How do you know when not to invade?

jts · **#21**

illluck wrote:

Just a random point: I'm not sure about the timing of the Chinese and Japanese rules. I guess you can claim that Chinese rules as we know it come later, but it (area scoring) really is the fundamental counting method (with group tax) much earlier than the Japanese rules (territory scoring). In other words, if there were ever a time when people played until the board was filled, it ended very early.

I think territory were more used as a quick count alternative to area scoring and was passed to Japan where it became more popular than area scoring.

Of course, I'm not an expert (or even reasonably knowledgeable) on this, but it seems weird to claim that Chinese rules came after Japanese rules.

This is actually what Chen Yaoye claimed in the article John F. translated and linked to a while ago. The same claim was on Sensei's even earlier, presumably based on the same textual evidence. The order doesn't really matter, of course - what I'm trying to communicate is that both Japanese and Chinese rules are developments from the same game, with slightly different ideas about how to skip filling the board "to overflowing," as the ancient manuals put it, at the end.* The strategy is the same in both games.** There is no way for a player to change the result in territory scoring to something other than what it would have been in area scoring by petulantly insisting that a player fill in his own territory, because either set of rules has been specifically designed to make the result the same as it would in the parent rule set, minus the laborious filling in of the entire board.***

* Except for the group tax, but this doesn't matter to beginners who are still confused about the rule sets!
** Except for 1/3 point kos! Thanks, Robert! Doesn't matter to beginners!
*** I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say about unremovable ko threats.

Bill Spight · **#22**

Sneegurd wrote:

Quote:

It depends on a ruleset a bit (with chinese rules you don't lose points by playing inside your own territory, so this aspect is easier to grasp for beginners). Here black has to be careful not to end in seki, but generally if white plays in his territory, black can say (to himself) "no, you cannot kill me or make seki" and pass. If white continues, he can ignore until it threatens his life and then capture white. Notice that even then he doesn't need to physically capture every white stone, if they don't have chance to live / kill black. If white doesn't agree with him, they can play the situation out.

OK, but if I wouldn't agree as white, I mean if I insist on "you cannot kill me" (even if I know better) we have to play it out. Then black will kill white, but to achieve this, he needs to play inside his territory. And with japanese rules, he loses points then! Is that right?

Under Japanese rules you do not have to play it out. Pros certainly would not. (The pros have their own rules, but they know what is going on.) Beginners might want to play it out to make sure. There are a couple of ways to play it out and keep the score the same. One is to play it out with captured stones. If there are not enough captured stones, then the players trade an equal number of stones. Another way is for each player to make the same number of plays, and to give up a stone as a prisoner if they pass.

Another way to handle this situation is to play by Chinese rules or AGA rules, in which case the capture will obviously not cost anything.

Bill Spight · **#23**

illluck wrote:

Just a random point: I'm not sure about the timing of the Chinese and Japanese rules. I guess you can claim that Chinese rules as we know it come later, but it (area scoring) really is the fundamental counting method (with group tax) much earlier than the Japanese rules (territory scoring). In other words, if there were ever a time when people played until the board was filled, it ended very early.

I think territory were more used as a quick count alternative to area scoring and was passed to Japan where it became more popular than area scoring.

Of course, I'm not an expert (or even reasonably knowledgeable) on this, but it seems weird to claim that Chinese rules came after Japanese rules.

The earliest known scored game records (in China) apparently use territory scoring with a group tax. The earliest known rules for scoring apparently use area scoring with a group tax. Which came first? That is a matter of speculation.

Some people think that the original game was simply no pass go (at least up until the board was filled with live stones). But that game would not be the same as area scoring with a group tax. To get something like that you have to let the players return a prisoner instead of making a play on the board. And that, dear friends, is a form of territory scoring.

(In area scoring prisoners don't count.

)

illluck · **#24**

Wow, this is very interesting - I've always been under the impression that area scoring came first and territory scoring was developed later for ease of estimating score. Thanks a lot to jts and Bill for the correction!

Bill Spight · **#25**

illluck wrote:

Wow, this is very interesting - I've always been under the impression that area scoring came first and territory scoring was developed later for ease of estimating score. Thanks a lot to jts and Bill for the correction!

If, and it's a big if, go was originally a no pass game, then I think that territory scoring came first, since prisoners would count. But the converse does not hold true. If go started out as a game of capture, so that prisoners counted, it is not clear that territory would count, too. For instance, if Black played last and filled a dame, the prisoner count would reflect territory, but if she filled a point of territory, it would not.

See this New in Go entry: http://www.gogod.co.uk/NewInGo/ChenZuyuan_2.htm . The DunHuang classic states, "stones more is winner”. Chen interprets that to mean that the player with more stones on the board wins, but it could mean that the player who has captured more stones wins.

I am inclined to agree with Chen, but the two games are approximately the same. Some time ago John Fairbairn mentioned the possibility that both territory and area scoring coexisted in China and then the territory form died out. That is an attractive idea.

jts · **#26**

Ah yes, clearly I meant Chen Zuyuan, not Chen Yaoye. Thank you for posting the link, Bill.

How do you know when not to invade?

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