Tetris Go, variant idea (by me)

First move is two stones anywhereFurther moves are up to 4 orthogonally connected stones, like shapes used in tetris

I worry that living in the corners and on the sides is way too easy, but aside from that I think it's worth testing. I've been working on a TriGo variant down a similar track (but not as extreme), where you can only place dominohexes and single holes are not liberties - wall play is too easy though.

If it gets too wacky, maybe prohibiting singletons would work (and making single holes be non-liberties). Curious about komi as well.

As long as the shapes aren't randomly assigned like in Tetris.

I'd suspect straight shapes would be played in 90% of the cases and the bulky four basically never (expect when precisely needed for a capture).

Another thought: There would be lots of dame at the end of a game. Many gaps that simply can't be filled. It also means you could have an alive group with zero eyes and only one external liberty.

@richyfortytwo I can't see how gaps couldn't be filled or a group would be alive with zero eyes. Can you draw an example?

Further moves are up to 4 orthogonally connected stones, i.e. 0,1,2,3 or 4

@ypercube: I missed the 'up to' in the original post. Without that:

How would you capture black? Not enough place to play a tetris shape.

With the 'up to' rule it trivially can be captured of course.

That option to play fewer stones makes the connection to tetris a lot weaker though. Although it's not that strong anyway probably, because at tetris you want to pack closely, while in tetris-go that would never be a goal.

In other words: I can't read properly and I like to discuss entirely irrelevant stuff. :-)

LOL re: richyfourtytwo ★ at 2021-03-15 wrote:  "I can’t read properly and I like to discuss entirely irrelevant stuff."