Ian Butler wrote:
Concerning you're scoring, I'm a bit confused. Aren't prisoners counted as double? If so, you couldn't count the P-T files? Also, where do you get the 16, 13, 9 and 10 from?
Yes, this shows my absolute lack of knowledge in counting and scoring
Sorry. There are two main modern ways of scoring go, by territory (Japan and Korea) and by area (China and AGA). Normally they differ by at most one point. That is the case here.
In area scoring, which is what I was using, instead of counting prisoners and dead stones you count your own living stones. If each player has placed the same number of stones on the board, the result is the same, with some exceptions depending upon the specific rules.
File O has 16 pts. of area for Black, from O-4 upwards, file N has 13 such points, etc. (I ignored the living Black stones in the Black group on the bottom because we were counting them later.)
Note: Saying that a score of 184 was enough for Black to win is because, unless there is a seki, so that some points belong to neither side, the sum of the Black board score and the White board score is 361 by area scoring. So if Black has 184 points then White has 177 points or less. 184 - 177 = 7, which is more than the 6.5 komi. Since White played the last stone and had played at least as many stones as Black, Black could not be ahead by 6 points of territory plus one stone.
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On counting during the game.
Normally you want a quick estimate, particularly when much of the board is still unsettled. You can take the time to count a territory, but you have to remember the count and, if its borders change, you either have to do it again or remember what you counted before and then count what has changed. Even in the days before I had heard about area scoring, I often found it easier to eyeball area rather than territory. In this game consider the difficulties of counting each point of territory, or counting by twos, which can be quicker, versus noting that Black has all the area on the last five files. That's 95 pts. of area vs. 43 pts. of territory plus 48 pts. for 24 dead stones. (I'm not sure where the White prisoners were taken.)
With practice you can often make quick estimates within a few points. That's true of both territory and area. For instance, the lower left corner has between 10 and 15 pts. of territory, which you can tell in an instant, without counting. Similarly, it has between 20 and 25 pts. of area, which you can also tell instantly. (With practice, OC.) The bottom left Black is easy to count at 7 pts., 3 pts. of territory plus 2 dead stones. (It is worth more because of Black's potential, OC.) With one look I guessed it as around 30 pts. of area. Off by 2, not bad. OC, I have had a lot of practice.
For a framework a very rough rule of thumb is to count it as one third to one half what it covers. That is based upon the expectation that the opponent can invade or reduce it, taking away one fourth to one third of it. If he takes away one third, that leaves you with two thirds, for a net of one third. If he takes away one fourth, that leaves you with three fourths, for a net of one half.
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Ian Butler
stones. White has intruded into the bottom right with around 20 plus stones. So it looks like Black is winning.
But the "safe" play is for Black just to take the 
