The game view and playing games
The game view gives you access to anything needed to actually play a game.
- The goban is where you make your moves
- The play controls shows whose turn it is and holds buttons for different move options
- players shows you who plays which color, how much time each player has left to play and how many stones each player has captured. The komi is shown besides the captures as well.
- The action bar allows you to review past moves
- The game chat where you can talk to your opponents and spectators
- On the far right is an additional action bar
- Extra feature: apart from the traditional wooden goban, you can also chose a custom go board when you click the top right avatar and chose Custom. All kind of boards available via the Board Background Library: https://forums.online-go.com/t/board-backgrounds-library/29388
By default all you need to do when playing a normal live or blitz game is click on the board to make a move.
When playing a correspondence game however the default move mode is to place your stone and then confirm your placement by hitting "Submit Move"
You can change these behaviors in your settings. Both live and correspondence can be independently set to 'single click', 'double click', or 'submit move'. The latter two can be very beneficial if playing on a touch screen.
There comes a moment in a game when black and/or white run out of useful moves. The only option left is either to play a stone in the opponents territory or to play a stone in their own territory. In both cases it costs the player one point. In this situation the player will decide to pass instead of placing a stone. When both players pass, this signals the end of the game and the players enter the stone removal phase.
To pass, click the Pass button, as seen on the above.
If you are confident you have lost, it's not necessary (or even courteous) to play out the game until the end. You may resign from a game by clicking the Resign icon, which is the last icon located on the right side of the screen.
If the game is just getting started but for some reason you are unhappy with your opponent, you can also Cancel Game a game prior to playing any stone.
This is done in the same way as resign is done, but the result of the game will not be counted against you or your opponent, the game is effectively annulled.
You can cancel the game if the Cancel Game button is shown. The Resign button replaces the Cancel Game button after both players have made a move.
❕ A canceled game will be shown as a lost game in your game history, but it will not change your rating.
If you've made a mistake, you can request an Undo to your last move. To do this, click the Undo button above the chat area (Note, this button will only be visible when it's not your turn)
If your opponent has made a mistake and clicked the undo button, then you will see the option to accept the undo
Clicking Accept Undo will undo the last move made. If you don't want to accept the undo request you can place a stone or pass as normal.
❕ there is no obligation to accept an undo request.
If you need to pause the game for any reason, clicking the Pause button will stop the game clock. Note that this only pauses the clock, the game can still be played normally if you'd like.
When the game is paused, both players will see a Resume button which they can click to resume the clocks.
❗ Either player can resume the game at any point, so you should always let your opponent know the reason for the pause and let them know how long you intend to pause for, as they may not allow the pause and thus resume the game.
There are three modes of chat during a game. You can change modes by clicking on the Chat button.
- Chat (these are visible to everyone - as long as you are one of the players).
- Malkovich (these are visible to everyone APART from your opponent, and will be revealed after the game).
- Personal (these are just for you, and will not be revealed to anyone).
Tip: If you write goban coordinates in chat (for example C5 or d6), they are automatically linked to the corresponding position on the goban. If you hold your cursor over the coordinate in chat a triangle appears on that spot on the goban.
To talk to your opponent simply enter the message in the area where it says "Say hi!" and hit enter.
Your message will appear in the chat area above. It can be seen by your opponent and any spectators who may be watching the game.
❗ Note: In-game chat is permanently stored with the game. This means that you can leave and return to the game without losing comments but please give as much thought to your comments as you do to your moves (perhaps more).
If you click on the Chat button it will change color to green and read Malkovich. While in malkovich mode, your messages will be hidden from your opponent until the game ends. After the game ends you can read all malkovich messages your opponent has written and your opponent can read yours. Spectators can see your malkovich messages even in an ongoing game. This includes any logged out person visiting the site, and includes your opponent if they choose to log out and look at your game. This feature is intended for entertainment of spectators, not for really private notes.
If you are a spectator, your messages will be visible to other spectators but hidden from the players until the end of the game (at which point the players will be able to see your messages too).
These chats are just for you, and won't be revealed to anyone.
To see past moves in a game you can use the turn navigation arrows found at the bottom of the board.
From left to right the icons perform the following actions
Go to the beginning of the game
Go 10 moves backward
Go to the move before
Auto-play the game from here on and 
stop the replay. You can change the time between moves on your settings page.
Go 1 move forward
Go 10 moves forward
Go to the last move made.
You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard. The left and right key will navigate you 1 move back and forth.
❕ In an ongoing game, this feature is only available to the players if In-game analysis is not disabled for the game. After the game this feature is always enabled.
Clicking the Analyze game button will put you into a game analysis mode where you can freely explore variations of the game. It will also open up the move tree which looks something like this
This display shows you where you are in the game. You can click on any of the moves in this tree to go to that move and show you what state the game was in when it was made. You can freely "place" stones on the board to explore different variations and see how things play out.
You can move between variations by using the up and down keys on your keyboard.
If you want to share a variation (aka board position) with other members in the chat, you can name your variation and click "Share". You can hide the variation from your opponent until the games ends my using malkovich chat.
❕ This feature is only available to the players if In-game analysis is not disabled for the game.
❕ This option is only available when it is not your turn
When you are playing a correspondence game it is often the case that you can anticipate where your opponent might make their next move. You can use the conditional move planner to provide responses to specific moves. If your opponent makes a move you've anticipated, the system will automatically make your next move for you so that your opponent can then make their next move immediately instead of having to wait for you to respond. You can specify as many moves in advance as you like and account for as many possible variations as you can think of.
After entering the conditional move planner you can start your planning by simply making moves on the board. You'll see your "conditional move tree" (shown above) grow as you plan out your moves. To make plans for different responses from your opponent, simply click the move in the conditional move planer and continue making moves.
To remove a variation, click the response move (in this case 'black') to see a red ❌ appear. Clicking the red ❌ will remove that conditional move branch.
Once you are done, click Accept conditional moves to save your changes.
All players are required to either:
- Press the "resign" button if you have lost, or
- Press "pass" and accept the correct score (see next section) when the game is over.
If you do this, it forces your opponent to also wait. Repeat: that is not OK.
When both players pass, the game enters the stone removal phase. The OGS system automatically provides a preliminary scoring of the game, so the players don't have to count every point every game. Check the status of groups, and if it is correct, both players should click "Accept" to end the game.
Sometimes the system marks the status of groups incorrectly. This can be due to seki or hanging connections. The players should toggle the status of stones/territory by clicking on them. For example, stones and territory that you have captured will be marked as yours, or if the system has marked some of your stones as dead, when they are really in seki, you can reverse that marking.
- Clicking on stones marks contiguous groups
- Shift-clicking on stones or spaces will mark items one at a time.
❗ Players are required to promptly select the correct score.
Please don't be the person who causes trouble by clicking stones alive or dead wrongly to see if you can trick your opponent into accepting a wrong score. If you see this happening, click the "call moderator" button in the right side panel.
Each time the game state is altered by either player, the internal clock for acceptance of the result is reset.
When all stones are marked correctly each player must click the "Accept removed stones" button.
Once both players have accepted the result, the game concludes. If one of the players does not accept, nor offer differently marked position the current state is accepted after a period of time (depending on the time settings).
❗ Game scores are final
Once both players have accepted the outcome of a game, there is no way to alter the game state (not even the administrators have this capability), so...
❗ ... double check that everything looks right before you accept!
The Auto-score button will reset the state to the original preliminary scoring. It can be used in case a mistake is made during the process of correcting the score.
If you and your opponent cannot agree on the status of some stones, or if you missed something, you can click the Cancel and resume game button to pick up where you left off and continue playing the game. Two consecutive passes will again bring you back to the stone removal phase.
If the game cannot be resolved for whatever reason (e.g., if it is unclear whether a group is in seki), then pause the game by mutual consent and click the Call moderator button on the side panel.
On the right of the game view is a column of buttons. If you move the cursor over the dock expands.
From top to bottom you can do the actions by clicking the corresponding buttons:
This button is only available if the game is part of a tournament or ladder. Clicking this button brings you to the tournament/ladder page the game belongs to. More about tournaments here.
Here you can adjust the volume of the sounds (stone tick and countdown voice).
If you go in zen mode, everything but the goban and play controls are hidden.
Here you can change the position of the coordinate labels on the goban. By clicking here you can cycle through
- Label on all 4 sides
- No labels
- Labels on the top and left side
- Labels on the top and right side
- Labels on the bottom and right side
- Labels on the bottom and left side
Here you can disable or enable the display of automatic AI reviews of your finished games.
This opens a window with details of the game settings:
- Game: description of game context
- Creator: who created the game
- Black: black player (rank)
- White: white player (rank)
- Time: start time of game
- Rules: Japanese, Chinese, etc.
- Ranked: yes/no
- Annulled: yes/no
- Board Size: 19 x 19, etc.
- Handicap: auto or none
- Result: result of the game
- Komi: komi
- Analysis: analysis and conditional moves (not) enabled
- Time Control: Fischer, etc.
Opens the move tree
Opens the conditional move tree
Every player has four opportunities to pause a game. Discussing a pause (reason, length) with your opponent is advisable, for the other player does not have to accept a pause and can unpause the game. During a pause you can proceed playing. See also paragraph Pausing and resuming a game.
If you create a review, a copy of this game will be created and linked to this game. A review allows you to store comments and variations along the game tree. More about review here.
Clicking this button gives an estimate (and estimate only) of the current score. The estimate uses partly random playouts so you can click the button again for a possibly slightly different estimate. The estimator always counts under Chinese rules which usually yields the same result to other rulesets, but can differ under special circumstances.
Especially when the territories are not sealed, you need to carefully look at what it is counting (it shows you on the board) and take into account any areas where you might disagree how they will be scored.
Game forking is when you start playing a game from a particular board position. So for instance, if you want to start playing a game starting at a particular move from another game, you can click this button to challenge another player or the computer. When the game begins, you will start at the same position you were looking at when you clicked Fork game ❕ Forked games are never ranked
If there is a problem with the game that you cannot solve on your own, you can send a message to call a moderator for help.
The moderator team is run by volunteers and there is not someone present 24/7. Please do not spam the button several times. It will in fact make the reaction time slower for us. If no-one is showing up immediately and you are getting frustrated, just resign the game and play with someone nicer in the meantime. We will get to you eventually, annul the game, and punish the culprit where applicable.
If you wish to share a link to this game with another person, you can either copy and paste the URL from your browser to your friend, or you can click here to open up a dialog box that contains the link to copy and paste to your friend.
SGF files (smart game files, which many Go programs can use to load a game) can be downloaded from any game by clicking this button. Note that if you have created a game where analysis mode has been disabled, you cannot download an SGF of it until the game has concluded.
The SGF will contain all of the moves made throughout the game along with the chat log. For further information on SGF and software, consult https://senseis.xmp.net/?SGF