"Sekuhara","Counting territories","2006-07-05 13:55:54","Hi, I'm very new at Go and just truying to get a better grasp on the rules, in particular, how to count the territories after the game ends. \ \ Let's assume near the end of the game, black has secured some small territory with 10 or so fields. Couldn't white instead of agreeing to end the game just continue playing and place a stone within this territory therefore spoiling it and reducing black's advantage by 10 points? Sure, this stone has no chance to survive but even then, black would need to spend some 2 or 3 stones to kill it, and therefore still losing 1 or 2 points (+1 point for killed stone and -2/-3 points through reduction of own territory). \ \ Basically rules describe territory counting disputes like \"if the players do not agree they may just continue playing\", so this method would apply. How is it done in the real games? Do the players just declare the spoiling stone as \"dead\" and completely ignore it as if it doesn't spoil the territory? \ \ Then again: \"[i]Before the numbers of empty intersections surrounded only by his stones are determined, any opposing stones that could be captured by strategically perfect hypothetical alternate play are called \"dead\" and are removed without approaching their liberties.[/i]\". How is this \"hypotetically perfect play\" determined? Does it come from pure experience to decide which stones might be captured and which not? Because to actually play through all possibilities might have extremely high complexity even on a small area." "dorkon","re: Counting territories","2006-07-05 14:36:55","If there's no possible way for your opponent's stones to live, then you don't need to respond. (In other words, you should respond only up to that point. Conversely, if your opponent stops responding to your attempts at life-making, you should quickly check the status of the group.) When your opponent places stones where they couldn't possibly live, he's only adding to your score. When scoring a game, both players typically agree on what is dead and what is alive. With a little experience, this becomes obvious. However, when the status of a group is in doubt, play it out!\ \ One thing to remember is that the captured stones are worth two points - one for the stone itself, and one for the spot it occupied. As long as your opponent defends by playing stones in his own territory, your aborted invasions won't hurt your score - or your opponent's. So if you think its possible to make life in your opponent's territory - then give it a shot - because it can't hurt.\ \ Hopefully some stronger players can add to this." "malweth","","2006-07-05 15:17:09","[QUOTE] One thing to remember is that the captured stones are worth two points[/QUOTE]\ \ This is only true when capturing stones that can escape or live. If opponents stones are placed in your solid territory and you pass, this stone only adds one free point to your score (under Japanese rules).\ \ You only need to play out a situation if you think the move is dangerous (e.g. sente) - this would mean you play inside your own territory, so the total score difference is zero. If you don't think the move is dangerous you can pass and gain the point mentioned above." "Ronaldo9","","2006-07-05 15:29:25","I have never played on a real board as of this post, but after reading sensei's library the japanese rules and counting seem really easy for me to understand.\ I am at a lost trying to do the chinese way????\ \ Eventually I wont be able to just hit the score button and I guess it would behove of me to learn.\ \ Back to the OP's post playing in your own territory hurts you in one ruleset but may benefit you in the other right?? Does playing in Diffrent rulesets also change the mindset of play??\ \ edit: good post sekuhara this is something I didn't know how to bring up." "Andreas","","2006-07-05 16:05:33","In japanese rules, if players dont agree about life and death status after passing, the situation is \"saved\" and then the other player can start moving to capture the stones. After he has proven he can capture them, the situation is restored for counting purpose. Of course, this isnt necessary normally between decent players. \ \ In area scoring rules (for example chinese rules) playing inside your own area doesnt reduce your points, but actually playing a dame instead of filling your own area is worth one point so you will have to fill all dame before playing inside your own territory if you want maximum score. Thus, playing inside your own territory will hurt your score in either scoring system if you do it too early. \ \ The advantage (?) of the japanese rules is that they punish inefficient play and playing unnecessary moves and make counting easier(thus making the game quicker, maybe more elegant), while the advantage of chinese rules is that unclear situations can be played out in an uncomplicated way and prisoners do not need to be counted(thus avoiding problems and disputes)." "kex","","2006-07-05 23:40:58","[QUOTE=Andreas]In japanese rules, if players dont agree about life and death status after passing, the situation is \"saved\" and then the other player can start moving to capture the stones. After he has proven he can capture them, the situation is restored for counting purpose. Of course, this isnt necessary normally between decent players. [/QUOTE] \ \ I am pretty sure that this is not the case. If it were like this, the status of the group would depend on the playing skills of the players. The phrase \"hypothetical perfect play\" means that the group is living or dead even if the players would not be able to kill/save the group. \ \ But I think this is some nit-picking and not suitable for beginners. \ \ If you are an absolute beginner, you could think that a lone stone is dead (no eyes, you know), and if you want to say the group is alive, make some territory inside the other player's area. Then you'll get some points in a natural way, and the dispute whether some stones are dead or alive disappears. \ \ If you already know a bit more, learn a concept of mutual life (seki). If you find some groups are in seki, you can play in these groups freely after all moves worth points have been made - neither player loses points, and the situation becomes clear to both players (just don't make the last (losing) move;) \ \ yours, \ Jouni" "yolka","","2006-07-06 03:08:12","[QUOTE=Sekuhara] \ Let's assume near the end of the game, black has secured some small territory with 10 or so fields. Couldn't white instead of agreeing to end the game just continue playing and place a stone within this territory therefore spoiling it and reducing black's advantage by 10 points? Sure, this stone has no chance to survive but even then, black would need to spend some 2 or 3 stones to kill it, and therefore still losing 1 or 2 points (+1 point for killed stone and -2/-3 points through reduction of own territory). \ [/QUOTE] \ \ but any stones that have to be removed counted 2 points (+1 for the stone and +1 for the moku), therefore there is no win, if white play here and black has to respond is make a 0 points move if white is dead (cause +2 for the white stone and -1 for the black stone you have played inside your own territory). \ If white is dead for sure better is to tenki, therefore the win is huge cause white is dead and losing his turn" "DrStraw","","2006-07-06 05:17:59","I have been teaching Go for over 30 years and found that this is one lf the hardest concepts for beginners to grasp. So hard, in fact, that I started teaching Chinese rules of scoring a long time ago. Having said that, I much prefer the Japanese rules and convert people as soon as I can. \ \ In Japanese rules you only get a point for each empty intersection which you have surrounded, whereas in Chinese rules you get a point each each empty intersection plus a point for each stone which remains on the board. At first it sounds as though these two sets of rules would give different results, but in practice the result is the same in almost all games. \ \ So why the confusion of your post, and why are Chinese rules better for beginners? The answer is that if there is an opponent's stone in your territory you lose nothing under Chinese rules by actually playing out and capturing it. This is because the point you had for surrounding an interception is still a point after capture, albeit one gained because you have a stone on the board. In fact, strictly speaking, if you do not capture the opponents stones then it is a point for him and not you. The bottom line is, in Chinese rules play it out because it loses nothing. After you have had a little experience you learn which groups can and cannot live and you do not bother to play it out. You both agree which are dead and simply remove them. Under this scenario your point total does not change under Chinese rules. \ \ The problem is the under Japanese rules you lose if you actually play it out. Japanese rules are not beginner-friendly in that they expect a certain amount of ability to determine dead groups. Some rules sets have tried to get around this by introducing the concept of a \"pass stone\". This works as follows: assuming black is claiming that a white group is dead. After two passes and assuming that there is a dispute, play resumes. Black plays his first move to kill and if white does not respond he must give up a pass stone, that is he hands a prisoner to B. This means that the score does not change: B loses a point for the stone played, but gains a point for the extra captive. If white believes his stones are alive as they stand then he will have no need to play and so will use the pass stones. If he thinks his stones are alive but needs to answer some of black's moves then he can either use a pass stone or respond to each of black's moves as he wishes. \ \ This situation described in the last paragraph is, of course, almost as confusing as your original question. This is the reason I start beginners with the Chinese rules. So why, you might ask, do I prefer Japanese rules and convert people to them after they have some experience? The answer is, as someone else pointed out, that Japanese rules promote better discipline. In Chinese rules you lose nothing by playing out a position you cannot read out but in Japanese rules you need to read it out first and only play if you actually need to. This, to me, teaches you more. It rewards those who understand the position and have been able to read it out and it penalizes those who either cannot be bothered or who do not have enough experience to read it out. If you want to improve you need to understand each position as it arises. Japanese rules encourage this." "zinger","","2006-07-06 05:20:13","[QUOTE=Sekuhara]Hi, I'm very new at Go and just truying to get a better grasp on the rules, in particular, how to count the territories after the game ends.[/QUOTE] \ \ Hi Sekuhara. Welcome to our wonderful game ! \ \ What you describe is a common problem for beginners. The easiest solution is to play under \"area scoring\" rules, which are sometimes called \"chinese\" rules. Under these rules, you get one point for each empty point of territory you surround (same as territory/Japanese rules) and also one point for each stone you have on the board (instead of one point per prisoner). The two methods can give at most a one-point difference in the score of the game. The big difference is, when your opponent plays a stone in your area, you can capture it without loss. \ \ As you gain experience, you and your opponents will recognize what is dead and what is alive, and will usually not need to play it out. Most players prefer territory scoring when they get to this point, because it is somewhat easier to count the score on a real goban. But until then, just use area scoring - it works, and the extra experience of playing out life and death can be valuable for beginners. \ \ Good luck, and stick with it! The world could always use another Go player :) \ \ edit: I see that DrStraw beat me to the post button. His explanation is, as usual, a bit more thorough." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-13 10:56:39","[QUOTE=DrStraw] \ So why, you might ask, do I prefer Japanese rules and convert people to them after they have some experience? The answer is, as someone else pointed out, that Japanese rules promote better discipline. In Chinese rules you lose nothing by playing out a position you cannot read out but in Japanese rules you need to read it out first and only play if you actually need to. This, to me, teaches you more. It rewards those who understand the position and have been able to read it out and it penalizes those who either cannot be bothered or who do not have enough experience to read it out. If you want to improve you need to understand each position as it arises. Japanese rules encourage this.[/QUOTE] \ \ I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. I suppose you are talking about the very end of the game here. But even then you must be mistaken. \ \ Chinese rules punish inefficient moves and mistakes just as stringently as Japanese rules do. When playing a game, you always need to ask yourself whether you need a protective play inside your group or not. If you need it then you will have to play it regardless of the rules you use. Because if you don't do it, you might lose the whole group. Using Chinese rules is not going to protect you againt such mistakes as you seem to suggest in your post. You have to read it out, there is no other way. Similarly, if you do not need a protective move inside your group but you play inside it anyway, you lose sente and hence points regardless of the ruleset. Say, there is one neutral point left and you play an unnecessary move inside your group. Your opponent will take that point and increase his score by one. You made a mistake because you did not need to protect your group, you had to fill that neutral point instead and gain an extra point for yourself. Again inefficient moves are punished equally by both rulesets. \ \ Unlike Japanese rules, Chinese rules encourage players to read carefully before putting stones on the board. It is almost customary under Japanese rules to stop playing before filling the dame. Then the dame are filled almost at random without thinking. Frequently someone misses a necessary defensive move and loses some stones. On the other hand, with Chinese rules the game usually continues until all the neutral points are filled. And you need to be careful and do all the necessary reading until the very end. \ \ There is really no objective reason to prefer Japanese rules. There is however an objective reason to prefer Chinese rules. Simplicity of the rules it is." "smurf","","2006-07-13 11:23:36","If I'm not mistaken the punishment is not equal. If we have an even game, in chinese rules the result of playing inside your own territory results in that your opponent gets to play a move in another part of the board and gain X points. In japanese rules the difference would be X- (-1) since the play inside would lose one point. Maybe this -1 is what DrStraw was talking about." "gohst","","2006-07-13 13:25:43","Yes, this is exactly what Straw was talking about, though I'm not sure your explanation is 100% clear. With Japanese rules, unnecessary plays in your own territory lose *you* points. With Chinese rules, they do not." "DrStraw","Reply to Andrei Sokolov","2006-07-13 13:33:59","Suppose you are at the end of the game. There are only two dame left, shown in the diagram below and you are B, with a clear lead of 1 points. What do you do? \ \ [go] \ $$. . . . . . . . . . . . \ $$ . O O O O . . . . . . . \ $$ . O . X O O O O O O O . \ $$ . O . X X X X X X X O . \ $$ . O X X . . . . . X O . \ $$ . O X . X . . . . X O . \ $$ . O X . . . . . X O O . \ $$ - - - - - - - - - - - - \ [/go] \ \ The two dame are miai and it make little difference under either set of rules who plays one of them first. The issue is whether B needs to connect on the edge. Under Japanese rules he loses a point by playing it and so has to read it out in full before playing. Under Chinese rules there is no loss by playing a protection move and then exchanging the dame afterwards." "xed_over","","2006-07-13 13:38:16","[QUOTE=gohst]Yes, this is exactly what Straw was talking about, though I'm not sure your explanation is 100% clear. With Japanese rules, unnecessary plays in your own territory lose *you* points. With Chinese rules, they do not.[/QUOTE]\ I've never understood Chinese scoring rules completely, so let me ask a dumb question here...\ \ With Chinese scoring, don't you count both the empty points + the stones on the board (omitting the captured prisioners)? If so, then an unnecessary play in your own territory, while not costing you any points, would force your opponent to respond (otherwise needlessly) else he would lose points. \ \ I'm sure I've misunderstood this somehow, but so far, that's my understanding." "gohst","","2006-07-13 16:27:41","Don't see your point. If I fill one of my internal liberties (because I think I should), but I am mistaken, how does that force you to play? The idea with Chinese rules is, if I make a mistake, and fill my internal liberty, my score is *unchanged* because you count stones and territory. So, if I replace 1 point of territory with a stone, under Chinese rules, it's a wash. Not so for Japanese. \ \ I don't think this implies anything about what *you* have to do. What am I missing? \ \ -- Gohst" "xed_over","","2006-07-13 17:06:33","[QUOTE=gohst] So, if I replace 1 point of territory with a stone, under Chinese rules, it's a wash.[/QUOTE] \ Ahh! I see that now -- Thanks." "kex","","2006-07-14 03:54:19","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov] It is almost customary under Japanese rules to stop playing before filling the dame. [/QUOTE] \ \ If I have understood correctly, if you do not fill dame under Japanese rules, then the situation is considered as seki even if all groups would have several eyes. And no points are given by any goup in seki. \ \ yours, \ Jouni" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 04:17:03","[QUOTE=DrStraw]Suppose you are at the end of the game. There are only two dame left, shown in the diagram below and you are B, with a clear lead of 1 points. What do you do? \ \ [go] \ $$. . . . . . . . . . . . \ $$ . O O O O . . . . . . . \ $$ . O . X O O O O O O O . \ $$ . O . X X X X X X X O . \ $$ . O X X . . . . . X O . \ $$ . O X . X . . . . X O . \ $$ . O X . . . . . X O O . \ $$ - - - - - - - - - - - - \ [/go] \ \ The two dame are miai and it make little difference under either set of rules who plays one of them first. The issue is whether B needs to connect on the edge. Under Japanese rules he loses a point by playing it and so has to read it out in full before playing. Under Chinese rules there is no loss by playing a protection move and then exchanging the dame afterwards.[/QUOTE] \ \ You need to read this out regardless of the rules you are using. If a defensive move is necessary and you do not play it you might lose the whole group, which could cost you a lot of points. Do you think you could delay a defensive move like that till the very end of the game! And the only way to find out if you need to defend or not is to read it out completely and count the score for different outcomes. I am sure you understand this very well. So, the effect of using Japanese rules in the example you show is that black will avoid playing a defensive move there even if black cannot read out this position completely because black knows it will lose him a point. Thanks to Japanese rules black will go against common sense and refrain from defending his group even if he feels that a defensive play might be necessary. \ \ The general philosophy of area scoring is that the game continues until the players can read out the position completely. Then generally they stop playing and count the score. When this happens depends on their reading ability and the complexity of position. This is a common sense approach to the game in my opinion. \ \ With Japanese rules, however, the game must be stopped as soon as there is no profit to be made. Further moves are mistakes because they just lose you points. Japanese rules don't care whether you can read out the position completely or not. If you can, good for you. If you cannot, you are in trouble. Since you can't read it out, you don't know whether you should stop or keep playing, or perform harakiri because you can't read it out and you are not a real samurai anymore. Also and a lot more startling is the fact that with Japanese rules the customary thing is to announce that the game is over, then as if that did not happend you find yourself making further moves and even capturing some stones if you are lucky. Yuck! \ \ But if your read-ahead ability is very good, then generally you will stop playing at about the same time regardless of the rules you are using." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 05:05:02","[QUOTE=gohst]Yes, this is exactly what Straw was talking about, though I'm not sure your explanation is 100% clear. With Japanese rules, unnecessary plays in your own territory lose *you* points. With Chinese rules, they do not.[/QUOTE] \ \ I am afraid you are wrong. Look at this diagram. It's black to move. \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X . X | \ $$ | . X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ \ \ Black takes the neutral point. \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X . X | \ $$ | 1 X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ \ The score is 14 for black, 11 for white. A 3 point advantage for black. \ \ \ \ \ Now black makes an unnecessary move inside his group at 1, white takes the last neutral point at 2. \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X 1 X | \ $$ | 2 X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ \ The score is 13 for black, 12 for white. A 1 point advantage for black. Black was punished for his unnecessary play inside his group. \ \ If you make inefficient or unnecessary moves the Chinese rules will punish you." "smurf","","2006-07-14 05:16:53","The punishment is Not eual since in Chinese rules the play inside does not cost any points, rather it's the Lack of play in another part of the board that will cost you. You can't blame the rules just because they don't let you gain points through making a misstake. Your diagrams are not a refutation of this, rather more of a confirmation." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 06:05:58","[QUOTE=smurf]The punishment is Not eual since in Chinese rules the play inside does not cost any points, rather it's the Lack of play in another part of the board that will cost you. You can't blame the rules just because they don't let you gain points through making a misstake. Your diagrams are not a refutation of this, rather more of a confirmation.[/QUOTE] \ \ Yes, you lose points, for instance by letting white play where you should have played. The point is you lose points regardless of the rules if you let yourself make mistakes." "zinger","","2006-07-14 06:12:45","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]There is really no objective reason to prefer Japanese rules. There is however an objective reason to prefer Chinese rules. Simplicity of the rules it is.[/QUOTE] \ \ The main reason that I prefer Japanese rules is practicality: with a real goban and stones, it is easier to count the score. Does that count as objective? :confused: \ \ Of course in internet games, this does not matter, as the computer scores it for you. But I agree that area scoring rules (not only chinese rules) are simpler in most other respects." "DrStraw","","2006-07-14 06:16:35","Don't worry guys. We cannot expect a ches player to get it right anyway :) \ \ ([url]http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=11701[/url], if you don't know what I mean.)" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 07:23:10","[QUOTE=DrStraw]Don't worry guys. We cannot expect a ches player to get it right anyway :) \ \ ([url]http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=11701[/url], if you don't know what I mean.)[/QUOTE] \ \ I take it this is your last agrument?" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 08:05:01","[QUOTE=zinger]The main reason that I prefer Japanese rules is practicality: with a real goban and stones, it is easier to count the score. Does that count as objective? :confused: \ \ Of course in internet games, this does not matter, as the computer scores it for you. But I agree that area scoring rules (not only chinese rules) are simpler in most other respects.[/QUOTE] \ \ I think it's more difficult to count with Japanese rules but it's really a matter of preference. Area scoring rules give you options, you can determine the score by counting 1) territory+prisoners or 2) area. This latter option is not available if you use Japanese rules. In order to facilitate counting by territory+prisoners all you need to do is to ensure that black and white play equal number of stones. This can be achieved effortlessly in most games. Pass stones are usually not needed at all. \ \ There are several reasons I prefer to count the area directly. \ \ Counting the area directly is simple, secure, and fast. As soon as the game ends, I can start counting and I do not need to do all that juggling with captured stones and prisoners. And I count exactly the thing that I am after, namely area. So, it is very simple. On top of that, it is more secure than Japanese style counting. When counting Japanese style you have to rely on your opponent to count his score correctly. This is not as easy to do because you need to add and multiply. A mistake is quite possible and you'll never know it unless you recount his score yourself. On the other hand, when I count area I point at the stones and surrounded intersection while I count, so that my opponent can watch and check that my counting is correct. Counting aloud will make it even easier, when the other people around don't mind. And finally, it is fast. I usually start at the upper left corner and then move row by row in a zigzag line from top down until I reach the lower right corner. I count stones and surrounded intersections simultaneously. And I count by 10s, that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1, 2, 3, ..., 20, 1, 2, 3, and so on. I can easily count like this to 180 in less than a minute. I am sure you can do that too. \ \ Last but not least, I do dislike destoying the final game position just to determine who won the game. If you count by area, you do not need to disturb the final game position. It's nice to have another look at it after you've determined who is the winner and by how much." "Trevoke","","2006-07-14 08:15:13","Hey.. I played my first 5-10 go games without any understanding of what the heck was supposed to happen and how somebody won. Gotta love the internet for that. \ Of course, since I didn't understand, I also had no idea about closing up territory.. :) \ Scoring is tricky, regardless of the system used, but one truth remains, as DrStraw said : the scores rarely change by more than one or two points anyway." "zinger","","2006-07-14 08:23:27","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]Last but not least, I do dislike destoying the final game position just to determine who won the game. If you count by area, you do not need to disturb the final game position. It's nice to have another look at it after you've determined who is the winner and by how much.[/QUOTE] \ \ I like this too. Counting territory score need not interefere with this. Just count the empty surrounded points (without rearranging) and the prisoners. This will usually be faster than counting area: unless the game has been very violent indeed, there will be more stones on the board than prisoners, so counting them will take longer. \ \ True, by area counting one need only count one color and compare to 180. Even so, I find that in most of my games, the territory and prisoners of both players don't add up to 180, so there is still less counting. \ \ Lastly, a fair share of my over the board games are handicap games. The handicap stones bollox up the area count a little, so in this case again I find territory counting is simpler. \ \ Anyway all of this is just personal preferences. As long as both players agree on the method, it doesn't really matter." "Hicham","Go Area Scoring","2006-07-14 09:09:00","I prefer Chinese rules because they are more logical. Japanese rules seem easier and more user friendly, but once you start to question things and want to know why a bent four is dead (even if you have a double ko, some where else for example), Japanese rules clearly looses. \ \ I hate to explain to beginner why dead stones are dead in Japanese rules. It is very confusing why the dead stones don't have to captured and thus the other side would loose points. \ \ On top of that , I also prefer the Chinese handicap system (free placement of handicapped stones), this give more variety to handicap games. \ \ Online I always play with Chinese rules, so no problem with counting there. The only problem is that people sometimes just refuse to play the neutral points, even when you remind them multiple times. \ \ Japanese rules have there problems as well on KGS. Once in a while, the scoring system doesn't count the protective plays once side did not make, and this makes a one point difference. \ \ I have to admit that in real life I usually play with Japanese rules, because I have trouble counting with Chinese scoring. But now I wrote this, I will definetely try to play with Chinese rules there as well, if you are an advocate of something, no reason to do it half baked ;)" "gohst","","2006-07-14 10:15:47","[QUOTE=smurf]The punishment is Not eual since in Chinese rules the play inside does not cost any points, rather it's the Lack of play in another part of the board that will cost you. You can't blame the rules just because they don't let you gain points through making a misstake. Your diagrams are not a refutation of this, rather more of a confirmation.[/QUOTE] \ \ Exactly. Your punishment for those same moves under Japanese rules is *worse*. Under Chinese rules, the punishment for a bad move is that your opponent gets to move elsewhere, nothing more. But that is true under *any* rules!" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-14 14:06:14","[QUOTE=gohst]Exactly. Your punishment for those same moves under Japanese rules is *worse*. Under Chinese rules, the punishment for a bad move is that your opponent gets to move elsewhere, nothing more. But that is true under *any* rules![/QUOTE] \ \ That is *not* true under any rules. \ \ Japanese rules don't punish you if you let your opponent fill the dame. Only Chinese rules punish you for that. The price you pay for an unnecessary inside move is exactly the same under these two rulesets. It's just that with Japanese rules you make your territory smaller, whereas with Chinese rules you let your opponent increase his area. \ \ Lets look at this diagram again. \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X . X | \ $$ | . X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ \ First, the Japanese rules. You fill an intersection in your territory. Dame is worthless. You lost one point. \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X 1 X | \ $$ | . X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ \ \ \ Now the Chinese rules. You fill an intersection inside your area. This does not change your area but you let white increase his area by one stone. So white gained one extra point! \ \ [go] \ $$ --------------- \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | . O O X . | \ $$ | O . O X . | \ $$ | O O X 1 X | \ $$ | 2 X X X . | \ $$ ---------------- \ [/go] \ \ \ You lose one point with Japanese rules. Your opponent gains one point with Chinese rules. So you see the price is effectively the same under these two rulesets. \ \ \ \ As I mentioned before, with Chinese rules generally the players will continue playing until the position is simple enough for them to read out completely. For someone who is very weak it might be necessary to capture all the enemy stones explicitly. They might even play a few more moves inside their areas if they are not sure they are completely safe. This is fine because, you see, they are still uncertain about the position, hence they need to keep playing until they become certain. If, on the other hand, your read-ahead is perfect you may stop playing well before most of the neutral intersections are filled. But you are not much different from those very weak beginners because just like those beginners you only stop playing when the position becomes completely clear to you. \ \ \ It's not particular rules that encourage you to develop your reading. It is the game itself that encourages it. If you want your groups to survive, if you want to occupy a larger area and hence win the game, you need to develop your reading skills." "gohst","","2006-07-14 16:16:41","I'm not going to argue any more. It's immaterial, and I think we are both saying the same thing, in our own way. In general, making a dumb move will allow your opponent to profit, under any rule set. You're advancing a specific case where scoring does not differ under Chinese vs Japanese. That doesn't account for all the other cases where it does differ. \ \ But we have descended to esoterica, as this debate always does. Only guys like Robert Jasiek actually *care*." "xed_over","","2006-07-14 18:31:50","go ahead and continue arguing (its not like its getting out of hand) \ \ this discussion has been very benificial for me, as I've completely misunderstood the Chinese counting rules." "DrStraw","","2006-07-14 18:32:47","[QUOTE=gohst]But we have descended to esoterica, as this debate always does. Only guys like Robert Jasiek actually *care*.[/QUOTE] \ \ Just before I read this I was thinking to myself that \"Andrei Sokolov\" was probably the GoDiscussions name of Robert Jasiek :)" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-15 07:25:20","[QUOTE=xed_over]go ahead and continue arguing (its not like its getting out of hand)\ \ this discussion has been very benificial for me, as I've completely misunderstood the Chinese counting rules.[/QUOTE]\ \ OK, then. Let me give you a few examples to illustrate how chinese scoring works.\ \ Lets look at this game on the 5x5 board.\ \ [sgf]\ (;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:2]ST[2]\ RU[Chinese]SZ[5]KM[0.00]\ PW[White]PB[Black]RE[B+3.00]\ ;B[cd]CR[cd]\ ;W[cc]CR[cc]\ ;B[dc]CR[dc]\ ;W[dd]CR[dd]\ ;B[de]CR[de]\ ;W[bd]CR[bd]\ ;B[ed]CR[ed]\ ;W[cb]CR[cb]\ ;B[be]CR[be]\ ;W[ad]CR[ad]\ ;B[db]CR[db]\ ;W[ca]CR[ca]\ ;B[ab]CR[ab]\ ;W[bb]CR[bb]\ ;B[ce]CR[ce]\ ;W[ac]CR[ac]\ ;B[da]CR[da]\ ;W[aa]CR[aa]\ ;B[ae]CR[ae]\ ;W[]\ ;B[]TW[ba][ab][bc]TB[ea][eb][ec][dd][ee])\ [/sgf]\ \ \ \ \ \ OK. This is the final position from the game. Black area consists of 9 stones and 5 surrounded intersections, so black has 14 points. White has 8 stones and 3 surrounded intersections, 11 points. There are no neutral intersections, so black area plus white area gives 25, which is the total number of intersections on the 5x5 board. Black wins by 3 points. \ \ [go]\ $$-----------------------------\ $$ | O . O X . |\ $$ | . O O X . |\ $$ | O . O X . |\ $$ | O O X . X |\ $$ | X X X X . |\ $$-----------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ \ Now look again at the sgf record of the game. Note that during the game white captured one black stone and black captured one white stone. Also note that black played the last move of the game. This of course means that black played one more stone than white. So after the game is over, white gives black one stone to restore the equality in the number of black and white stones. Black will use this stone in exactly the same way he uses any other white stones he captured. It must be obvious that exchanging this stone has no effect on the area, so all is well. After this exchange, black has two captured white stones, while white has one captured black stone as before. What they do now is they return the stones they captured back to the board by filling some of the empty intersections surrounded by the opponent. This does not change the areas either.\ \ This is what they get.\ \ [go]\ $$-----------------------------\ $$ | O O O X . |\ $$ | . O O X . |\ $$ | O O O X . |\ $$ | O O X X X |\ $$ | X X X X . |\ $$-----------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ OK. Now, they still want to compare areas (it's chinese rules after all) but the number of black and white stones on the board is the same now! So in order to compare areas it is sufficient to compare remaining empty intersections. White has 1 and black has 4, so black wins by 3 points (that is black area is larger than white by 3).\ \ Of cource it is not necessary to return captured stones to the board. Below is the final game position again. \ \ [go]\ $$-----------------------------\ $$ | O . O X . |\ $$ | . O O X . |\ $$ | O . O X . |\ $$ | O O X . X |\ $$ | X X X X . |\ $$-----------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ Black has 5 surrounded intersections and 2 captured black stones, including the stone that white gave to black to restore the balance. So, black has 7 points. White has 3 surrounded intersections and 1 captured black stone, this is 4 points in total. Black wins by 3 points as before. \ \ \ If you know anything about counting the Japanese style, you have undoubtedly noticed that the procedure I described is very similar. The only difference is that I made sure the number of black and white stones is the same. When counting the score by Japanese rules you are usually at most 1 stone away from the equality, and hence the equivalence between area counting and territory+prisoners counting. With chinese rules you can always count by area or by territory+prisoners. Of course it is much simpler and much more straightforward to count the areas directly. And as have been mentioned before, you don't need to count both black and white area. It's enough to count only, say, black. Then white area will be 25 minus black area minus all neutral intersections (on the 5x5 board).\ \ \ \ \ \ Lets now look at another example on the 5x5.\ \ [sgf]\ (;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:2]ST[2]\ RU[Chinese]SZ[5]KM[0.00]\ PW[White]PB[Black]RE[B+5.00]\ ;B[cd]CR[cd]\ ;W[cc]CR[cc]\ ;B[dc]CR[dc]\ ;W[dd]CR[dd]\ ;B[de]CR[de]\ ;W[ed]CR[ed]\ ;B[bd]CR[bd]\ ;W[db]CR[db]\ ;B[cb]CR[cb]\ ;W[bc]CR[bc]\ ;B[bb]CR[bb]\ ;W[ac]CR[ac]\ ;B[ad]CR[ad]\ ;W[ec]CR[ec]\ ;B[ab]CR[ab]\ ;W[dc]CR[dc]\ ;B[da]CR[da]\ ;W[ca]CR[ca]\ ;B[ba]CR[ba]\ ;W[ce]CR[ce]\ ;B[be]CR[be]\ ;W[eb]CR[eb]\ ;B[]\ ;W[]TB[aa][ca][ae][ce])\ [/sgf]\ \ \ \ \ \ Here's the final position of the game.\ \ \ [go]\ $$-----------------------------\ $$ | . X . X . |\ $$ | X X X O O |\ $$ | O O O O O |\ $$ | X X X O O |\ $$ | . X . X . |\ $$-----------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ White's area equals 9 points and black's area equals 14 points. There are two neutral intersection. If you sum everything together, you get 25 = 9 + 14 + 2. Black wins by 5 points.\ \ \ \ Now look at the record of the game. White captured one black stone and black captured two white stones. Also white played the final move of the game, so both black and white played equal number of stones already. White has no surrounded intersections and 1 captured black stone, so white has 1 point only. Black has 4 surrounded intersections and 2 captured white stones, 6 points in total. Thus black wins by 5 points, which means that black area is 5 points larger than white.\ \ \ I am not sure what Japanese rules say about this last example. But I don't care really. I will let people like Steve Fawthrop and Robert Jasiek worry about Japanese rules.\ \ \ Finally, I can add a few words about the infamous pass stones. Usually you don't need them at all. The only time they come in handy is when someone keeps passing but their opponent keeps making moves. This will easily break the balance between the number of played stones. Using pass stones will keep the balance in check without exerting any extra effort on the players. But once the game is over, white might still need to give black a stone if black played the final move of the game." "DrStraw","","2006-07-15 08:35:14","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov] \ I am not sure what Japanese rules say about this last example. But I don't care really. I will let people like Steve Fawthrop and Robert Jasiek worry about Japanese rules. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ Please do NOT equate me with Robert Jasiek! \ \ In the last example, B wins by 1 pt under Japanese rules as there are no points counted in seki." "xed_over","","2006-07-15 10:05:18","Thanks Andrei. Though I'm still not sure I understand why the insistance that each side play the same number of moves. Especially in the case of pass stones, since prisoners don't count, it seems pointless. \ \ though, in the first example, I can see that dame now actually have value (whereas in Japanese counting, they have no value), so if there's an odd number, the last player to play has the advantage (or the last point). But if black plays the last point, what's the point of white giving a pass stone just to have played thesame number of stones? \ \ DrStraw, isn't that B+2 with Japanese counting?" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-15 10:34:07","[QUOTE=zinger] \ Lastly, a fair share of my over the board games are handicap games. The handicap stones bollox up the area count a little, so in this case again I find territory counting is simpler. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ The handicap stones don't interfere with the area count. \ \ You set the handicap and the komi, or point compensation, to make the game between two players as even as possible. You are free to choose any handicap and any point compensation on top of that. It only depends on the relative strength of the players. At the end of the game you count the areas the usual way, then add whatever komi you decided to use. Nobody stops you from using zero komi. \ \ You only need to make extra adjustments if you want to set up a ranking system based on handicap games, and you want to allow people to use both Japanese style scoring and area scoring. You can base this ranking system on area scoring, then people who prefer Japanese style scoring will have to make adjustments to their score. Most ranking systems are based on Japanese rules, so an extra adjustment is necessary if you use area scoring within this ranking system. \ \ On KGS white receives one point of compensation for every handicap stone when Chinese rules are selected. For instance, if you play a six stone handicap game, white automatically receives six points of compensation. Of course you can set a komi on top of that too. It is not really known what extra compensation is best for equalizing different scoring systems. But it is easy to see why it should be equal to the number of handicap stones or whereabouts. Suppose you want to play a six stone handicap game. At the start of the game black makes six moves in a row, then you begin to alternate. Because of this black will have played about six stones more when the game ends, depending on who makes the final move. This has no effect on area counting. However, if you return all captured stones and prisoner to the board filling some of the opponent's empty intersections, black will have about six stones more on the board. Therefore, there will be a discrepancy of about six points between area scoring and Japanese style scoring. It does not matter whether black keeps his handicap stones or loses them during the game bacause they will end up on the board anyway. So, in handicap games area scoring gives black extra advantage compared to Japanese style scoring. This discrepancy can upset the ranking system, thus an adjustment is necessary. What scoring system is adjusted is a political decision." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-15 10:58:55","[QUOTE=xed_over]Thanks Andrei. Though I'm still not sure I understand why the insistance that each side play the same number of moves. Especially in the case of pass stones, since prisoners don't count, it seems pointless.\ [/QUOTE]\ \ Prisoners don't count if you count area. I usually give the stones I capture back to the opponent, and I discard prisoners because I don't need them. \ \ If you want to use territory+prisoners counting to compare areas, you need to keep all the captured stones and the prisoners of course. After the game ends you scoop up all prisoners and then treat them in the same way as the other stones you captured. You use all of them to fill your opponent's territory. After you and your opponent have used all captured stones and prisoners, you can compare areas by counting remaining territories BUT only if the numbers of black and white stones on the board are equal! It does not matter how you achieved this equality (with or without the pass stones), but it is the only necessary condition. Counting stones when you know both black and white have the same number of them is just a waste of time. You do not need to know how many black and white stones there are on the board. It's enough to know that there are as many black stones as white. You only care about the difference, so the stones will cancel out. You only need to compare remaining territories then.\ \ But I seriously do not recommend that you use territory+prisoner counting. It's much easier to count the area directly.\ \ \ \ BTW, I did not say equal number of moves. I only said equal number of stones. You don't move when you pass but you give a stone to the opponent, so that the eqality in the number of stones played can be easily maintained." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-16 03:57:14","[QUOTE=xed_over]Though I'm still not sure I understand why the insistance that each side play the same number of moves. Especially in the case of pass stones, since prisoners don't count, it seems pointless.\ [/QUOTE]\ \ Let me add a few more examples for the sake of completeness. As an added benefit, you will be able to understand Japanese way of counting from a rational perspective.\ \ \ First an even game to illustrate what you need to do with the prisoners.\ \ [sgf]\ (;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:2]ST[2]\ RU[Chinese]SZ[5]KM[0.00]\ PW[White]PB[Black]RE[B+5.00]\ ;B[cd]CR[cd]\ ;W[cb]CR[cb]\ ;B[bc]CR[bc]\ ;W[bb]CR[bb]\ ;B[ab]CR[ab]\ ;W[ad]CR[ad]\ ;B[ac]CR[ac]\ ;W[cc]CR[cc]\ ;B[dd]CR[dd]\ ;W[dc]CR[dc]\ ;B[bd]CR[bd]\ ;W[ec]CR[ec]\ ;B[ed]CR[ed]\ ;W[da]CR[da]\ ;B[ba]CR[ba]\ ;W[eb]CR[eb]\ ;B[aa]CR[aa]\ ;W[ca]CR[ca]\ ;B[]\ ;W[]TW[ea][db]TB[ad][ae][be][ce][de][ee])\ \ [/sgf]\ \ \ \ This is the game position after white playes 18.\ \ [go]\ $$------------------------\ $$ | X X O O . |\ $$ | X O O . O |\ $$ | X X O O O |\ $$ | O X X X X |\ $$ | . . . . . |\ $$------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ Black is confident enough that he can capture lone white stone even if white tries to save it. So black passes. White passes too. Black wants to remove this lone white stone from the board to define black's area. So he asks white if white is willing to give up on this stone. White agrees so black removes this stone from the board. \ \ In general if you give up on some stones at the end of the game the implication is that you will not try to interfere when your opponent proceeds to surround and capture those stones. So the agreement implies a specific continuations of the game that leads to explicit capture of all the abandoned stones. Once all these stones are captured the areas are defined and counting can begin. Usually the players simply remove these stones from the board without capturing them explicitly because this defines exactly the same areas (remember that the area cannot contain any enemy stones inside it because the area consists of stones and *surrounded* intersections).\ \ Look at the diagrams below. On the left black simply removed the prisoner without capturing it explicitly. On the right black made a move that captures the stone. As you can see the resulting areas are identical. \ \ [go]\ $$------------------------\ $$ | X X O O . | | X X O O . |\ $$ | X O O . O | | X O O . O |\ $$ | X X O O O | | X X O O O |\ $$ | . X X X X | | . X X X X |\ $$ | . . . . . | | X . . . . |\ $$------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ This is why it is possible to do the removal without capturing explicitly once the agreement has been reached. Beginners who prefer Japanese rules frequently decide which stones are dead by agreement as well. However, it is not entirely clear what they agree upon since they cannot capture the stones explicitly without losing points.\ \ Once the area are determined, counting can be performed. Black has 15 points and white has 10 points. Black wins by 5 points. \ \ \ Let's now examine how territory+prisoners counting works in this example. Below is the final position of the game.\ \ [go]\ $$------------------------\ $$ | X X O O . |\ $$ | X O O . O |\ $$ | X X O O O |\ $$ | O X X X X |\ $$ | . . . . . |\ $$------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ Now look through the record of the game. As you can see white played the last move and no stones have been captured during the game. First thing you need to do is to remove the prisoners from the board (the middle diagram below). The prisoners are treated in the same way as the other captured stones. Then you return all captured stones (including prisoners) back to the board. You get the diagram on the right.\ \ [go]\ $$------------------------\ $$ | X X O O . | | X X O O . | | X X O O O | \ $$ | X O O . O | | X O O . O | | X O O . O |\ $$ | X X O O O | | X X O O O | | X X O O O |\ $$ | O X X X X | | . X X X X | | . X X X X |\ $$ | . . . . . | | . . . . . | | . . . . . |\ $$------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ Recall that white played the last move. Therefore, after all captured stones and prisoners have been returned to the board, the numbers of black and white stones on the board are equal. So you only need to compare remaining surrounded intersections. White has 1 and black has 6. Black wins by 5 points.\ \ \ \ And now, a handicap game (the game record below). It is a three stone handicap, so black gets to make three moves in a row at the start of the game.\ \ [sgf]\ (;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:2]ST[2]\ RU[Chinese]SZ[5]HA[3]KM[0.00]\ PW[White]PB[Black]RE[0]\ ;B[db]CR[db]\ ;B[bb]CR[bb]\ ;B[bd]CR[bd]\ ;W[cc]CR[cc]\ ;B[cb]CR[cb]\ ;W[bc]CR[bc]\ ;B[ab]CR[ab]\ ;W[dc]CR[dc]\ ;B[eb]CR[eb]\ ;W[ac]CR[ac]\ ;B[ca]CR[ca]\ ;W[be]CR[be]\ ;B[ec]CR[ec]\ ;W[dd]CR[dd]\ ;B[ed]CR[ed]\ ;W[ad]CR[ad]\ ;B[de]CR[de]\ ;W[ce]CR[ce]\ ;B[ee]CR[ee]\ ;W[]\ ;B[]TW[bd][cd][ae]TB[aa][ba][da][ea])\ [/sgf]\ \ \ \ \ This is the final position from the game\ \ [go]\ $$--------------------------\ $$ | . . X . . |\ $$ | X X X X X |\ $$ | O O O O X |\ $$ | O X . O X |\ $$ | . O O X X |\ $$--------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ No stones have been captured during the game, black played last, and there is one prisoner. White removes the prisoner form the board.\ \ [go]\ $$--------------------------\ $$ | . . X . . |\ $$ | X X X X X |\ $$ | O O O O X |\ $$ | O . . O X |\ $$ | . O O X X |\ $$--------------------------\ [/go]\ \ Now the areas are defined and counting can be performed. White has 11 points and black has 14 points. Black wins by 3 points.\ \ \ \ If you want to do territory+prisoner counting, there is a little more work to do. Fisrt white takes the prisoner off the board (middle diagram below) and then he puts it inside the black area (right).\ \ [go]\ $$--------------------------\ $$ | . . X . . | | . . X . . | | . . X X . |\ $$ | X X X X X | | X X X X X | | X X X X X |\ $$ | O O O O X | | O O O O X | | O O O O X |\ $$ | O X . O X | | O . . O X | | O . . O X |\ $$ | . O O X X | | . O O X X | | . O O X X |\ $$--------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ \ Recall that black made three moves in a row at the start of the game, and black played the final move. Hence in the digram below black has three more stones on the board than white. (If white'd played the last move, it would've been two more stones).\ \ [go]\ $$--------------------------\ $$ | . . X X . |\ $$ | X X X X X |\ $$ | O O O O X |\ $$ | O . . O X |\ $$ | . O O X X |\ $$--------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ \ In order to equalize the number of stones you need to put three white stones inside white area.\ \ [go]\ $$--------------------------\ $$ | . . X X . |\ $$ | X X X X X |\ $$ | O O O O X |\ $$ | O O O O X |\ $$ | O O O X X |\ $$--------------------------\ [/go]\ \ \ Now the numbers of stones are equal and the remaining territories can be compared.\ White has nothing and black has 3. So black wins by 3 points as before.\ \ \ On KGS white receives three points of compensation for three handicap stones. In this case the score will be the following. White has 11 point of area plus 3 points of compensation, 14 points in total. Black has 14 point of area. Thus it's a tie." "toastcrumb","","2006-07-16 10:50:12","Honestly, by reading this thread, I've only become more confused. :| And I'm no complete beginner." "DrStraw","","2006-07-16 11:00:59","Toastcrumb, \ \ Please get rid of that flashing picture. It is so distracting I immediately had to scroll away and did not read your post." "xed_over","","2006-07-16 15:44:41","[QUOTE=toastcrumb]Honestly, by reading this thread, I've only become more confused. :| And I'm no complete beginner.[/QUOTE] \ I have to admit, that its not yet clearing up for me either, and I don't yet have another question formulated. \ \ toastcrumb, I'd have to agree with DrStraw about your flashing avatar. Looks like it could easily set off an epileptic fit. :eek:" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-17 02:04:35","[QUOTE=toastcrumb]Honestly, by reading this thread, I've only become more confused. :| And I'm no complete beginner.[/QUOTE] \ \ You may be confused by this thread because some of the topics raised require some effort to understand them completely. \ \ But do you still find area counting confusing? I illustrated area counting with several examples. Do you find those confusing in any way? Keep in mind that I am only asking you about area counting. It does not matter if you don't understand territory+prisoners counting because you don't need that at all to count the area." "zinger","","2006-07-17 05:48:10","[QUOTE=DrStraw]Just before I read this I was thinking to myself that \"Andrei Sokolov\" was probably the GoDiscussions name of Robert Jasiek :)[/QUOTE] \ \ I was thinking that too. The dogged determination, authoritarian attitidue, and use of multiple small board diagrams all strongly suggest Jasiek. \ \ Note also that \"Andrei Sokolov\" has not denied being RJ. This is very telling, since he has eagerly responded to nearly every other statement anyone has made. \ \ Lastly note that all of his posts are in one thread about rules. He's not discussing anything else. Another RJ marker. \ \ The only counterpoint is that Robert usually uses his real name online as far as I know. However, on the balance I think that \"Andrei Sokolov\" is, in fact, Robert Jasiek." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-17 06:33:14","This has nothing to do with the topic discussed but since it's become such a big issue for several people... I am a Go player from England. Here's a link to a little info about me at BGA website.\ \ [url]http://www.britgo.org/rating/graph/?name=Andrej+Sokolov&graph=strength&axes=adaptive[/url]\ \ If you are interested in any further personal details about me, please contact me by email. You can also find me on KGS under the name andsok75. Cheers.\ \ Can we get back to Go now. The original poster asked to explain how to count, so I did that. I hope he/she found that information useful. Also just for the record I find your dissing me utterly distasteful. Especially when it comes from the moderators. I thought this was going to be a friendly forum, perhaps I was mistaken..." "malweth","","2006-07-17 07:30:22","I think the conversation has become a little too technical for a beginner question on \"how to count.\"\ \ I think the point was to describe the mechanics of counting and basically why the two methods are similar. Going into each of the intricate differences that could occur between two counting methods is well beyond the scope of the original question.\ \ I don't think anyone has been dissing you, just that you have the level of detail that RJ has in his discussions, which may not be appropriate in a beginner conversation/explaination." "DrStraw","","2006-07-17 07:39:38","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]I am a Go player from England. Here's a link to a little info about me at BGA website. \ [url]http://www.britgo.org/rating/graph/?name=Andrej+Sokolov&graph=strength&axes=adaptive[/url] \ [/QUOTE] \ \ 8k, and an expert on the rules? I fear you have spend too much time on the minutiae of the rules and not enough time on the study of actually playing." "Javaness","","2006-07-17 08:00:32","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]You need to read this out regardless of the rules you are using. If a defensive move is necessary and you do not play it you might lose the whole group, which could cost you a lot of points. Do you think you could delay a defensive move like that till the very end of the game! [/QUOTE] \ \ I don't understand your answer Andrei. In DrStraw's diagram imagine what happens if White's last move is connection on the edge. In Chinese counting you need not worry about losing a point, in Japanese counting you would need to worry? \ \ Anyway all this doesn't teach beginner's to count. I would try playing through some of the example games on Senseis Library if you want to see how to count the score, they have some very good examples in Japanese and Chinese methods." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-17 09:01:50","[QUOTE=Javaness]I don't understand your answer Andrei. In DrStraw's diagram imagine what happens if White's last move is connection on the edge. In Chinese counting you need not worry about losing a point, in Japanese counting you would need to worry? \ [/QUOTE] \ \ What I mean is that black had to read out whether this group is alive before the end of the game. He needs to read out all possible attacks against it to be sure. If you've done that then by the end of the game you know whether you need to respond there or not. I did not say that this example by DrStaw was incorrect. Sure you can add unnecessary stones inside your areas but that would be a waste of time. I simply said that there is more to it than meets the eye. \ \ With Chinese rules I do a lot more reading at the end of the game because all the dame are being filled. It's unfortunate that players who use Japanese rules frequently lose stones at the end just because they stop thinking when the dame is being filled. \ \ \ [QUOTE=DrStraw]8k, and an expert on the rules? I fear you have spend too much time on the minutiae of the rules and not enough time on the study of actually playing.[/QUOTE] \ \ Thanks at least for not calling me Robert Jasiek anymore. I was beginning to get worried. I learned to play Go by Japanese rules at first and I did spend a lot of time on them with questions and concerns similar to those of the original poster. I realised that that was a complete waste of my time when I learned Chinese rules. I think I am still pissed off about all that time wasted. Probably that's why some of my comments sounded a little discourteous. Sorry about that. I trust you will correct any mistakes I might have made in my examples. Meanwhile, I will take your advice and get back to Go. Cheers." "zinger","","2006-07-17 09:30:06","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]Thanks at least for not calling me Robert Jasiek anymore. I was beginning to get worried. I learned to play Go by Japanese rules at first and I did spend a lot of time on them with questions and concerns similar to those of the original poster. I realised that that was a complete waste of my time when I learned Chinese rules. I think I am still pissed off about all that time wasted. Probably that's why some of my comments sounded a little discourteous. Sorry about that. I trust you will correct any mistakes I might have made in my examples. Meanwhile, I will take your advice and get back to Go. Cheers.[/QUOTE] \ \ My apologies for misidentifying you. No offense was intended. It was just that your posts were remarkably similar to what we would expect from RJ. \ \ Also, I don't think you were discourteous at all. Nor do I think anyone else was. Which means to me, that this [I]is[/I] a friendly forum :) I hope that you will stay around and continue to contribute." "Hicham","","2006-07-17 10:02:23","I can understand what Andrej is talking about here. I clearly remember the confusion in the beginning, when people told me stones were dead in Japanese rules. Why didn't they have to capture them and lose points? It is very hard to answer th \ \ Sure, now I know, but still it is not easy to explain the why to a beginner. I tried and ended up with a beginner saying:\" These Chinese rules seem to be a lot more logical\". \ \ New Zealand rules might be even better, but I do not have the courage to start explaining these every single tiem I play a game. \ \ I sincerely hope the international rules they are working on end up being area scoring and not territory scoring." "xed_over","","2006-07-17 11:28:25","Andrei, It seems to me that what you are describing is [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquivalenceScoring\"]Equivalence Scoring[/URL], which from what I understand so far, uses pass stones and compensating white for black's handicap stones in order to make Japanese scoring and Chinese scoring equivalent. \ \ because otherwise, in some of these examples, the Chinese score and the Japanese score is not supposed to be the same. \ \ I must admit, I think I'd perfer that filling dame be required. Often I'm following a professional game but the record stops before filling the dame and no matter how I try to finish it out, my score never matches what's in the book. Case in point Shuwa vs. Shusaku 1851 in Appreating Famous Games, [I]The autum leaves are falling[/I]. The book says B+3, but every time I play it out I come up with either white ahead or a tie. \ \ While Chinese scoring doesn't directly penalize a player for capturing otherwise dead stones, they are penalized indirectly by not having made efficient moves (letting one's opponent have sente). Perhaps Japanese scoring helps teach making more efficient moves. \ \ [QUOTE=malweth]I think the conversation has become a little too technical for a beginner question on \"how to count\"[/QUOTE] \ malweth, don't underestimate the intellegence of the beginner. afterall, that's why we're asking questions -- to improve our understanding. But you're right, sometimes the language can become too difficult to follow even with the diagrams. :)" "malweth","","2006-07-17 12:28:58","It's not that \"technical\" is bad, or even bad for beginners... just that \"technical\" in place of a simpler explanation is wrong for the beginner.\ \ Japanese rules can be summed up:\ \ 1) Prisoners on board can be contested and may try to escape or live. The one under threat must play to live. The opponent may respond or pass until this contest is completed.\ 2) The Individual Score is defined by the sum of three parts: Captured prisoners, prisoners on board, and empty intersections surrounded (including those beneath prisoners on board).\ 3) The Final score is the difference between individual scores.\ \ \ This may not be 100% accurate to Japanese rules, and there may be instances where my rule #1 results in a loss of points for the contendee - in most cases this works as a good way to prove out dead stones while keeping the score the same (after all - if the score changes in favor of the contender then the situation should have been played out in-game anyhow)!\ \ Chinese rules have been adequately discussed. It is a disadvantage to players of the game that they can over-protect without major penalty, but this only happens in very beginner level players. It is enough to know that dame are valued points under Chinese rules." "Hicham","","2006-07-17 13:41:07","[QUOTE=malweth]I \ \ \ \ It is a disadvantage to players of the game that they can over-protect without major penalty, but this only happens in very beginner level players. It is enough to know that dame are valued points under Chinese rules.[/QUOTE] \ \ Malweth,what do you mean here? If you over protect before all dame have been played, you lose (at least) a point. If you protect after dame, what is the harm done? As you said this mostly would happen at the beginner level. \ \ How do you explain to beginners that stones that are dead, do not have to be taken in Japanese rules? In Chinese rules, the fact that you do not lose points taking them is enough." "xed_over","","2006-07-17 14:59:36","[QUOTE=Hicham]How do you explain to beginners that stones that are dead, do not have to be taken in Japanese rules? [/QUOTE] \ Playing it out works here too. Because as long as the opponent has to respond, the score doesn't change -- \"I lost another prisoner, but he lost a point of territory having to respond, so still no change in score.\" \ \ I think Malweth's point 1) sums that up: \"[I]The one under threat must play to live [first].[/I]\" \ \ For [U]most[/U] cases, that's usually enough for beginners. Once the beginners become a little more advanced, then they might begin to find some edge cases where they're not sure who should respond first and thus potentially lose a point if they do -- but usually those games still aren't close enough to matter who plays first. \ \ Once they get even more advanced, they can usually spot their dead groups themselves." "Hicham","","2006-07-17 15:33:17","Ok, but I mean the stones have liberties, so why should I prove that they are alive? Why shouldn't the opponent prove that they are dead and capture them? \ \ I know why, but as a beginner this perplexed me and it is surprisingly hard to give an easy explanation in Japanese rules." "toastcrumb","","2006-07-17 17:38:59","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]You may be confused by this thread because some of the topics raised require some effort to understand them completely. \ \ But do you still find area counting confusing? I illustrated area counting with several examples. Do you find those confusing in any way? Keep in mind that I am only asking you about area counting. It does not matter if you don't understand territory+prisoners counting because you don't need that at all to count the area.[/QUOTE] \ No, I'm confused by this thread because it explains things in excessive detail/ needlessly complicated. \ \ I'm rated 9k on KGS at the moment (I play under \"mayonnaise\" these days). If counting is still confusing for me, then I apparently got lucky on all my games so far. The rules you're playing under should not affect the outcome of a game, unless you miss dame or whatever. Under both sets of rules, playing needless moves is punished. \ \ \ and fine, i uploaded a new icon :P mouse potato for the win. maybe i should slow the animation of the flashy one? \ \ ... who IS Robert Jasiek anyhow? \ \ To Hicham: \ I've always explained it as \"If it doesnt have two eyes, or doesnt have the space to make two eyes, it's dead.\", which works for all rulesets :P The opponent doesn't need to prove they're dead because they CAN be captured since they lack two eyes." "NeoNemesis","","2006-07-17 17:46:11","Robert Jasiek is sum[4d] on kgs. \ [url]http://senseis.xmp.net/?RobertJasiek[/url] \ [url]http://senseis.xmp.net/?DisputeCsabaJasiek[/url] \ \ Anyways the easiest way to count is to compare territory and just count the excess diff in territory and captured stones and factor in komifor jap rules. \ for chinese rules, just count your territory + stones and compare it to 180 or soemthing. i forget the exact number if there's komi or not. I'm usually too lazy to count, but sometimes I do anyways. I've been playing on TOM a lot recently and they have score estimate during the game." "xed_over","","2006-07-17 20:24:32","[QUOTE=toastcrumb]and fine, i uploaded a new icon :P mouse potato for the win. [/QUOTE] \ I like it -- its cute :cool:" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-17 23:56:58","[QUOTE=toastcrumb] \ I've always explained it as \"If it doesnt have two eyes, or doesnt have the space to make two eyes, it's dead.\", which works for all rulesets :P The opponent doesn't need to prove they're dead because they CAN be captured since they lack two eyes.[/QUOTE] \ \ You need to teach them to distinguish between real and false eyes. You also need to explain seki, with and without eyes. And you need to teach them how to solve life and death problems, ie space to make two eyes. All of this just to enable them to count. With Chinese rules you simply say that stones on the board are alive, capture all you can capture, count the area." "malweth","","2006-07-18 01:51:02","[QUOTE]If you protect after dame, what is the harm done?[/QUOTE]\ \ True... a complete beginner could begin filling in most of their territory as their opponent continues to pass. Most beginners tend to pass when you pass (especially if they know you know how to play).\ \ Before the dame are filled, but after yose, playing in your own territory is equal to japanese rules (1 for 1). Before yose it is also equal to japanese rules, but worth more than 1 pt :)" "Javaness","","2006-07-18 02:26:33","[QUOTE=xed_over]Andrei, It seems to me that what you are describing is [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquivalenceScoring\"]Equivalence Scoring[/URL], which from what I understand so far, uses pass stones and compensating white for black's handicap stones in order to make Japanese scoring and Chinese scoring equivalent. \ \ because otherwise, in some of these examples, the Chinese score and the Japanese score is not supposed to be the same. \ \ I must admit, I think I'd perfer that filling dame be required. [/QUOTE] \ \ Japanese Rules do require that the dame be filled. New Zealand Rules are clearly the best out there." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-18 05:47:58","[QUOTE=xed_over]Andrei, It seems to me that what you are describing is [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquivalenceScoring\"]Equivalence Scoring[/URL], which from what I understand so far, uses pass stones and compensating white for black's handicap stones in order to make Japanese scoring and Chinese scoring equivalent. \ \ because otherwise, in some of these examples, the Chinese score and the Japanese score is not supposed to be the same. \ \ [/QUOTE] \ \ Japanese and Chinese scorings, or methods for determining the winner, are very similar but not equivalent. Frequently there will be a difference of 1 point between them. However, for area scoring you can use both area counting and territory+prisoners counting. If you ensure that the number of stones is the same, then both counting procedures will give the same result. This is what that page on senseis is about (refer to what Bill Spight says there)." "DrStraw","","2006-07-18 06:10:18","[QUOTE=Javaness]Japanese Rules do require that the dame be filled. New Zealand Rules are clearly the best out there.[/QUOTE] \ \ The best rules out there are, for most people, the ones they are comfortable with." "Javaness","","2006-07-18 07:21:21","Yes perhaps my post needed a smiley :) You're right, people are happy to enjoy playing the game as they understand it should be played. \ \ In terms of the simplest ruleset, it is probably Tibetan, but this is dismissed by lovers of arcane rules disputes. :D" "erislover","","2006-07-18 12:13:44","Supposing black created a bent four shape in a white corner... \ \ The bent four in the corner case is enough for me to prefer chinese rules/counting over japanese. This corner results in a ko. If black cannot fight this ko there is no reason, to my mind, to suggest that the corner is dead anyway. Unremovable ko threats or a number of removable threats bigger than the value of capturing the corner should make a difference. To my mind, the bent 4 is like a case of semedori. If black is unwilling to remove his ko threats, or if he cannot remove his ko threats, then it is absurd to suggest that he can \"in principle\" capture the stones when he cannot in fact capture the stones (or at least not in a way that doesn't result in a net loss). To fix this, the rule is that the only valid ko threat in a dispute phase is a pass! Unaesthetic and, in my not so humble opinion, absurd. Stones that can be captured \"in principle\" should be able to be captured in fact. It is not a question of reading. It is a question of whether a player in fact controls an area of the board. If black is unwilling to fill in his threats, then in what sense can he assert that he can win the ko?" "toastcrumb","","2006-07-18 15:13:06","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]You need to teach them to distinguish between real and false eyes. You also need to explain seki, with and without eyes. And you need to teach them how to solve life and death problems, ie space to make two eyes. All of this just to enable them to count. With Chinese rules you simply say that stones on the board are alive, capture all you can capture, count the area.[/QUOTE] \ \ \ You need to teach them that anyways... I mean, you really can't play go without knowing which eye is real and which isn't. >.>" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-19 02:56:00","[QUOTE=toastcrumb]You need to teach them that anyways... I mean, you really can't play go without knowing which eye is real and which isn't. >.>[/QUOTE] \ \ If you take your idea to the extreme, you can say that nobody can really play go until they become pros. Where do you draw the line between really playing go and not really playing go? For instance, does one need to know about leaning attack, or furikawari, or miai to really play go?" "Javaness","","2006-07-19 03:47:36","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]If you take your idea to the extreme, you can say that nobody can really play go until they become pros. Where do you draw the line between really playing go and not really playing go? For instance, does one need to know about leaning attack, or furikawari, or miai to really play go?[/QUOTE] \ \ \ I don't think that arguement really works to be honest. You can play Go as long as you know 'the rules'. Of course there are many rules by which one can play Go, and you can get into some very strange and contrived arguements over the legality of certain positions. Playing Go well is a distinct issue (for the egotists perhaps?). \ \ Of course, most Beginner's want to start playing the game. They don't want to spend a day or more going over situational superko, positional superko, disturbing ko, moonshine life, bent 4, Tibetan ko and then triple ko. Equally most teacher's don't have the time to devote to doing this. Some people argue that many people are being put off the game because the rules aren't clinically explained to them, but the counterargument seems to mean little to them. :) I taught people how to play in work, If I had had to spend 10 lunchtimes explaining the rules I do not think my club would now have as many members as it does. There is no doubt some people learning alone, from books for example, get a very strange idea about how the game is played. I am unconvinced using a particular ruleset in preference to another would significantly help with that. There will always be misunderstandings, but as players become more experienced I believe they are better placed to discuss and understand these. \ \ Teaching somebody to count using New Zealand, Stone, Chinese or Japanese scoring for me will make no real difference in the long run." "malweth","","2006-07-19 05:42:51","I think there's a difference between knowing how to play go and being a go player. One involves the rules, the other is perhaps a measure of devotion.\ \ There's also a point (at least one) where the game undergoes a major change in the player... this is more than most other plateaus. I think of this point as Learning to Read, and it occurs around AGA 8k. It seems congruous to the \"click\" spoke of when learning languages." "Javaness","","2006-07-19 06:20:02","[QUOTE=malweth]I think there's a difference between knowing how to play go and being a go player. One involves the rules, the other is perhaps a measure of devotion. \ \ There's also a point (at least one) where the game undergoes a major change in the player... this is more than most other plateaus. I think of this point as Learning to Read, and it occurs around AGA 8k. It seems congruous to the \"click\" spoke of when learning languages.[/QUOTE] \ \ I think that's just an illusion created by the feeling you understand what is happening. :D" "malweth","","2006-07-19 06:50:17","The question isn't of a \"feeling of understanding\" but of a \"depth of reading.\"\ \ Prior to around 8k (if I recall it was really the path from 12k to 8k for me) there was no such thing as reading. After 8k reading becomes important; there [B]are[/B] still other aspects to the game. Even at 2k I'm nowhere near expert, but I still believe that there's a major change in the game at that \"learn to read\" point that I believe doesn't ever happen again (to that degree)." "Javaness","","2006-07-19 07:00:52","[QUOTE=malweth]The question isn't of a \"feeling of understanding\" but of a \"depth of reading.\" \ \ Prior to around 8k (if I recall it was really the path from 12k to 8k for me) there was no such thing as reading. After 8k reading becomes important; there [B]are[/B] still other aspects to the game. Even at 2k I'm nowhere near expert, but I still believe that there's a major change in the game at that \"learn to read\" point that I believe doesn't ever happen again (to that degree).[/QUOTE] \ \ \ Hmm interesting... can't say I ever observed the same thing. I was always trying to read out strange sequences in the early days. It is a bit weird how your focus changes in the game of Go though." "malweth","","2006-07-19 10:19:26","I can't remember the \"early days\" all that well. At least I cannot remember specific thought processes... I do remember that 12-8k jump and I remember why it happened. I know I was trying to read out sequences earlier on (I wasn't a fast player until more recently) and failing. I could certainly see atari and I could read sequences of ataris, but beyond that the ability just wasn't there.\ \ After 8k I realized actual reading. If there's a working W response to Vital Point \"a,\" check vital point \"b.\" The actual process was starting to become pattern recognition chunks of reading rather than floundering around. This is why I consider AGA 8k to be the entry point for Go Study. Prior to this I consider to be Go Learning.\ \ Call it egotistical if you will... the only experiences I have to draw on are my own, so in essence you are correct... but don't say my reasons are fantastical rather than actual." "Mef","","2006-07-27 00:16:06","[QUOTE=erislover]Supposing black created a bent four shape in a white corner... \ \ The bent four in the corner case is enough for me to prefer chinese rules/counting over japanese. This corner results in a ko. If black cannot fight this ko there is no reason, to my mind, to suggest that the corner is dead anyway. Unremovable ko threats or a number of removable threats bigger than the value of capturing the corner should make a difference. To my mind, the bent 4 is like a case of semedori. If black is unwilling to remove his ko threats, or if he cannot remove his ko threats, then it is absurd to suggest that he can \"in principle\" capture the stones when he cannot in fact capture the stones (or at least not in a way that doesn't result in a net loss). To fix this, the rule is that the only valid ko threat in a dispute phase is a pass! Unaesthetic and, in my not so humble opinion, absurd. Stones that can be captured \"in principle\" should be able to be captured in fact. It is not a question of reading. It is a question of whether a player in fact controls an area of the board. If black is unwilling to fill in his threats, then in what sense can he assert that he can win the ko?[/QUOTE] \ \ \ By this logic then the beginner's lone stone in black's territory is alive as well. If black in unwilling to spend the 4 moves needed to capture a stone, then how is it dead? Fact of the matter is, under japanese rules, if the stones are dead given that you can make plays inside your own territory to kill them, and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop it, then the stones are dead and you need not play any of the stones. \ \ Cheers, \ \ Mef" "Mef","","2006-07-27 00:18:02","[QUOTE=malweth]I can't remember the \"early days\" all that well. At least I cannot remember specific thought processes...[/QUOTE]\ \ From what I remember of my own early days, to call them thought processes was a bit of a stretch (=" "erislover","","2006-07-27 07:25:25","[QUOTE=Mef]By this logic then the beginner's lone stone in black's territory is alive as well. If black in unwilling to spend the 4 moves needed to capture a stone, then how is it dead?[/quote]An excellent question that further illustrates the absurdity of japanese scoring. \ [quote]Fact of the matter is, under japanese rules, if the stones are dead given that you can make plays inside your own territory to kill them, and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop it, then the stones are dead and you need not play any of the stones.[/quote]Who is disputing this fact?" "Mef","","2006-07-28 22:46:31","[QUOTE=erislover]An excellent question that further illustrates the absurdity of japanese scoring. \ [/quote] \ \ You must remember that the current Japanese rules are not written for beginners, if you have trouble understanding life and death as traditionally defined in Japan, and the ideas it leads to, then it's entirely likely these rules are not for you. However, if you are a professional player who has gone through years of training as an insei, and even more time working your way up through league play, you may consider using them when $300,000 is on the line...\ \ \ [quote]Who is disputing this fact?[/QUOTE]\ \ You are when you say: [quote] Stones that can be captured \"in principle\" should be able to be captured in fact. It is not a question of reading. It is a question of whether a player in fact controls an area of the board. If black is unwilling to fill in his threats, then in what sense can he assert that he can win the ko?[/quote]\ \ Unless I am misinterpreting this, you are claiming that, though there is a set of stones that white is unable to prevent black from capturing should black be able to play inside his own territory without penalty, should not be claimed as dead. Under chinese rules do you force all dead stones to be removed as well? In fact, it's this rule that allows Japanese scoring to be virtually the same as Chinese scoring, as a proponent of Chinese scoring I'd think you'd be in favor of keeping the two as similar as possible. \ \ On a completely unrelated note (and as someone who is unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Chinese ruleset) how do Chinese rules deal with things like 3 points without capture?\ \ \ Cheers, \ \ Mef (who honestly doesn't care what ruleset is used as long as he can use territory counting)" "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-29 04:07:35","[QUOTE=Mef] \ \ On a completely unrelated note (and as someone who is unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Chinese ruleset) how do Chinese rules deal with things like 3 points without capture? \ \ \ Cheers, \ \ Mef (who honestly doesn't care what ruleset is used as long as he can use territory counting)[/QUOTE] \ \ Chinese rules don't have any special rulings about special shapes like 3 points without capture. If the players agree on the removal of some stones, they just remove them and count. If they disagree, then they play it out. The stones on the board are alive. These simple principles work in all situations. Special rulings are used in Japanese rules only. For instance the fate of bent four in the corner is determined by the playout in Chinese rules just like everything else, whereas Japanese rules assert that this shape always results in death." "DrStraw","","2006-07-29 05:17:43","This whole discussion seems to me as though it could only exist on a western forum. The western mindset is one which abhors vagueness and requires resolutions and exact definitions for everything. This, in my mind, is not a positive attitude. \ \ The game was invented in the east, by people who think in a different way to occidentals. Personally I prefer that way of thinking even though I find it hard to do because of the way I was trained. \ \ Until there are as many occidental players as oriental players we will have to accept the vagueness in the rules. Western Go organizations which try to make the rules exact are imposing their mindset on a game which has happily existed for 3000 years without it. \ \ You can argue all you want. Nothing is going to change. There is always going to be people like Robert Jasiek and Andrei Sokolov on one side and people who learnt to enjoy the game under oriental rules on the other. The sides are never going to come to a compromise. \ \ I sit soundly on the oriental side and consider it a waste of energy to dispute the minutiae. I do not play in tournaments which implement rules which require more study of the rules than study of the game (viz [url]http://senseis.xmp.net/?DisputeCsabaJasiek)[/url]. But I am not going to tell anyone that they cannot impede their go progress by spending hours attempting a western approach to the ruleset." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-07-29 08:26:14","[QUOTE=DrStraw]This whole discussion seems to me as though it could only exist on a western forum. The western mindset is one which abhors vagueness and requires resolutions and exact definitions for everything. This, in my mind, is not a positive attitude. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ \ I hear what you are saying but I think you misunderstood me. I like Chinese rules precisely because I do not want to worry about minutiae. I do not like when rules get in the way. I want to play the game, not worry about the rules. \ \ Not to mention as far as I know Chinese rules were invented in China, not in the west. Gu Li, Chen Yaoye and many other fine chinese pros grew up with these rules. So I don't feel like I am in a bad company." "erislover","","2006-07-29 09:50:10","[QUOTE=Mef]You must remember that the current Japanese rules are not written for beginners, if you have trouble understanding life and death as traditionally defined in Japan, and the ideas it leads to, then it's entirely likely these rules are not for you.[/quote]Oh, the japanese rules make a kind of sense. I find them absurd, but so is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and even Wonderland makes a kind of sense. The Japanese rules are very focused on territory and so the whole idea of not playing to capture and so on does indeed make sense in that light. It is merely a philosophical objection I have to such a preoccupation with territory that requires such complication. The beauty of go, for me, lies in its essential simplicity and I find japanese rules to align themselves directly against this essence. \ \ [quote]Unless I am misinterpreting this, you are claiming that, though there is a set of stones that white is unable to prevent black from capturing should black be able to play inside his own territory without penalty, should not be claimed as dead.[/quote]I am not disputing that they are dead under japanese rules. I am objecting to the japanese rules. :) \ [quote]Under chinese rules do you force all dead stones to be removed as well?[/quote]If you mean, do I force the capture of dead stones, then no. I can read life and death well enough in the endgame. \ [quote]In fact, it's this rule that allows Japanese scoring to be virtually the same as Chinese scoring, as a proponent of Chinese scoring I'd think you'd be in favor of keeping the two as similar as possible. [/quote]Well, the relative score is similar, sure. To me, it is a \"rule hack\" that allows scoring under unintuitive japanese rules to approximate the score in the simplicity of chinese rules. The rule hack lies in the dispute phase. In programming parlance, the Japanese rules have to be kludged. If there were unremovable ko threats, like sending two returning one for example, I would definitely suggest that the bent 4 is alive in seki. With the incredible whole-board thinking that came about from Shusaku on to the New Fuseki period, it is (to me) a shame to see such local-fight oriented thinking in the scoring phase. \ \ [quote]On a completely unrelated note (and as someone who is unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Chinese ruleset) how do Chinese rules deal with things like 3 points without capture?[/quote]There is no difference under Chinese rules in the points: either player can capture first and the score will be the same, so there is no impasse. There may be a ko question in the position if white takes first, but since you can truly remove your ko threats in Chinese, and since the result of \"ko threats removed + white takes first\" is the same as simply \"black takes first\" then white doesn't care anyway. \ \ Here is an sgf to illustrate it, though since the ending position is the same regardless of who plays first (including who fills the last dame), and since captures do not count, that the result is the same should be true without inspection. \ \ [sgf](;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:2]ST[2] \ RU[Chinese]SZ[7]KM[0.00] \ PW[Pipon]PB[Pipon]AW[ca][da][ab][bb][db][ac][bc][dc][ec][ed][ee][fe][ge]AB[ba][cb][cc][ad][bd][cd][dd][de][ef][ff][gf] \ (;B[] \ ;W[aa] \ ;B[ba] \ ;W[bb] \ ;B[bc] \ ;W[aa] \ ;B[ac] \ ;W[ba] \ ;B[ab] \ ;W[] \ ;B[]TW[ea][fa][ga][eb][fb][gb][fc][gc][fd][gd]TB[ae][be][ce][af][bf][cf][df][ag][bg][cg][dg][eg][fg][gg]C[No komi \ White 22 \ Black 27]) \ (;B[aa] \ ;W[bb] \ ;B[ab] \ ;W[ac] \ ;B[bc] \ ;W[ba] \ ;B[ab] \ ;W[aa] \ ;B[ac] \ ;W[] \ ;B[]TW[ea][fa][ga][eb][fb][gb][fc][gc][fd][gd]TB[ae][be][ce][af][bf][cf][df][ag][bg][cg][dg][eg][fg][gg]C[No komi \ White 22 \ Black 27])) \ [/sgf] \ [quote](who honestly doesn't care what ruleset is used as long as he can use territory counting)[/QUOTE]Hah, I don't care much either. It is just a philosophical distaste. :) I play Japanese online because we can skip the dame-filling stage." "DrStraw","","2006-07-29 10:33:50","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]I hear what you are saying but I think you misunderstood me. I like Chinese rules precisely because I do not want to worry about minutiae. I do not like when rules get in the way. I want to play the game, not worry about the rules. \ \ Not to mention as far as I know Chinese rules were invented in China, not in the west. Gu Li, Chen Yaoye and many other fine chinese pros grew up with these rules. So I don't feel like I am in a bad company.[/QUOTE] \ \ On the contrary. I do not misunderstand you at all. You are a westerner with a western approach to the rules. You want an exact set of rules you can follow so you do not have to worry about ambiguity. That is the western approach." "Hicham","","2006-07-31 09:15:32","My preference for Chinese like rules might just be because I am a Westerner, but I think there is more behind it.\ \ I learned the rules of the game from a book. I only played with another complete beginner, so we started from zero. Soon the question arose why some stones where dead when they still had liberties. \ Soon we discovered eyes, but this still did not answer why the other player did not lose points when taking the dead stones of the board. The basic rules given by the book did not answer this and the counting used was territory counting, so we remained confused for a while.\ \ My dislike for Japanese rules, stems from this. I did not make the jump to chinese rules untill I noticed that KGS often \"miscounts\" dame. It sucks losing (or even winning) a game because of this. \ \ Dr Straw, are you saying Japanese are more Oriental then Chinese? \ \ Mef, Chinese pro's play with Area scoring, nothing seems to go wrong there, so I don't get your point about the rules being there for the pro's.\ \ Personaly, I hope that the international rules they are making, will not be to complicated, because of needless compromising. I look forward to the day whereI do not have to justify myself on KGS for playing with Chines rules." "DrStraw","","2006-07-31 10:43:51","[QUOTE=Hicham]Dr Straw, are you saying Japanese are more Oriental then Chinese? [/QUOTE] \ \ No. I am saying that the oriental mind can usually deal with ambiguity better than the occidental mind. The Japanese rules are more vague than the Chinese rules therefore the occdental mind has more trouble with them. This says nothing about the distinction between the Japanese and Chinese minds. For all I know the Chinese me be more accepting of the Japanese rules than are westerners, even though they do not normally play with them." "Hicham","my 2 cents...","2006-07-31 12:01:06","I wouldn't call the current Japanese rules ambigious. I'd rather call them complicated. They are not vague, but quite precise, with a lot of explanations and exceptions. \ \ They may have started out as Dr Staw descibes them. The basic idea is nice, make estimating the score easier (just check the territory) and streamline the game by ommiting filling in dame. \ But then they ran into some rules disputes and start having more and more complicated rules. Partly because the basic rules of the game are not made with this way of counting in mind. \ These rules seem ok for normal play, but they are too complicated for beginners and because of the scoring ,they get overly complicated at times." "kex","","2006-08-01 05:39:10","[QUOTE=Hicham] \ They may have started out as Dr Staw descibes them. The basic idea is nice, make estimating the score easier (just check the territory) and streamline the game by ommiting filling in dame. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ But there is no streamlining here. See e.g. the Japanese rules 1989, article 8. If you do not fill dame, the groups are in seki, and thus you get no points from these groups. \ \ So under Japanese rules you can only streamline your game by omitting dame filling if you feel you do not need points. \ \ yours, \ Jouni" "Trevoke","","2006-08-01 06:48:04","I agree with DrStraw - the Japanese rules are good rules, though maybe not for beginners.\ I would only disagree with his labeling of 'vagueness', which, to me, is more reminiscent of the concept of politeness and respect which is omnipresent in the eastern cultures.\ \ Allow me to ask : Why do you resign? If the answer is \"Because I can't win anymore\", then you're missing half the equation.. Think about it." "Wildclaw","","2006-08-01 09:32:38","[QUOTE=kex]But there is no streamlining here. See e.g. the Japanese rules 1989, article 8. If you do not fill dame, the groups are in seki, and thus you get no points from these groups. \ \ So under Japanese rules you can only streamline your game by omitting dame filling if you feel you do not need points. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ While the scoring itself is based on the dame being filled, the players may agree to streamline the process and fill the dames after stopping the game (See Commentary on Article 9, End of the Game, Clause 2, Second paragraph). In practice this could of course be streamlined further by only imaginary filling the dames while counting. \ \ It is imporant to recognize that scoring and counting is two different things. Scoring includes counting, but also contains the details of how to handle superko, dame, seki, etc. Unfortunally is seems like every debate about counting is bound to sooner or later turn into a debate about scoring. \ \ In general when it comes to counting, I recommend anyone serious about go to try out both area and territory counting. While both methods mostly yield the same result, they each add a different way of looking at the board." "Mef","","2006-08-01 18:24:08","[QUOTE=Hicham] \ Mef, Chinese pro's play with Area scoring, nothing seems to go wrong there, so I don't get your point about the rules being there for the pro's. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ \ I don't recall ever saying anything about Chinese rules or chinese pros, so I don't quite get where this is coming from. My statement was that Japanese rules are written by the Japanese professionals for use in Japanese professional tournaments, therefore they implicitly assume that anyone using them can be expected to have a reasonable knowledge about the game (in fact, one could argue they assume you are a professional go player if you are using them) therefore simple questions about why lone stones are dead, or why certain stones don't really have to be captured are not a major issue, since one would hope that this knowledge would be gained on the road to becoming a pro. These problems only arise when (as is common) amateur players prefer to play by the same rules as their favorite professionals, and then they have problems or take issue with the way the rules are. In the end this is a problem with the player, not the rules. Luckily, until you find yourself in the NHK, you don't have to be bound by these rules. \ \ Cheers, \ \ Mef" "funkyj","westerners keeping good company","2006-08-01 18:54:59","[QUOTE=DrStraw]On the contrary. I do not misunderstand you at all. You are a westerner with a western approach to the rules. You want an exact set of rules you can follow so you do not have to worry about ambiguity. That is the western approach.[/QUOTE] \ \ Considering the [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoSeigen\"]Go Seigen[/URL], one of the greatest players of the twentieth century, [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?RuleDisputesInvolvingGoSeigen\"]abhorred the ambiguity[/URL] that you are so enamored with I think us western mindset people are in good company. \ \ It seems that the Nihon Ki-in, with their inelegant but complete 1989 rules, has also moved away from embracing ambiguity. \ \ The Ing foundation with their inscrutable [I]Ing Ko[/I] rule are the only folks embracing ambiguity these days. Of course even they will deny this and claim that their ko rule is perfectly complete, unambiguous and comprehensible but no computer program has ever been publicly released (the acid test of whether something is fully specified or not) that can enforce the Ing ko rule. You will notice that the only time pros ever play under the wacky Ing ko rule is in the generous Ing Cup. Not even in the land of wabi-sabi is anyone embracing the Ing ko rule." "funkyj","strawman argument","2006-08-01 19:32:32","[QUOTE]... The issue is whether B needs to connect on the edge. Under Japanese rules he loses a point by playing it and so has to read it out in full before playing. Under Chinese rules there is no loss by playing a protection move and then exchanging the dame afterwards.[/QUOTE] \ \ How apropos that DrStraw should submit a strawman argument. Yes, the official chinese rules have a defect relating to points awarded for dame. This defect is perpetuated not because it can not be easily fixed but because of tradition and inertia. \ \ For you rule neophytes here is an the fix (I'm sure DrStraw is familiar with this already): \ \ Under area scoring playing a dame is has a value of 2 points. \ \ [INDENT][B]Lemma[/B]: \ \ given a game in which there are 4 dame left score the following variations under area (chinese) scoring: \ [LIST] \ [*]black and white fill 2 dame each \ [*]black fills 3 dame, white fills 1 \ [*]black fills 4 dame, white fills 0 \ [/LIST] \ \ you will discover that the difference between black and white's score changes by 2 points for each dame in this example that we take from white and give to black .[/INDENT] \ \ SOLUTION: \ modify area scoring so that \ \ [LIST] \ [*]if white passes first 0.5 is added to his score and 0.5 is subtracted from black's score. \ [*]if black passes first no adjustment is made to the score. \ [/LIST] \ \ This rule (first mentioned by Ikeda, Toshiro?) fixes area scoring so that it gives the same results as Japanese territory scoring. I.e. in DrStraw's example, if black reinforces unnecessarily then white will pass first and gain a point. \ \ For a dense but complete explanation of this solution see Ikeda's [URL=\"http://gobase.org/studying/rules/ikeda/?sec=e4010000\"]Area Rules III[/URL] in [URL=\"http://gobase.org/studying/rules/ikeda/?sec=e_kokai\"]On the Rules of Go[/URL]. \ \ ====================== \ \ In summary, you do not need to use territory rules to punish unnecessary reinforcement as DrStraw suggests, you simply need to use Ikeda's area rules III. \ \ Of course you can get all the elegance and simplicity of area rules by using territory rules with pass stone and ending the game with 2 passes. (This differs from AGA rules which require white white to pass last). So if territory scoring makes you happier than use pass stones." "gohst","","2006-08-01 20:24:32","Mr. Jasiek, I presume? ;)" "Mef","","2006-08-01 20:42:24","[QUOTE=funkyj]How apropos that DrStraw should submit a strawman argument.[quote]\ \ It's not a strawman argument (however cute the pun would've been). DrStraw has not misrepresented a belief, he merely has posed an example where Chinese counting awards a point that Japanese does not. The use of examples to show \"flaws\" in rulesets is a common practice. \ \ [quote]\ SOLUTION:\ modify area scoring so that \ \ [LIST]\ [*]if white passes first 0.5 is added to his score and 0.5 is subtracted from black's score.\ [*]if black passes first no adjustment is made to the score.\ [/LIST]\ \ This rule (first mentioned by Ikeda, Toshiro?) fixes area scoring so that it gives the same results as Japanese territory scoring. I.e. in DrStraw's example, if black reinforces unnecessarily then white will pass first and gain a point.\ \ For a dense but complete explanation of this solution see Ikeda's [URL=\"http://gobase.org/studying/rules/ikeda/?sec=e4010000\"]Area Rules III[/URL] in [URL=\"http://gobase.org/studying/rules/ikeda/?sec=e_kokai\"]On the Rules of Go[/URL].\ \ [/quote]\ \ I must admit I haven't really ever read up on Ikdeda rules, but this sounds an awful lot like Button Go. Are they the same thing under different names? (Edit: I just re-read the post more carefully and realized they aren't the same, but I think they are similar)\ \ \ [quote]\ In summary, you do not need to use territory rules to punish unnecessary reinforcement as DrStraw suggests, you simply need to use Ikeda's area rules III.\ [/quote]\ \ I don't think DrStraw meant to imply that the only way this result was achieved was through Japanese scoring, simply that it was a difference between Chinese and Japanese scoring that made him prefer Japanese.\ \ [quote]\ Of course you can get all the elegance and simplicity of area rules by using territory rules with pass stone and ending the game with 2 passes. (This differs from AGA rules which require white white to pass last). So if territory scoring makes you happier than use pass stones.[/QUOTE]\ \ As much as I do love AGA rules, they are still Area scoring (though territory counting may be used). They will always return the same result as Chinese rules over Japanese rules. \ \ Cheers, \ \ Mef" "erislover","","2006-08-01 22:17:25","[QUOTE=funkyj]Yes, the official chinese rules have a defect relating to points awarded for dame.[/quote]How is this a \"defect\"?" "funkyj","","2006-08-02 01:16:30","[QUOTE=erislover]How is this a \"defect\"?[/QUOTE] \ \ The [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?TerritoryScoringVersusAreaScoring#toc4\"]granularity section of this page[/URL] on Sensei's Library covers the topic pretty well. \ \ Whether this is a defect is a matter of opinion. Most people seem to agree that the finer granularity of the traditional territory rules is better. \ \ Territory rules can be modified to give the same result as area rules (offficial [I]AGA rules[/I] do this) and area rules can be modified to give the same result as territory rules (Ikeda's [I]area rules III[/I] do this)." "Trevoke","","2006-08-02 06:05:07","Go Seigen's argument about the rules has to do with ko threats, which is, if I dare say so as the newbie that I am, a rather special situation (though some say, the essence of go)." "Andrei Sokolov","","2006-08-02 09:55:04","[QUOTE=funkyj]The [URL=\"http://senseis.xmp.net/?TerritoryScoringVersusAreaScoring#toc4\"]granularity section of this page[/URL] on Sensei's Library covers the topic pretty well.\ \ Whether this is a defect is a matter of opinion. Most people seem to agree that the finer granularity of the traditional territory rules is better.\ \ [/QUOTE]\ \ Could you please give a reference in support of your last assertion. I'm just curious to see the data.\ \ As for fine granularity, I find Chinese rules much finer than Japanese Rules. The reason is simple. When playing with Chinese rules you really need to think about the defects in your position and how they relate to filling the dame. By playing the dame incorrectly you can easily lose points and lose the game. With Japanese rules this whole layer of the game is lost completely. \ \ The example on senseis you're referring to is too contrived. Also, it is claimed there that Black can be sloppy and still not lose any points. This is not true. Even if Black fills the dame instead of destroying the eye, Black can still make a mistake. If Black passes prematurely, then White will fill the last dame and win. The point is that Black can make a mistake regardless of the rules used. Button Go mentioned on that page on senseis tries to make the game sharper than what you get with simple area scoring. This does not mean that territory scoring rules are sharper than area scoring rules by any measure. At any rate if ultimate sharpness of the game is a concern, I suggest that you should play nopass Go." "funkyj","","2006-08-02 11:36:54","[QUOTE=Andrei Sokolov]Could you please give a reference in support of your last assertion. I'm just curious to see the data.\ [/QUOTE]\ I have not performed a scientific study. My claim is based on discussions with Go rules experts and professional players.\ \ [QUOTE]\ As for fine granularity, I find Chinese rules much finer than Japanese Rules. \ \ The reason is simple. When playing with Chinese rules you really need to think about the defects in your position and how they relate to filling the dame. By playing the dame incorrectly you can easily lose points and lose the game. With Japanese rules this whole layer of the game is lost completely. \ [/QUOTE]\ \ Words are a fine thing but please provide some examples to illustrate your point.\ \ [QUOTE]\ The example on senseis you're referring to is too contrived. Also, it is claimed there that Black can be sloppy and still not lose any points. This is not true. Even if Black fills the dame instead of destroying the eye, Black can still make a mistake. If Black passes prematurely, then White will fill the last dame and win. The point is that Black can make a mistake regardless of the rules used.\ [/QUOTE]\ \ If Black passes prematurely?! What if black fills all his own eyes and white captures him? Neither of these options is relevant to the granularity argument.\ \ In the [I]contrived [/I]granularity example on SL:\ [LIST]\ [*]Japanese rules score the two different ways of playing the endgame differently \ [*] Chinese rules score the two different way of playing the same. \ [/LIST]\ While you may be capable of determining which way is best under Japanese rules, why bother if you are playing under chinese rules? This is what is meant by granularity. \ \ Consider a new game, that is just like Go but only captured stones are counted, not territory or area. Is this game more or less granular (or sharp) than regular Go? Why or why not?\ \ As contrived as the Sensei's Library example is, at least it is an example. Please provide example positions that show how Chinese rules require more careful play than Japanese rules.\ \ \ ======================\ \ NOTE: I use the terms [I]Japanese rules[/I] and [I]Chinese rules[/I] above to denote traditional forms of territory and area scoring respectively. There are version of area rules that give the same result as Japanese rules (e.g. Ikeda's area rules III) and versions of territory rules that give the same result as Chinese rules (e.g. territory scoring under AGA rules)." "Nate","","2006-08-02 11:43:40","Perhaps this thread should be moved to a different section.. it truly no longer resembles a \"beginner thread\"..." "DrStraw","","2006-08-02 11:50:48","[QUOTE=Nate]Perhaps this thread should be moved to a different section.. it truly no longer resembles a \"beginner thread\"...[/QUOTE] \ \ Never did :) \ \ Now it look like it is turning into a dialogue between two rules pedants." "funkyj","","2006-08-02 12:02:49","[QUOTE=zinger]The main reason that I prefer Japanese rules is practicality: with a real goban and stones, it is easier to count the score. Does that count as objective? [/QUOTE] \ \ No. With practice you can count quickly with area rules too. Here are some tips: \ [LIST] \ [*]only count one side. The other side's score is equal to [I]board_size - your_score[/I]. \ [*]you can add or remove stones without changing the score. This makes it easy to round out your territory to multiples of 5 or 10 points. \ [*]after you have counted your territory, count your stones by arranging them into piles of 10 stones. \ [/LIST] \ \ If you watch chinese players who have been counting this way since the first day they learned go you will see them do it very quickly. \ \ Of course sticking with the scoring method you first learned because you are most comfortable with it is a fine reason to chose territory scoring over area scoring." "erislover","","2006-08-02 12:09:02","[quote]While you may be capable of determining which way is best under Japanese rules, why bother if you are playing under chinese rules? This is what is meant by granularity.[/quote]I understand the term \"granularity\", but the argument is a begged question that japanese rules are the stanadard by which others should be judged. For instance, the conclusion at the SL page suggests:[quote]In practice that means that in most endgames errors that would result in a loss of one point by territory scoring may not affect the area result. In that sense territory scoring is sharper than area scoring.[/quote]In other words, \"If the rules are different, best play is different.\" No kidding. If things were different they wouldn't be the same." "Mef","","2006-08-02 14:24:17","[QUOTE=DrStraw]Never did :) \ \ Now it look like it is turning into a dialogue between two rules pedants.[/QUOTE] \ \ \ In that case perhaps it's time to move this to rgg?" "Hicham","Keep it friendly, please.","2006-08-02 14:55:51","If you don't like people discussing rules, then just don't read their posts, but don't condesend (Is this good English?) them. Especially if that is the only reason of psoting. Nobody went out of line, so why complain? \ \ I for one, have the feelng I am learning something here." "funkyj","","2006-08-02 16:30:44","[QUOTE=Hicham]If you don't like people discussing rules, then just don't read their posts, but don't condesend (Is this good English?) [/QUOTE] \ \ Yes, that is a good english use of the word [I]condescend[/I]. I agree that the post you are responding to added nothing interesting to the discussion. \ \ \ I think I have made it clear that for amateurs the exact scoring method used has little practical impact on the outcome of a game and [B]it is not my goal to convert you[/B] to the [I]best scoring method[/I]. The discussion of various aspect of different Go rules is intended to amuse those folks who find the subject interesting." "funkyj","Hmm, where is the FAQ for this on SL?","2006-08-02 16:36:07","[QUOTE=Sekuhara]Hi, I'm very new at Go and just truying to get a better grasp on the rules, in particular, how to count the territories after the game ends. \ \ ... \ \ Basically rules describe territory counting disputes like \"if the players do not agree they may just continue playing\", so this method would apply. How is it done in the real games? Do the players just declare the spoiling stone as \"dead\" and completely ignore it as if it doesn't spoil the territory? \ \ ... \ [/QUOTE] \ \ I did a quick search on Sensei's Library and I'm surprised that I didn't find some sort of Territory Scoring FAQ that answers your question. Heaven knows every beginner who learns territory scoring asks this question!" "Lio","","2006-08-09 14:35:04","Ive read most of this thread and im very new to Go and im totaly lost as of this momement. \ \ The link to GoBase.org that had the rules of Ikeda Toshio, was way over my head. \ \ I think i understand the chinese rules and that of area counting whics was explained early in the thread. \ But as it was mentioned before somewhere, isnt it unfair that one can defend excesive without losing points? or will it in the end be his own downfall since that takes plays from him that he spend defending just becouse he cant read if a group is alive or dead, that he could have played else where? \ \ Also can someone tell me what kind of scoring they use at IGS, where i have startet to play online. \ \ What im really confused about is if i should take stones that the enemy place in my own territory, when i can see he cant posibly gain any foot hold? But by going after him, i clutter up my own territory and lose points but at the same time i will also capture some of his and ofc gain the free intersection that he occuipied. \ \ Ive tried to take a game that i played, and play all that i could until the whole board only consisted of single eyes. All that happend was that the intruder actualy lost or didnt gain anything from trying to clutter up taken territory? \ Can i draw any conclusion from that? But again i dont know what kind of score system IGS uses? Could anyone tell me? \ Ive tried looking at there webside, but its very confuseing to me. \ Thx for any help :)" "xed_over","","2006-08-09 15:28:47","I believe, you can choose either system on IGS\ \ The whole idea is that regardless of scoring system, you don't want to make unnecessary moves, because one way or another, they could ultimately cost you the game.\ \ [QUOTE=Lio]What im really confused about is if i should take stones that the enemy place in my own territory, when i can see he cant posibly gain any foot hold? But by going after him, i clutter up my own territory and lose points but at the same time i will also capture some of his and ofc gain the free intersection that he occuipied.[/QUOTE]\ So, with Japanese scorring, your opponent loses a point playing in your territory because it will eventually get captured. If you have to respond to his play, to make sure it does eventually gets captured (though you still don't have to actually capture it), then you too will lose a point -- each lose a point, so current score doesn't change.\ \ With Chinese scoring, prisoners don't count, so your opponent doesn't lose any points, and playing in your own territory won't cost you any points either since both stones and territory are counted. So again, current score doesn't change.\ \ So for this case: Japanese score = Chinese score\ \ There are cases where this is not always true, but you probably won't need to worry about those cases yet.\ \ Either way, try to find the most efficient move to either 1) gain more territory, 2) reduce your opponent's territory, 3) capture your opponent's groups (thus gaining more territory), 4) protect your own groups from being captured.\ \ Playing any other move is like passing your turn. You might as well not played and just let your opponent play twice :)\ \ (I'm sure the experts here might disagree on some of my oversimplified points, but at our level, its probably enough for now)" "Wildclaw","","2006-08-09 15:51:04","[QUOTE=Lio], isnt it unfair that one can defend excesive without losing points? or will it in the end be his own downfall since that takes plays from him that he spend defending just becouse he cant read if a group is alive or dead, that he could have played else where? [/QUOTE] \ \ You answered your own question. The penalty for responding to a move that you don't have to is that you lose a move. \ \ You will also lose a point (or in the case of area scoring, fail to gain a point elsewhere on the board). In either case, don't do it. \ \ [QUOTE=Lio] \ What im really confused about is if i should take stones that the enemy place in my own territory, when i can see he cant posibly gain any foot hold? \ [/QUOTE] \ \ No, you shouldn't. They are yours already. It is your territory, so those will become your prisoners at the end of the game. \ \ [QUOTE=Lio] \ But by going after him, i clutter up my own territory and lose points but at the same time i will also capture some of his and ofc gain the free intersection that he occuipied. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ Those intersections will be yours at the end of the game, as those enemy stones become your prisoners. \ \ [QUOTE=Lio] \ Ive tried to take a game that i played, and play all that i could until the whole board only consisted of single eyes. All that happend was that the intruder actualy lost or didnt gain anything from trying to clutter up taken territory? \ Can i draw any conclusion from that? \ [/QUOTE] \ \ At the end of the game, when there is no territory left to take and no neutral areas left to take the following applies. \ \ Area scoring: You don't lose points by playing in your own territory or your enemies territory (unless you manage to take the territory of course, in which case it really wasn't the end of the game) \ \ Territory scoring: If you play in your own or your opponents area you will lose a point. (If the opponent responds he will also lose a point so it evens out.) \ \ [go]$$The exchange 1-2 will cause no change in the score in neither territory or area scoring. 3 and 5 will cause black to lose a point for each, if and only if you are using territory scoring, (5 will become white's prisoner at the end of the game, while 3 takes away one point of blacks territory) \ $$ - - - - - - - - - | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| X X X X X X X 5 X | \ $$| X O O O O O O X X | \ $$| O 1 2 . . . O X X | \ $$| . O . . . . O O O | \ $$| . . . . . . . . 3 | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ - - - - - - - - - | \ [/go]" "Lio","","2006-08-09 17:15:16","man now im even more lost then before :confused: \ \ If we have this. Wouldnt it be likely that a good player against me could establish some sort of group that could live inside my territory? I really thought i had this figured out, but i guess i didnt :( \ I understand how a group or chain can be alive if it have 2 eyes. But a big area of territory like in the pic below. Woudlnt it be possible to get someting out of it? Or atleast try? \ \ Also when you play on the net, its up to the computer to decide ifa group is alive or not, isnt it? and they have a hard time doing it dont they? I use glGo as a client for my IGS games, when i ask it to settle score, it counts prisoners, but only those taken. Those still on the board counts as alive no matter what. And since they are inside the enemys territory he can lose it all pretty much if just 1 enemy stone is connectet to his grid of free intersections. But im not sure if that is how IGS calucaltes it, but if it is, there is nothing else to do but to play it out? \ \ [go] \ $$ - - - - - - - - - | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| X X X X X X X . X | \ $$| X O O O O O O X X | \ $$| O . . . . . O X X | \ $$| . O . . . . O O O | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$| . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ - - - - - - - - - | \ [/go]" "Wildclaw","","2006-08-09 18:30:12","[QUOTE=Lio]man now im even more lost then before :confused: \ \ If we have this. Wouldnt it be likely that a good player against me could establish some sort of group that could live inside my territory? \ [/QUOTE] \ \ It is quite difficult to establish a base inside a territory that is completly surrounded. The presence of enemy stones makes all the difference in the world. \ \ [QUOTE] \ But a big area of territory like in the pic below. Woudlnt it be possible to get someting out of it? Or atleast try? \ [/QUOTE] \ \ You can always try, but unless the defender makes any serious mistakes, the attacker would fail. As a beginner you will of course make mistakes at first, but you will hopefully learn from them. \ \ \ [QUOTE] \ I use glGo as a client for my IGS games, when i ask it to settle score, it counts prisoners, but only those taken. Those still on the board counts as alive no matter what. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ You have to manually mark groups as dead. This is done by clicking on them in the scoring phase. If both player's can't agree on which groups are dead, resume play. This is where area scoring may be better for true beginners. Since you won't lose points by playing in your own or enemies territory, you can continue until both sides are satisfied without having to worry about altering the score. \ \ After you play for a while, it will become more obvious which territory belongs to which player so there will be fewer disputes. Playing igowin (a free 9x9 go software) is another good way to learn how to count territory, since it does it automatically. (And it is correct most of the time)" "funkyj","","2006-08-09 19:06:13","[QUOTE=kex]I am pretty sure that this is not the case. If it were like this, the status of the group would depend on the playing skills of the players. The phrase \"hypothetical perfect play\" means that the group is living or dead even if the players would not be able to kill/save the group.[/QUOTE] \ \ The rules being discussed above are the 1989 Official Japanese (Nihon Kiin) rules. These rules were crafted to: \ [LIST] \ [*]not change the outcome of old game records \ [*]resolve disputes between professional players \ [/LIST] \ \ These rules were not crafted to: \ [LIST] \ [*]be easy for beginners to understand \ [*]be as simple as possible \ [/LIST] \ \ Rules disputes between pros are rare. When they do occur it is because ''hypothetical perfect play'' is less than obvious. In the case where professional Go players can not agree on what is perfect play the rules, as a practical matter, [B]do rely on the skill of the players[/B] to determine the status of disputed groups. \ \ There is a reason the AGA does not use the official rules from a professional Go organization -- The AGA rules are crafted with the goals of \ [LIST] \ [*]being simple for beginners to use \ [*]making area scoring and territory scoring agree (FYI: they do this by making the AGA territory scoring technique give the same result as traditional area scoring) \ [/LIST] \ \ If you are a beginner and want simplicity then use the AGA rules. You can count using traditional territory scoring techniques or area scoring techniques as you prefer. \ \ If you take it on faith that AGA territory scoring gives the same result as AGA area scoring (the agebraic proof of this fact is not difficult to follow) then it is a simple matter to conclude that playing beyond ''the end of the game'' (assuming you don't kill your own living stones) does not change the score. \ \ Like other Go teaching veterans, I teach beginners area scoring so that I don't have to have long discussions about why dead stones should be removed without actually playing the capturing moves." "funkyj","scoring equivalence explained.","2006-08-09 19:58:25","[QUOTE=xed_over]I have to admit, that its not yet clearing up for me either, and I don't yet have another question formulated.[/QUOTE] \ \ [INDENT] \ Let [I]Va[/I] be the value of a move under area scoring. \ \ Let [I]Vt[/I] be the value of a move under territory scoring. \ [/INDENT] \ Then we have \ [INDENT] \ [I]Va = Vt + 1[/I] \ [/INDENT] \ Example: \ \ [go]$$B Diagram 1: How much is A worth? \ $$ --------------------------------------- \ $$ | O O O a O . O . O . . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | X X X X O O O O O . . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | . X . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | X X X X . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | \ $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | \ [/go] \ \ \ Under Territory scoring [B]a[/B] is worth 6 points \ [LIST] \ [*]3 for prisoners captured (or rescued) \ [*]3 for territory taken (or denied to the opponent) \ [/LIST] \ \ Under Area rules [B]a[/B] is worth 7 points \ [LIST] \ [*]3 points denied your opponent \ [*]3 points gained \ [*]1 point for the move you played \ [/LIST] \ \ \ \ Now given this sample position ... \ [go]$$B Diagram 2:Cost of filling territory? \ $$ --------------------------------------- \ $$ | O O O a O c . . O . O . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | X X X X O O O O O O O . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | b X . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | \ $$ | . X X X . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | \ $$ | X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | \ [/go] \ \ \ \ [B]Scenario 1[/B]: Black is stupid, white is not. \ \ Black plays at [B]b[/B] in the diagram above followed by white [B]a[/B]. \ \ [INDENT]Area scoring: \ [LIST] \ [*]Black's move gains 0 points, \ [*]white's move gains 7 points \ This changes the score of the game by 7 points in white's favor. \ \ Territory scoring: \ [LIST] \ [*]Black's move loses 1 point \ [*]white's move gains 6 points. \ [/LIST] \ This changes the score of the game by ... (wait for it) 7 points in white's favor! (what a surprise) \ [/INDENT] \ [B] \ Scenario 2[/B]: black is stupid, white is stupid \ \ Black plays at [B]b[/B] followed by white [B]c[/B]. \ \ Area scoring: \ [LIST] \ [*]black's move gains 0 points \ [*]white's move gains 0 points. \ [/LIST] \ The total game score changes by 0 points. \ \ Territory scoring \ [LIST] \ [*]black's move loses 1 point (or adds -1 to blacks score if you prefer) \ [*]white's move loses 1 point \ [/LIST] \ the total game score is changed by 0 points. \ \ [B]Scenario 3[/B]: black is smart, white is stupid. \ \ Black plays [B]a[/B] followed by white [B]c[/B]. (left as an exercise for the student). \ \ \ \ Get it? :D \ \ It is like asking the question \"I played an endgame move worth 9 points. Is that good or bad?\". The goodness or badness of your move depends on context: Did your opponent's next move take 1 point, 5 points or 12 points? If his next move was worth more than your previous move then your move was bad. \ \ Likewise, the cost of a stupid move under both area scoring and territory scoring depends on your opponents next move. As long as there are moves of value left in the game (i.e. before both player should pass) the cost of making a stupid move is the same under area scoring and territory scoring. \ \ [B]Once the game should be over (i.e. expert players know to pass) then then territory scoring continues to punish stupid moves while area scoring does not.[/B]" "funkyj","","2006-08-09 20:07:38","[QUOTE=gohst]Mr. Jasiek, I presume? ;)[/QUOTE] \ \ No, I am neither as obsesses with the rules of Go nor as strong a Go player as Robert Jasiek. :p" "Lio","","2006-08-10 01:39:14","[QUOTE=Wildclaw] \ You have to manually mark groups as dead. This is done by clicking on them in the scoring phase. If both player's can't agree on which groups are dead, resume play. This is where area scoring may be better for true beginners. Since you won't lose points by playing in your own or enemies territory, you can continue until both sides are satisfied without having to worry about altering the score. \ [/QUOTE] \ \ omg, thx i didnt realize this. I did notice one game that my apponent, was removing some stones, but tbh i had no clue what was happening, and just thought it was the computer. Ill go practice now i think :D \ \ thx again. \ \ Nice one FunkyJ, it makes it clear i think. But another question, is territory score considered japanese rules and area scoring chinese? or do i mix it all together and in fact its 4 different rule sets?" "xed_over","","2006-08-10 06:22:58","[QUOTE=Lio] But another question, is territory score considered japanese rules and area scoring chinese? [/QUOTE] \ yes"