Well, sort of. I suppose you're right. I count out the board for the first few games, but I do make sure that the new player understands what I'm doing. I explain why we only need to count Black's score, for example, and how we need to count territory plus stones. I teach counting by example, in other words. I've never had a new player complain that the counting method is too complex. Once they understand what I'm doing, they are okay with the method.


I agree that you could use another counting method, but I'm not sure it would be any easier. Again, the important thing is to let the new player know what your are doing and why you are doing it. Moving the stones around to count them isn't magic, but just a method to make things easier.

I understand how to do it, xed_over. I'm asking if you teach beginners to count this way. (There are other options. You could count for them, like Tim. You could do an area count without taking stones on or off the board and destroying the position, which I don't think anyone does, but wouldn't require teaching anyone a special method for counting the board. Or you could have them fill in the territory with prisoners and count the remaining territory, which new players have no problem with.)

Jts, don't you count up territory for new players when teaching the game? It's not like they know the territory counting method from the start, right? How is that any different from what I'm doing?

Also, keep in mind that your original question had do do with scoring systems, not counting methods. I think the area scoring concept is easy for new players to grasp even if the Chinese counting method takes an extra step to learn -- and which I still think is fairly straightforward to learn, even for new players.

Another interesting point: I think it's easier to teach new players not to concentrate too much on capturing when using area scoring. If prisoners go back in the bowls instead of onto the lids, then there is no visual reminder of captures. And this can make it easier to get the new player to focus on developing area instead of capturing. Just a thought.

No, of course I don't count for them. We each fill in the prisoners and count up our territory. I may even have them go over mine to make sure I did my arithmetic right. Then if they want to play another beginner (or even, wishful thinking, someone outside a go club) they can do it without hand-holding. I tell them what the score is based on at the beginning, and we count it up together at the end.

I wouldnt be surprised if you've taught go to far more people than I have, but the fact that you assumed one simply can't learn how to score a game of go without playing it several times confirms me in my views. Go is a game with simple rules. It is not hard to learn how to play a legal game. Every brand new player should be able to go home and play a game with his roommate.

I agree that how you get a beginner to understand the goal of the game, what scoring rules you use, and how you count can be different; but in practice area scoring requires a counting system that will count the stones on the board, and that is either unwieldy, or requires a special technique.

I'm sure you've taught more new players than me (only a handful). However, I think this may be a difference in our attitude towards teaching more than any details of a particular counting method. If I were to teach Japanese counting, I'd probably do it for the new player too the first time. I'm not teaching in a club setting where the players are going to go off on their own right away. I'm teaching one-on-one at home with players who I know will play me a few games in a row. That means I have some time.

As for area scoring, I really don't think it's as difficult as you seem to believe. It's just territory plus stones. The new players all get that concept. Once I demonstrate how the counting is performed, they all seem pretty confident. And since only one person counts in area scoring anyway, it just makes sense that I do it the first time we play.

Anyway, I don't have anything against territory scoring. I can count using either method. It's just a matter of what I learned first.

I find that it's much harder to explain the hypothetical playout at the end of the game to beginners than it is to explain area scoring to beginners. In fact, since the Go culture around me uses territory scoring, I sometimes tell beginners to play it out if in doubt(with no mention of hypotheticals), even if it means they may lose points doing so.
Hypothetical play confuses them, and I think it's more important to get them playing to the end as soon as possible.
As for "going home and playing a roommate", I usually have a pamphlet with simple rules and a full game example they can use as reference. I doubt most beginners can learn the rules and go home to play with no reference.

I've been meaning to switch into teaching just area scoring, and adjusting our main play rules to something like the AGA rules, that can work with both ways of scoring(as I understand it).

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The AGA rules refer to Area Counting and Territory Counting.
Rule 12
The AGA ruleset is designed with "pass stones" and "white moves last" to get the same result regardless of the Counting method. But I don't think the result of AGA Territory Counting gives the same result as Japanese Territory Scoring.

The British Go Association ruleset comparison table refers to the AGA rules as Area Scoring with either Area or Territory Counting. While the Japanese ruleset, distinct from all others in the table, uses Territory Scoring.

Just a clarification of terminology I hope this helps the discussion.

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Sure it does. It was designed to do exactly that.

You're making a distinction between "Counting" and "Scoring" that doesn't need to exist. I use those terms interchangeably. Even the BGA link you referenced links both to the same explanation.

I realize that "Scoring" refers to what is being scored/counted. And "Counting" refers to how it is counted/scored. But for the purposes of this discussion, I consider that distinction to be irrelevant, and doesn't change the end result.

edit: but let's start a new thread for that discussion

To answer Peter's question directly, I believe the onus is on White to prove he can live there.

And since black can ignore most of the threats in this specific example, he can still play to actually capture the invading stones and come out ahead, in spite of losing point(s) to do so.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc black move 12 at a
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . 0 9 1 3 5 7 a X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | X X X X X X X X X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Before the invasion, its (W:0, B:8, result 8-0 = B+8)

Since black can pass for moves 2,4,6 and 8, white is losing one point for each play (+4 to black). Black answers with (net zero: +1 to black, -1 from black). White must either pass or play elsewhere for 11, so Black now plays the otherwise unnecessary move at a to capture 5 white stones (which I've already counted above as +5 to black; so net -1 to black)

B+8+4+0-1 = B+11
(black has 6 points of territory, and 5 white prisoners)

Black comes out ahead.
(since no white territory has been displayed, instead of subtracting white's prisoners from white's score, algebraically we can just add them to black for the same score difference)

But what if white simply plays a single stone and says 'that stone is alive'? The rules still need a procedure for black to demonstrate that white is wrong without actually playing the stones and (in territory scoring) losing points.

I posted this same question as my first question here when I was learning to play and Amnal helpfully responded in that thread too!

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3571

It's an annoying conceptual problem when you are a beginner, but in now about 500 games I am not sure that it's ever actually come up.

AGA Rules - Rule 10
I interpret this to mean the onus is on Black to prove he can capture the stones by actually capturing the stones. With pass stones (i.e. if White simply passes each time), Black incurs no penalty to capture the white stones directly. If Black does not capture the stones and each player passes twice consecutively, then the stones are alive. Under this ruleset, there is no hypothetical play.

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For this reason, I think AGA rules are very nice. When teaching beginners, pass stones are easy to explain since for them it's just some random thing that clearly doesn't change much, but then it's easy to demonstrate both why white's stone would be dead and why there's no need to actually play it out if you already know the result.

And I should have added "I interpret this to mean that if there is no agreement on the status of particular stones the onus is on Black to prove he can capture the stones by actually capturing the stones." That is, playing it out is only required if there is disagreement.

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Yeah, ok. I believe you're correct here and I'm wrong.

This is where the hypothetical play comes in to prove the life and death status.

And where Chinese and AGA rule sets shine, because the hypothetical play becomes unnecessary, its just real play and you don't lose points to prove it.

Out here in Eugene, we just had the Oregon Asian Celebration. I think I've done more teaching in the last 2 days than I've done in the last year.

I noticed the following:

1) Teaching territory scoring was useless except in the case of the die-hards (The people who were REALLY interested in the game anyway, and who would wade through any number of obstacles to get there). Every time I tried to introduce it to a more casual player, you'd see the wheels in their head start spinning really fast, and then stall. I'd have to work harder then to get them through it, and it took precious time from teaching more people.

2) Teaching area scoring resulted in near-immediate games of go. The definition of territory was simple, and I'd just say "See this, this is territory, if anyone gets inside, you have the backup from these surrounding stones to go in there and finish them off"

I never had to explain "Oh, well you shouldn't play in there, because you make your territory smaller, you should just know those can be killed"

Instead, I got to say "You shouldn't play in there, those guys can't escape, you can kill them later if you want to, Go out! Explore! Be Bold!"

3) The counting step did require some additional assistance, but at least they GOT to the counting step. They satisfied themselves to the idea that there was nothing left to be gained and were willing to pass. That's less obvious in territory scoring.

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Ok, that's interesting. So what exactly were you doing - haphazardly deciding whether to explain territory or area scoring on a case by case basis? Starting with territory and switching to area if they weren't getting it? Territory on the first day, area on the second?

I agree this whole post is interesting. But it seems to me that you can say the same in AGA rules - territory counting.

Probably the biggest simplification in area counting is that you don't have to further explain "playing there doesn't change the score" by following through with a complicated example that exchanges filling territory points with either pass stones or captured stones. The example you would use in area counting would be far simpler, even though the conclusions and results are exactly the same.

I have already been using the AGA rules. With your post, shapenaji, I'm starting to be convinced to learn how to teach area counting instead of territory counting (as I have been doing). It seems it will make the "how do you know when the game is over" conversation easier.

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I started with territory scoring, (Because that's the way I think about the score. I mean, when I play, even under area rules, I'm still thinking of the board in terms of territory + captures, I just assume the rest of it will work out), but after running into barriers, I realized that there was way too much "extra knowledge" needed to determine the end of the game. I started to switch over to teaching area counting, and after getting a lot of positive feedback, just stuck with it.

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