Sygo

Sygo is a two player abstract strategy game invented in 2010 by Christian Freeling.[1][2] Directly inspired by Go,[3] and referred to as "Go on speed," by its creator[4] it is played on a 19x19 grid of lines. It differs from Go by using the movement protocol from Symple, another of Christian Freeling's games, and "othelloanian capture" where stones change colors when captured instead of being removed from the board.[5][6] The goal of Sygo is to control the most territory on the board as determined by the number of a player's stones on the board as well as the empty points completely surrounded by the players stones. The game ends when one player either resigns or both players pass on successive turns.[5] Christian Freeling considers it one of his six most important games, along with Dameo, Emergo, Grand Chess, Storisende, and Symple [4]

Sygo Mid-game

Rules

Movement

Each player has one of two color stones, black or white. The game set up starts with an empty board. Each turn a player may either:

  1. Grow all of their groups of stones or...
  2. Put a stone on a vacant cell unconnected to any other friendly group.

A group is defined as any one or more stones connected orthogonally (up, down, left, or right) with no spaces in between. Groups are grown by placing a single stone orthogonally adjacent to any stone within a group. If a stone connects two or more different groups during a growth phase both groups are considered to have been grow by the single stone. Each group may only grow by one stone per turn. If two groups grow so that each of the two new stones touch to unite the two groups into one group, then the move is legal and does not count as growing a group twice in one turn.[5]

White moves first. In order to mitigate any turn order advantage, if neither player has grown their groups, Black may grow all of his groups and place a single stone on any vacant square on the same turn. Moving is not compulsory and a player may pass his turn at any time.[5]

Capture

Each stone or group has what are called liberties. A liberty is a vacant point orthogonally adjacent to a stone. When a stone or group loses all its liberties by being "surrounded" by an opponent's stones, all the stones in that group are captured. In Sygo, capturing a stone means reversing their color and making them the capturing player's own rather than removing them from the board. If the placement of a stone results in the player's own group losing all its liberties then the move is referred to as "suicide" and is illegal. Another move must be chosen or the player must pass their turn.[5]

Because of Sygo's "othelloian" capture protocol, common gameplay elements found in Go, such as Ko and snap-back, are not possible.[7][8][2]

Scoring

When one player resigns, or both players pass their turns successively, Sygo ends and the game is scored. A player's score is determined by the number of their stones on the board as well as the vacant points entirely surrounded by their stones.[5][6][7]

Sygo is a cycle free variant of Go and as such doesn't require Komi to compensate for a second player disadvantage as in Go.[9]

Trivia
  • Sygo can be played online against the AiAi program.[10][3]
  • In the process of inventing Symple, Freeling considered it initially "flawed" because of a problem with drawing that was pointed out by Luis Bolaños Mures, now fixed. Ironically, Sygo was "simple" to invent in comparison, because its rules fell together quicker and more simply, by just adding the symple move protocol and othelloanian capture to Go.[3]
  • Because of the Movement Protocol, Sygo is a faster game than Go.[11]
  • Sygo has a game complexity of ~ 10^540, greater than Chess, Shogi, Xiangqi, and Go.[12]

See also

References
  1. "Late arrivals & final whispers". www.mindsports.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  2. "SyGo". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  3. "Freeling interview". THE NEW ABSTRACT GAMES. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  4. "The ArenA". www.mindsports.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  5. "Sygo Rules". www.mindsports.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  6. "About Sygo". www.mindsports.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  7. "Diary, November 2010". www.iwriteiam.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  8. "Diary, November 2010". www.iwriteiam.nl. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  9. Bentley, Nick (2018-06-08). "Organicity in abstract strategy games". Nick Bentley Games. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  10. "Ai Ai Home Page – Stephen Tavener". Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  11. "Sygo at Sensei's Library". senseis.xmp.net. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  12. "Full Report for Sygo by Christian Freeling". mrraow.com. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
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