manhattan 6)
Additional Rules
Multiple objectives may be ticked in one turn if the requirements for all of them are fulfilled.
empty triangle (must not be filled with either a friendly or opposing stone)
b-2 bomber (surrounding stones do not matter)
death bunny (surrounding stones do not matter)
Manhattan 6 (every point on the board is at Manhattan distance 6 or less from at least one of your stones) [but I’d only have one of these]
Instead of taking two corners, which is ordinary, or four corners, which the opponent can easily deny, I suggest
take no corners (no stone lower than the fourth line within the 8x8 corner spaces)
Instead of take a ko, I suggest
win a ko
tenuki 3 [times in a row]
tengen (5 or more of the central 9 points are either your color, or are empty and only reach your color)
I’d replace making simply a “dumpling” with making a power square, or a plus sign, or even a 3x3 square. I think all the “make X shape” challenges should be restricted to the first 150 moves.
I’d also replace making a diamond with making an actual ponnuki, that does require a capture.
