A nameless benefactor, lost in time,
invented Go, a territory game
for two. One player Black, the other White,
they play upon the intersections of
an empty grid whose lines assemble squares.
A jail or prison looms outside the board.

A stone, with others of its color linked
by steps through friends orthogonally touching,
makes up a chain or string. A liberty’s
an empty point adjacent to the chain,
its neighbor from the same road of the grid.

Black plays the first move, then they alternate.
Each turn, a player chooses from these actions:
remove an enemy stone from the prison
or place a friendly stone on a free point,
and send to jail opposing strings now trapped
without a liberty. The dropped stone must
belong to a string with liberty when finished,
and not repeat the board positions made
by that same player’s moves in turns before.
The last man to perform an action wins.

Before the game begins, to keep it fair,
the first to play puts black stones in the prison,
then lets the second player choose their side.
In handicap, the weaker player takes
the black stones, placing extras on the board
to bridge the gap in skill between the two.