It is an often perpetuated misconception that you cannot play things out under territory-scoring. You do, I do, and everybody else does as well. Why? Because the potential of being wrong is much more costly than anything different scoring methods can affect.




In practice, when beginners try to play out contested positions, the amount of mistakes that happen in such case greatly outweights the possible loss or gain of a single point due to scoring rules. These mistakes 'mysteriously' affect the score to a much greater extend than any differences in scoring method. And anyways - this only goes when you 'try things out' after the very last dame is filled.

For more advanced players, this argument is moot since things get played out long before final dame is filled, so making unnecessary moves within your own areas costs you the same points as under territory scoring.

PS>
Here is what I think:

- the whole bogus and over-dramatized 'play it out without penalty' argument - it applies to maybe a tiny fraction of a percent of the situations, but in practice - its pretty much meaningless.
- using the scoring method people around you use, so you know what's going on when you go to the club - priceless! If it happens to be area scoring - sweet. If not, no problem.
- on a server - not really much of a point.

And I like the idea that you actually have to *think* before making inside moves, rather than blindly playing. I find it very elegant that for each move you make you have to consider price-to-cost ratio and weight it out before you play. Trying to make a whole bunch of moves 'meaningless in terms of score' or 'no cost no matter what' - even if true - would go against the spirit of the game, I think.

So, good thing that area scoring for most part and in most practical situations imposes the same penalties on pointless moves inside your own areas as territory scoring does. And you trying to pretend it does not - its just incorrect. Especially when talking about beginners.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Bravo. Excellent job of obfuscating an otherwise clear issue. We're talking about beginners being able to play things out on the board and score the game, without having to agree on dead-stone removal. I have no idea what you mean by, "You do, I do, and everybody else does as well."



There's nothing mysterious about it. In fact, that's the entire point. If it can be killed "hypothetically" by "agreement", under Chinese-style rules the score remains the same if you actually play to kill it. Under Japanese rules, the score doesn't remain the same. If a mistake occurs in playout under Chinese-style rules, there is nothing mysterious about it. It's just a mistake, and something to learn from.



Here's what I think. You've got blinders on, as any beginner will encounter the logical confusion of having to agree to what is alive and dead in their very first game. In this very thread we were told the original poster resigned rather than attempt to score the game. Yet instead of acknowledging this problem, demonstrated countless times over the years in online discussions, you ignore it and try to pass it off as not a practical problem.



How about instead of insisting that people need to learn from a club, that instead beginners use rules that are beginner friendly, and then you can easily explain the difference for territory rules once they have some games under their belt.



Ah, more "spirit of the game" fallback nonsense. We've seen the same nonsense by being told Westerners are trying to impose their way of thinking on the East, but Go originated in China, not Japan, and the Chinese use area scoring rules.



Huh? I agree, area scoring imposes those penalties for the most part in practical situations. I was arguing that very case to DrStraw. It's actually a commonly held myth that Japanese rules are special in this regard.

I mean, and this answers the rest of your post pretty much as well, that the case in which area scoring is presented as superior to territory scoring is very very rare, if it even happens at all. In most cases, regardless of scoring method, group status is determined long before the last dame is filled. This should go for both beginners and advanced players. Thus I said: you do, I do, and everybody else does as well.

To be precise, the only case I can think of that what you suggests holds true is:
- after game ended (i.e. two passes or whatever) AND
- there is a disagreement about status of a group, AND
- the score is very close, like 0.5 points or something

In those rare situations I give you that area scoring allows one party to add a single stone to the position without affecting the score.

However - if you talk about 'determining the status of the group without penalty' - this is highly suspect, especially in beginner games. If there is a longer sequence involved, after the end of the game, that the players need to play out to determine the proper status - proper determination requires a more-or-less perfect sequence, which is mostly wishful thinking. When beginners start putting stones on the board, anything can happen... dead group can be alive, live group can die, the surrounding stones can die, it can end in seki, whatever. The scoring method they use is the least of their problems!

So arguing that area scoring somehow allows beginners to determine the proper status of a group in cases of disagreement - puh-leeze... That's just bogus.

Before the game ends, if there are concern about status - it needs to be played out, and the fact that it costs points to make unnecessary moves is very good, imho - and it applies to each scoring method, so no advantage here.

So, as I have stated in my previous post: I still give the overwhelming advantage to using the scoring method which is used around you. Whichever this might be. Anything else is smoke-screen.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

This is a joke when it comes to beginners, and that's why I say you have blinders on. The logical confusion around Japanese rules for beginners has been documented countless times, in threads you have participated in. In this very thread we were told by the beginner he resigned rather than score the game:

"The hard part was with dead stones. Even after understanding the rules, I would get to the end of a game and second guess myself on what is dead/alive (Maybe this has nothing to do with how hard it is to learn Japanese rules v.s. me being insecure about what I call a dead stone). Also I worry about objections from the other player. I get to the end of the game, and feel overwhelmed at deciding what stays and what goes. (Have not made it through many end games.) [..] It is very frustrating to not be able to feel confident about finishing a game from beginning to resignation/end. [..] The reason example 1 ended in resignation is because I did not know when or how to end the game."

Under Chinese-style rules, "When in doubt, play it out." There's nothing confusing about that. Under Japanese rules, the score mysteriously changes, so players typically don't play things out, and a playout method typically isn't even taught.



And yet you ignore the countless beginners who just can't make sense of Japanese-style rules, for good reason. This is absurd when an easy alternative exists for a game that is supposed to have simple rules but be hard to master to play well.



It also can take several stones to fully remove a dead group from the board, not just a single one.



You just don't get it. The "proper" status of the group isn't hypothetical play between perfect players. The status of any stone on the board should be determined by the skill of the players through play. That experienced players can normally agree without actually playing is a shortcut. Japanese rules have lost this aspect so that you can't just forego the shortcut if there's any uncertainty. This is a severe penalty for beginners when learning the game.



*laugh* You really are clueless. Player A thinks a group is alive (common among beginners who don't understand false eyes and such). Player B thinks the group is dead, but doesn't want to lose points taking it off the board. Which ruleset lets you play on using the same rules you were using before without changing the score for Player B? Are you still going to say it's "very good" that it costs points to determine the status? Is it "very good" beginners are confused and can't end games, confident that they are playing according to the rules?



I give the overwhelming advantage to rules that don't confuse beginners with logical inconsistencies, that are simple to teach, and that let them confidently play and teach other beginners. Those are Chinese-style rules.

Ah! A rules dispute. Nothing quite like it for heating the blood.

Although this thread is in the Beginners forum, this post records the
views of an experienced (but still weak) British player.

I learnt to play 40 years ago with a group of other beginners using the
rules as defined in a little note with the Ariel set we had. As far
as I can remember, the games were mostly attempts to capture as many of
the opponent's stones as possible, and we never had any problems with
knowing when the game had ended or deciding the status of groups.

Soon after that, I began to play in tournaments, which exclusively used Japanese
rules, as informally understood and passed on from player to player, with
per-move byoyomi. I never experienced a triple ko, or torazu san moku or
any other of the odd positions. There must have been some cases where
"bent four in the corner" was significant, but I would probably have been
(and still am) too weak to notice. Seki has been rare in my games, and
I can't recall any game where the issue of points in a seki would have
affected the outcome.

When I resumed playing in 2012, things were different. BGA tournaments now
use the AGA version of Chinese rules, with situational superko and Canadian
overtime. Games in the two clubs I visit still use Japanese rules, with
absolute time limits.

There are practical differences between the two rule sets in tournament play.
In order to get the correct exchange of pass stones with AGA rules and territory counting,
all the dame have to be played out with the clock still running. This means that
it is advisable to keep some time in reserve to avoid blunders during dame filling,
especially if one's opponent does not like to resign even when 30 points
behind, or when playing with tight time limits that leave no time to work
out whether to resign.

I quite like the dame-filling phase with Japanese rules: after two hours of
struggling with one's opponent, it is nice to decompress and cooperate with
him or her to fill the dame in consultation, then rearrange and count the board.

So in practice, I prefer Japanese rules. In theory, I would like everyone to
use the same rules world-wide, as happens with Western Chess. Worldwide rules
would have to be logical, and as simple as possible for ease of translation and
understanding, and for implementation in software. AGA/Chinese rules are therefore
better in theory. In reality, I'll try to understand and conform to the local
standards, like everyone else.

One more thing: Canadian overtime is better in tournaments. If my game finishes
early, I can stand around and watch other games being played out without any risk
of being asked to act as a time-keeper for count-down byo-yomi. Idle players used
to leave the playing area promptly to avoid this fate.

Edited for clarity on 14 September 2013.

Paper Tiger: no need to be so nasty.

Bantari: I think you're making the mistake of giving reasons why under Japanese rules, well informed players will rarely be at a loss for what to do. But that doesn't tell us much about a game between two absolute beginners.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

You are right.

Here is the answer to you and to PaperTiger. Not going to respond to his nasty post, nyah nyah.

What I cannot see is - why cannot the same beginners just 'play things out' under japanese rules? What is preventing them?
When I was beginner playing other beginners - this is exactly what I did. It never occurred to me that it is 'confusing' or 'impossible' or even to resign the game rather than count. I mean really? I accept that situations like this might happen, and that people reacting like that might exist, but these day and age we are not living in vacuum.

I don't accept a scenario where two guys learning Go from a one-page pamphlet found in a dumpster in a remote village somewhere, without electricity or internet. They make the board out of paper and use buttons form stones, and try to 'play Go.' Does this happen anymore? And even if it does - I assert that those two will never really play any serious Go unless they get exposed to the culture and the community surrounding the game - and this includes more materials, help, and advice. Without it, regardless of the scoring method, they will probably shortly abandon Go and start playing Snakes and Ladders or something.

I know - I was in this position myself with Bridge once... learned from a newspaper article, made my cards by cutting packing paper and drawing card values on the pieces... was fun for a while, and then we started playing checkers. And it was not a commentary on the quality of Bridge as a game - just on the fact that without some kind of immersion, serious games like that never really catch on, I think, they are just too complex, no matter which exact rules you use. Or in terms of bridge - which exact convention.

So, when we disregard the rare/fictional case of remote couple playing with buttons and scratching their heads over the rules, what does it leave? Beginners with access to clubs, servers, internet materials, and whatnot. It is very hard for me to accept that with so much potential help around the choice of scoring method can make or break a Go player. Go offers much bigger challenges that that, especially to a beginner, and with a little help the scoring is easily accomplished. And if at some point there is no help around, nothing is stopping them from playing things out and learning... even if one of them loses a point by mistake.

And anyways... the assertion was that with further play after disagreement the score can 'mysteriously' change. It sure can, but it is due to the beginners making mistakes, not to the fact of playing itself. And beginners will make mistakes regardless of scoring method. So to me the whole argument is bogus, sorry.

Bottom line, and this is important to understand about my argument:
I am not against area scoring. I am not even trying to argue that it is not in some ways superior to territory scoring. All I am saying that, in my opinion, the most *important* factor in choosing this or that scoring method is: what are people around me use? And use the same as they do - because this will make life much less confusing that picking a method nobody around you uses. Especially to a beginner. Even if the method happens to be, in the opinion of some people, superior.

So, to me, if we are to change a scoring method, it is not by insisting beginners learn it instead of what everybody around uses. We can only change it by convincing the people around to change. The beginners will then naturally use the new method.

Personally, I do not see the advantages of area scoring to be anywhere near enough to start such massive campaign. If everybody changes their scoring ways, I will adjust gladly, but I will not lead the way or support that in any ways. Unless I hear better arguments that the bogus: 'it is impossible for beginners to learn Go.' Most of us learned with territory scoring, so it is obviously possible.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

It makes perfect sense for beginners to be desperately unsure whether their stones can be captured or not... starting around move . In fact, as Bantari avers, it also makes sense for dan players to worry about this. It is somewhat peculiar to not be worried about whether your stone can be captured 5 moves before, 10 moves before the end of the game and then suddenly to start worrying again right before scoring, but it's something beginners do all the time.

It's not a problem that beginners have this inconsistent worry. I'm not even saying it's an illegitimate worry because it doesn't make much sense. It's very natural. All I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter exactly what the punishment for the worry is - losing cash because you defended at the proper time and gave your opponent free endgame moves, or losing dame, or losing territory, or losing nothing, or losing a huge section of your territory because your opponent didn't defend. All five outcomes are possible and fine. More important is helping beginners gain confidence in figuring out which stones they can capture/save, and which they can't. And here, for whatever reason, the one point of lost territory seems to needle beginners more than the lost dame or even losing sente, and lead them to realize that they need to figure out how to sort out capturable stones from safe stones.

If the weird beginner worry leads them to realize there is some big tactical concepts they're missing, they'll investigate, figure it out, and make huge progress. If it leads them to fill in 50% of their territory at the end of the game, then it's just a stupid worry that will haunt them for their first several hundred games.

Anyway, both Chinese and Japanese rules have been "when in doubt, play it out" since before I had even heard of the game; casual players have obstinately continued to teach Go as though life and death were integral to the rules of the game anyway, regardless of which country they live in and how they score the board; and beginners continue to ask why certain groups are marked dead, even when they are looking at an example diagram in an area-rules brochure. I really don't think that area rules remove very much of the trepidation a complete beginner feels at the end of the game.

Sorry if I've missed anything important in the discussion - "obfuscate" made me giggle and I had to skim the rest of the thread.

It just now occurred to me that I was the hypothetical guy living in a vaccuum who couldn't understand Japanese rules. I played a few games on Yahoo, then played against a friend who'd played the game as a kid, but never got far (I gather he never got close to beating his dad or grandfather).

He thought that you had to capture all the stones inside your territory at the end of the game, and we used territory counting. I had my doubts, but we played perhaps several games over the course of a few weeks using that inconsistent ruleset before I looked up the right way to score the game.

Now it's true I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without finding access to better teaching. I found "In The Beginning" and two games later, I started winning against that opponent and didn't stop. But it took many more games on go servers, at the go club, and against GnuGo before I hit 20k.

I'm not sure what this demonstrates.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

I am quoting part of the original post, because I think that, while the discussion is not strictly OT, it has long ago reached the point of negative utility for beginners. (Maybe Uzziel would disagree. If so, that's great! )

By contrast with contract bridge, golf, or --gasp!-- baseball, go has relatively simple rules. In fact, it was played for centuries, if not millennia, without written rules. And the main variations are slight, with scores that rarely differ by more than one point. Still the end of the game can be especially confusing, and some beginners come to places like 19x19 for help and enlightenment. I am afraid that the heated discussions that they often find may turn them off. (Not that such discussions do not serve a purpose, but I don't think that they help beginners much.)

Perhaps we could have a special closed thread that explains the different official rules that are actually played. I imagine that some links to Sensei's Library might be useful there.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Point taken, I shudup now.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

As well as it is also impossible for those beginners going away because of the territory scoring difficulty, before we really notice that they were there as potential go players.

But you did respond, as you clearly read my "nasty" post, and you continued your argument. Except now you look even more willfully ignorant by continually ignoring that playout under Chinese-style rules is simple and doesn't change the score when a "dead" group is removed (as determined by the skill of the players), but Japanese rules do change the score. This isn't hard to understand, at all. The excuse is made that the beginners should find a club or expert to help them out.



Good for you. Give yourself a pat on the back for making sense of the senseless. Yet you've been presented with countless examples over the years of beginners who had trouble with the logical hurdle of the Japanese rules, but choose to brush them off.



How about a married couple picking up the game and trying to play it? Two friends? Two family members? Or even a solo person who wants to understand the rules before playing online. Why can't they learn simple rules and play on their own? Why do they need to seek a club or expert advice on the Internet when a simple alternative exists that lets them play by the rules confidently, and once they have enough games under their belt they can easily learn the Japanese rules?



Absurd. They will much more likely never seek to get further into Go if there are unnecessary obstacles.



The problem with such help is that it is hand-holding and doesn't dispel the logical confusion. It doesn't let them confidently play games and learn by doing on their own. And losing several points to prove a group is dead punishes the removal, leading to logical confusion and an impractical hurdle to actually playing with other beginners.



Again wallowing in ignorance. How does a player prove that a group is dead without losing points under Japanese rules? How can you act like this problem doesn't exist?



I quoted it too, because it shows how badly beginners like him are brushed off by people who think the issue isn't a big deal. He resigned rather than score the game. Fortunately he made his way here, and hopefully will get over the hurdle. How many people just give up instead? How can a beginner like this try to teach other beginners?



He explicitly asked which ruleset to learn from. If another beginner understands that Chinese-style rules can be simple, allowing for an easy jump to Japanese rules after enough experience, then that is useful.

A: I think that group is dead
B: I don't see why.
A: What if I play here?
B: Then I play there.
A: So I play here
B: Well I'll play here.
A: But now this group is in atari
B: Oh, I guess you were right, it is dead.

You haven't specified if that's actually being played on the board or is a verbal argument. If you're talking about verbally, that doesn't work for two beginners, nor does it dispel the logical confusion that stones can be removed without play.

If you're talking about playing it on the board, then the score will change, highlighting the logical confusion and making it practically difficult to end and score the game properly.

If you want to suggest having another board handy to play things out on, that almost never happens due to inconvenience. If you want the beginners to play it out and rewind the board and score with removal, that is too complicated and also almost never happens.

What does happen a lot under Japanese rules is that there is a verbal argument and appeal to an outside authority if one is available. Now compare that with Chinese-style rules: Continue playing, using the same simple rules you've been using, and score. What is alive or dead is determined by the skill of the players, as it should be.

It is on the board. The score didn't change.

It can certainly play out like that, however (and remember we're considering two beginners):

A: I think that group is dead
B: Okay, so kill it
A: I don't have to, it will die anyway
B: What do you mean "it will die anyway", it won't die unless you kill it

(And, this is actually a real issue for players at higher ranks when it involves a bent-4 and an unremovable ko threat)

You are now forcing new players to resolve a game with an argument.

It gets even more complicated when you consider that they may not have the skills yet to complete accurate hypothetical play.

What if the conversation then goes like this:

A: I think that is dead
B: So kill it
A: Well, I go here
B: Then I go here
A: And now I go here
B: And now I live with this
A: Oh, this move I made was wrong, I should actually go here instead
B: You can't do that! You just said you were going to go there
A: Yes, but this is about whether or not it's REALLY alive or dead, that's bigger than me
B: Not if you couldn't find the moves the first time!
A: *grumbles*
B: *grumbles*

_________________
Tactics yes, Tact no...

Concerning Herman's idea, for the territory score to remain constant every two moves, it is necessary to play an equal number of playout moves. Other conditions must also apply. Such circumstances must be explained to the beginners supposed to use them. Such a procedure and the restriction to only one playout sequence (or one per group) do NOT conform to actually used Japanese rules, whether written or verbal. There is, however, a similarity to the Simplified Japanese Rules.

So how are area scoring rules going to help here?

Only because you relied on the players making an equal number of moves. If Player B feels no need to respond, either because he doesn't see the threat or is logically trying to optimize his score, then the score will change. The logical confusion still exists, and so does the practical one.

Of course, the idea of an equal number of moves is the idea behind pass stones, but now you are back to AGA and dame being worth 1 point, which are just area scoring rules in disguise.

(I see this post is similar to Robert's reply, but I had already written it up by the time I checked for new posts.)