User:JoDu987/xGo

xGo is a strategic board game invented by Jonathan Dushoff and Morgan Kain in 2015. It is a variant of the classic game Go. xGo combines Go-like play with the simple, global winning criterion from the board game Hex.

History
xGo emerged from around 40 years of Dushoff complaining that the Go endgame and winning conditions were not as elegant as the game play, due to issues like the difference between Japanese and Chinese scoring, questions about when and whether stones were dead, points in seki, komi, and the very fact that the game was settled by counting instead of by a global criterion. It is not clear why Dushoff spent decades complaining about this, since he was never much of a Go player.

When Dushoff met Go player Kain, the two brainstormed possibilities for a Go variant that would retain Go-like play, but have an elegant, Hex-like winning condition.

Rules


The game played on a Go board, or other square board, often supplemented by markings indicating the directions of Hex connections, or the direction each player is trying to connect, or both (as in the "Go-style" hex board above). Because most of the play is Go-like, it is not easily played on a conventional Hex board.

The game is divided into a "Go" phase and a "Hex" phase. Play in the Go phase proceeds exactly as in Go, and the phase ends (as in Go) after both players pass consecutively. The Hex phase begins immediately after the second consecutive pass and play proceeds exactly as in Hex (with the same winning criterion). In practice, the Hex phase is often unnecessary, as the game is often won by the time the Go phase concludes.

For an even game, the pie rule is used. A handicap game can be implemented with handicap stones, as in Go, or simply by suspending the pie rule to give an advantage to the first player.

By convention, black plays first, and tries to connect horizontally.

Strategy
Hex can never end in a tie, thus xGo can never end in a tie, since it always moves to a Hex phase that works exactly like Hex (unless one player resigns first). The tactics of the game are very Go-like, but strategic aspect combines the flavor or Go with that of connection games like Hex.