Similar Board Games

This is a list of some games that are played with similar equipment or come from the same area.

• Variations of chess
• Western chess: This game dominates Western game culture as the pinnacle of strategic game play; its history in the culture stretches back many centuries.
• Shogi: Early Western literature often referred to Go as "Japanese Chess". The Japanese do have their own game called Shogi; it is much more similar to the other Chess variants than to Go. Shogi schools were founded in Japan about the same time as Go schools, but the game never received as much favour as Go.
• Xiangqi: This is the Chinese variant of Chess, usually called "Chinese chess" by English speakers. Like most Chess variants, it has great depth of strategy, but bears few similarities to Go in game play. Xiangqi, like Go, is played on points rather than squares.
• Janggi: This is the Korean variant of Chess, usually called "Korean Chess". It is also very different from Go in game play. Go and Janggi are the two main board games played in Korea.
• The Game of the Amazons: A cross between Go and Chess. In this game the pieces have the same movements as the Queen in Chess. After a player moves, the piece fires an arrow, which has the same movement as a Queen in Chess. An arrow blocks the paths of other pieces and arrows. The player who can move last wins. There can never be a draw.
• Connection games. These are the most similar to Go in terms of style and strategy. One significant difference between Go and many connection games is the number of goals. In Hex, for example, there is only one goal: to connect your two sides. While this leads to significant strategic complexity (especially as the board size increases), in Go there are usually numerous different battles going on simultaneously.
• Hex and TwixT are connection games. Like Go, these have cutting and connecting tactics, but Hex is played on a hexagonal lattice.
• Y, Havannah, and *Star are connection games similar to Hex, but of more depth.
• Reversi: Marketed by Mattel as "Othello", Reversi bears superficial similarity to Go, with black and white circular pieces, an undifferentiated grid for a board, simple rules, and a goal of covering more of the board than the opponent. The game play is quite unlike Go, however, as it is based on flanking the opponent's pieces for capture. Captured pieces change their colour.
• Gomoku, Renju and Pente: Played with the same equipment as Go (a 19x19 grid, black and white stones), the goal of these games is to create five stones in a row. The game style is thus much shorter and involves less strategy than Go.
• Abalone is a board game with black and white marbles. Strategy is somewhat of a cross between Reversi and Sumo wrestling, the goal being to push the other player's marbles off the playing surface.
• Alak is a Go-like game restricted to a single spatial dimension.