Hi all,

I'm a novice Go player, and I would like to buy an app for my iPad (iPad1 - hopefully to be replaced with an iPad 3 sometime soon). I already have SmartGo (Pro or Player, not sure - the HD version) and have been playing 9x9 against the AI. What I would like in a new app is something that will help me understand how scoring works - I get the basic rules of Go, but I can't yet see the state of the board well enough to predict the outcome or to assess who has the advantage. SmartGo does offer a territory estimate, but I'm wondering if the other apps have any features that would help me learn this a bit better. My wife an I have started playing together, but I'm the one who has to explain the rules to the games we play and I just need a better understanding of scoring so I can teach it to her!

Anyway I'm considering Champion Go HD (Crazy Stone), or Igowin HD. There is the option of SmartGo Kifu, but it is a little above my typical iOS price range. However, I'd bite the bullet if the consensus is that SGK is the best option. Other suggestions are welcome. Of course playing with more experienced humans is best, and I've joined our local university Go club, but I do want to do some independent learning, too. As a final note, I've been reading many introductory books, but still feel that scoring is eluding me...

Thanks!

For an iPad I don't know, but for Windows I'd still recommend the score estimator for Dariush.

My personal feeling is that experience does this more than anything else, although I may be missing some of what you're asking. Could you post an example of the sort of situation you'd want to score and I can try to give better feedback?

Hi,

No particular examples to offer, unfortunately. Here is a screenshot from Igowin HD where it seems to offer an in-game estimate of area control. I'm wondering if most programs offer something like this. I agree that experience will help most of all, however, I have more time to practice on the iPad than to play with others. Identifying dead stones at the end is something else I need help with, too. I suppose I should just go to the Go club and play with someone who can help explain it!

Thanks

Estimating the score before the end of the game is difficult to do as you need to know how things are likely going to go in different regions etc. I wouldn't worry about doing it in detail before you're a Dan player (which is my weak player opinion). In the Elementary Go series book "Attack and defence" the author discourages you/us from trying to calculate exact values (easy to be 10-20+ points out anyway). What is encouraged is an approach where you say "I have 2 large ish areas plus one small one, my opponent has 1 large area and a small one so I'm ahead in terms of territory right now" - i.e. visually balance it. I'm pretty convinced that this approach is as good a guide as I/you need right now and won't fry your brain.

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I am John. John-I-Am.

That sounds like good advice. The more that I think about it, as I write these posts, it seems that I should just play more and the scoring will simply become more apparent.

Thanks!

I'll be honest and say I cringed at that screenshot. The territorial estimates aren't grossly bad, but don't seem particularly good, but the whole "Black leads by 4.5 points" made me cry a little.

I think a reliance on judging how the game is going on something like that will be way more of a crutch than a help. I hate to say it, but it really is something that steadily becomes more apparent as you gain in strength. Looking at that board, what happens if Black plays C17 (the 3-3 in the top left)? Does White ignore the area right now because it says he has 6 points there, implying some stable territory. Does he stare in shock when Black kills his corner and the territory suddenly switches by 15 points?

Knowing exactly what sort of variations and continuations are likely to take place in the area is vital to knowing how many points you can or cannot assume are in a given area, and sadly, that often comes from having your face proverbially smashed in by stronger players who know the sequences.

I completely empathise with your desire to know how a game is going as you progress through it, and I admit it's one thing that is very elusive in Go, but I promise it will get more and more obvious with time

Ha ha - thanks! Go seems like such a quiet contemplative game - having my face smashed is not what I expected, but is certainly in my future!

Learn to embrace it

It's a lovely contemplative game, but it's anything but quiet.

There are two separate skills in Go - one is being able to predict the score before the end of the game, and the other is having a sense of whether the game is even, or one player is winning. These two sounds like the same thing, but (in my limited experience), they're actually quite different!

In general, beginners have absolutely no ability to do either, but they enjoy Go a great deal regardless. Then, they slowly but surely learn to count the score at the bitter end of the game (when nearly all the territory is settled), and over time gain the confidence to predict the score earlier and earlier, as the board gets less settled and more complex. At the same time, they start to realize which moves are serious mistakes and, in the beginning, can tell if one player has made more serious mistakes than the other (since one serious mistake on move 10 probably makes a bigger difference than all the mistakes he didn't notice on moves 1-9). As the game goes on, and both players get more and more opportunities to screw up in ways both big and small, the board gets too complicated and the beginner will probably only have a very vague idea of who is leading... but as he gains more experience, he can keep track of more and more subtle mistakes and have good instincts about who is ahead deep into the middle game.

As you continue to grow in strength, these two skills eventually meet in the middle, and you'll always have some sense of who is winning, either based on the quality of play or based on directly counting the board.

Really, you can just play the game, have fun, and not worry about knowing who is winning until the end. However, if you are just intrigued by this aspect of the game, here is what I would recommend:

1. In your games, try to count the board immediately before the second pass, to see if the score you calculate is the same as the score the computer program calculates. This is a simple exercise in visual arithmetic.
2. Do these counting lessons, which teach a slightly more efficient method of counting in pairs: http://senseis.xmp.net/?SteveFawthrop%2FCounting
3. Continue trying to count the score earlier and earlier in the game - 5 moves before the end, 10 moves before the end, etc.
4. Do some endgame problems. Counting the board accurately requires you to be good at predicting endgame moves before they happen. Our own Bill Spight has produced some interesting endgame problems that are aimed at the 10k level:
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Hey JTS - thanks for the long reply and the thoughtful advice. I've been playing a few bot games (champion go hd) and have found myself starting to get an idea of which shapes are viable and which aren't. So in these cases where before I couldn't see why I didn't control a region I see now a pocket of dead stones... It's true - the game is fun even as a directionless noob, and intriguing as it begins to reveal itself...

Thanks

Also, when you feel comfortable about it, post a game for review on here. Loads of people like offering help it seems, particularly to beginners

Greetings,
if you use the Guo Juan websites, she does a series of Step by Step lectures that systematically teach counting right from the beginning in small chunks. There are also lectures on endgame points which are a real eye opener on the huge value of apparently trivial areas at the side compared to biggish looking free areas in the center near the end of the middle game.
Best wishes
Buri

I'll do that - thanks!

I've seen these before - I'll have to try one out. Thanks!

Scoring is not separate from playing. You can not count an area without the ability to play out an area - the result is meaningless. In other words to count the score by thinking, "I have fifteen points in the lower left..." is not true unless/until you have the ability to defend the lower left against your current opponent, or alternatively the ability to accurately exchange your fifteen points in the lower left for an equivalent number of points elsewhere against your current opponent.

One of the fundamental truths of Go is that the score is always better than you think when you are White (playing someone weaker) and always worse than you think when you are Black (playing someone stronger)! This is known as the "General Theory of Go Relativity" (GTGR). The universal applicability of the GTGR is very frustrating as a beginner since you always take Black. However, if you stick with it, you will gain enough strength so that you have a pool of available opponents that will have to take Black against you - then the fun begins!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21