2 Dragons

How to play 2 Dragons:   Credits go to Ian, the editor of this website, DO NOT COPY OR YOU ARE PLAGIARIZING!

 2 Dragons Rulebook

MATERIALS:

Go board, go pieces, or any large board with 2 different color pieces.

RULES:

OBJECTIVE:

To outscore the opponent before the endgame is reached.  You get 1 point for each piece that is included in your main dragons.

BEGINNING THE GAME:

White goes first.  Place a piece on the board in a space.  Then the opponent goes, and then it goes back to white.  On white’s 2nd turn, he must follow a new rule: the piece you place on that turn must be in sight of one of your other pieces already on the board.  Your second piece must be in a straight or diagonal line from your first piece.  From then on, all of the pieces you place must be “in sight” by at least one of your other pieces on the board.  

DURING THE GAME:

Keep placing pieces on the board to try and link your pieces together.  A link counts as pieces of your color that are next to each other, “connected” but not diagonally, if there is a diagonal connection it splits off right there.  While placing these pieces, you must know the 4 questions to ask yourself before each piece is played...

THE FOUR QUESTIONS:

-Is the piece in a straight or diagonal line away from one of your other pieces?

If yes, continue

-Are there NO pieces in the way of that spot?

If there are none, continue

-Are you “cutting through”?  Cutting through is when you go diagonally to place your piece and on that diagonal path, you “Cut through” two of the opponents pieces diagonally.  You cannot go in between two of the opponents pieces that are diagonally touching each other while going diagonal.

If you aren’t, continue

-Are you making a 2x2 square of your color pieces?  You cannot make “blobs” of your color.

If you aren’t, continue

ENDGAME:

As you start filling most of the board, there are starting to be some spaces that are pointless or impossible to place a piece (areas that won’t help expand a dragon, spots that would make a 2x2, etc) When you reach this stage, you may consider “passing” when you feel you can do nothing more to contribute to your dragons.  When someone passes, the other player now has two options: take as many legal turns as he/she pleases, or pass as well.  Taking extra turns are mainly for those last spots that matter to your total score.  When you pass as well, the game has ended, and scoring begins, leading to the results.

SCORING:

Each board size has an appropriate amount of dragons to be scored.  A “dragon” is a group of linked pieces you placed on the board.  For an 18x18 board, the default amount of dragons to be scored is 2.  Count the total amount of pieces in your two biggest dragons, and that’s your score.  If you have 2 or more dragons that are the same size that you were going to score, you pick one of them to count.  When both players have found their score, the results are made.

RESULTS:

The player with the higher score wins the game.  If there is a tie, Black wins because that player had to go second.