In all levels of go play, but perhaps games in 19x19 particular, how do people keep up with the number of points held by both players during the game? Or do people just agree to stop the game before it progresses "too far" (as in, more area and captured stones to calculate than is comfortable)? In most games I have played it has been quite tedious to count the points, and this in part has kept me from playing much. Of course all these games have been played with other beginners, so that the games have probably been "uglier" and clumsier than necessary.

You must be misunderstanding something very fundamental about the rules, because there is no need for a beginner to keep track of points during a game. As a beginner (or amateur, for that matter), you can't even do that properly anyway, even if you wanted to.

Do you know anyone near you that knows the rules of the game? It is a lot easier to be introduced to the game in person. If not, maybe you could stop by a server like KGS or OGS and ask for help? Or try asking a more specific question, maybe with an example, so that we can identify what your misunderstanding is.

When I was taught the basics years ago I don't remember discussing the scoring system in much depth. I have been under the impression that you count the territory and captured stones after both players forfeit their moves successively.

I play on ogs and I click on "estimate score" if I want to get an estimate.

In real-life, people play until there is no contested area left and then people rearrange stones to get rectangles that are multiples of ten and thus easy to count.

I do count during the game, but my error margin is high.

This is correct, so you only have to count once, after you've passed twice.

Counting the territory usually takes a minute or two at the end. Like Gotraskhalana said, it helps to move stones around to make nice shapes.

So a side that looks like this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . O O O . . .
$$ | . O O O X O . . .
$$ | O O X X X O . . .
$$ | O X . X O . . . .
$$ | X . X X O . . . .
$$ | . X . X O . . . .
$$ | . X . X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | X X X X O . . . .
$$ | X X O O O . . . .[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . O O O . . .
$$ | . O O O X O . . .
$$ | O O X X X O . . .
$$ | O X X X O . . . .
$$ | X X X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . .
$$ | X X O O O . . . .[/go]

As you get better at it, you can even leave out some of the edges to help make nice round shapes, but you have to remember whose territory it actually is.

There are in-depth examples at Sensei's Library: http://senseis.xmp.net/?JapaneseCountingExample.

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