This is a slight re-phrasing of the Tromp-Taylor “Logical Rules”, which I happen to favor. I put it here mostly for my own reference; for commentary please refer to Bill Taylor’s own remarks.
These rules are formulated for simplicity, and my modifications are toward further conciseness. As far as I can tell, as a beginner, this is the minimum you need to play a “real” game of go. They intended to be equivalent to Tromp-Taylor’s. If they aren’t, please tell me modifications, while intended to be equivalent with his version, are not to be taken as reflecting his judgment. There are many slightly varying versions of go; these are just the rules and phrasings that seem best to me.
Go is played on a 19×19 grid of points by two players, called Black and White.
Each point on the grid may be colored black, white, or empty. All points start empty.
A point P, not colored C, reaches C when there is a path of adjacent points of P’s color from P to a point of color C.
To clear a color is to empty all points of that color which do not reach empty.
The players alternate turns, starting with Black.
A turn is either a pass, or a move that does not repeat any earlier grid coloring.
A move consists of coloring an empty point the player’s color, then clearing the opponent’s color, then clearing the player’s color.
The game ends after two consecutive passes.
A player’s score is the number of points of her color plus the number of empty points that reach only her color.
The player with the higher score at the end of the game is the winner.
The points are usually marked by the intersections of a 19×19 grid on a wooden board. The players color points with stones of their color.
On a board, coloring a point black or white means placing a stone of that color on its intersection. Emptying a point means removing the stone from it.
Connected stones of the same color, called strings, all reach the same colors.
Only groups with liberties can exist at the end of a turn.
By arrangement, the weaker player may take black and make n consecutive moves before the first white turn.
This is the “positional superko” rule, which ignores whose turn it is.
At most one kind of clearing will happen in a given move; the first is capture, the second suicide.
The players may agree to adopt this amendment as a shortcut for dead stone removal: After 2 consecutive passes, the players may end the game by agreeing which poits to empty; aver 4 consecutive passes, the game ends as-is.
This is called area scoring. Territory scoring is equivalent except that it counts enemy stones captured instead of own stones remaining.
By arrangement, an amount may be added to White’s score as compensation for Black taking the first turn (this is called komi). If it is a non-integer, such as 5.5, it will also break ties.