(Go sure does produce some strange statements taken out of context, doesn't it? Maybe I should start a new thread, "things that are ordinary to say about go but horrifying to say about the world".)

I was just curious to hear what people think about the rule banning suicide, especially from those who like the rule. Personally, I don't really see the need for it. If the intent is to stop players from making silly/pointless moves, it doesn't really accomplish that goal, since there is no rule against, for example, playing your first move on T19. Moreover, I like the idea of being able to use it occasionally as a ko threat. Of course there are some rare cases where it can even change the status of a group, but as far as I know those cases are even rarer than triple ko.

And how about how it would be received by new players? I think I would prefer learning "you can play here to kill yourself, but that would be a bad move because..." instead of "you can't play here because suicide is not allowed by the rules."

Finally, I just prefer the fluid, flowing feel suicide produces better than the feeling of frozenness created by its prohibition.

I agree. It removes a small amount of complexity from the game and adds a small complexity to the rules. Why would you want to do that?

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I've always thought banning suicide was dumb. The only real affect allowing suicide has on the game, as far as I can tell, is to add a few more potential ko threats in certain situations, which seems fine to me.

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RedPoney Carpenter
kgs/igs/ogs/dgs: redponey
igolocal.net

Count me in the pro-suicide group. There's just no reason for the rule.

When I teach my daughters the game, I tell them "No, you can't move there, your stones would have no liberties and be dead." But that's advice, not a rule. I suspect that the "no-suicide" rule came from such advice being miscontstrued at some point in the distant past. If so, then the fact that any rules are that way is just a big mistake.

Suicide is illogical. If we say that when stones are surrounded they are removed from the board, then suicide would involve both making the suicidal move _and_ removing the stones at the same move. Since ever move involves either placing a stone on the board or passing, then removing stones on a different move would mean that one player makes a move without doing either of those.

A ruleset should be elegant; adding suicide is not elegant for the above reasons.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

There is no suicide rule or a need for one unless you write a ruleset badly.

If you vaguely say "you must make a move or pass", of course it is possible to imagine a move being various things. But if you are Chinese or Japanese, the word for move implies rather strongly that you place a stone and leave it there(it "adheres"). With or without suicide you then need a further single rule that tells you that strings of stones cannot remain on the board with no liberties and so have to be removed at once, but in the case of such removal enemy strings are removed first (which means the placed stone has liberties).

That's a mere two rules under Oriental rulesets. To capture this viewpoint in English we need to get away from the chess concept of "make a move" to something like "on his turn, each player must either place and leave a stone on the board or pass".

If you re-invent the rules of go to include suicide, you need to add two rules: one to allow it and one to disallow it in the case of repetition of board position. Hardly elegant.

Don't forget that without the "suicide is forbidden" rule, you never get out of legal moves, so if a player doesn't want to pass, the game will never finish.

Suicide doesn't affect teaching beginners, so I don't have anything against it. I usually explain it as "this doesn't make much sense, so they made a rule against it".

I just like the suicide rule because I am used to it by now.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I like the no-suicide rule, it seems more natural to me.

Still if you do want to play that way you can always play with New Zealand Rules or SST rules (which the Go player's Almanac 2001 informs me allow suicide).

Since Ing rules allows suicide and is originally Chinese (from Taiwan), did they handle the language differently?

You could just ban single stone suicides. This would be similar to the ko rule, as single stone suicides repeat the board position.

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To sig or not to sig, that is the question.

Starting with the very first version, Ing rules have allowed suicide, except for single stone suicide. One of Ing's aims was to liberalize the game.

I liked the idea, and later on I saw some of Hungerink's beautiful compositions involving suicide.

However, as I have done work on rules I have become more sympathetic to the practical problems of repetitions. Suicide exacerbates these problems, as positions that do not at first glance look anything like repetitive positions actually have repetitive sequences. So I wonder if suicide is more trouble than it's worth.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Just in case some people are confused, the suicide being discussed in this thread is this kind of suicide:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Playing at T19 as White
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X X O |
$$ . . . . . . . X X |
$$ . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Not this kind:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Playing at T18 or S19 as White
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . X . X |
$$ . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X X |
$$ . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

...or am I mistaken in that the latter diagram is not an example of suicide?

There is a rule which says that stones cannot be on the board if they have no liberties. An obvious consequence of this is that you cannot make a move which results in no liberties. Suicide is logically not possible.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

No, the obvious consequence is that if you play a stone which has no liberties, it is removed. Suicide is thus logically possible.

A play is

• placing a stone on an empty intersection, then
• removing all opposing stones that have no liberties, if any, then
• removing all own stones that now still have no liberties, if any.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

Suicide is just a bad move (i.e. the name suicide....), because you can not benefit whatsoever from it. In fact you are hurt by it. You give your opponent an extra point, and it is their move.

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I'm thinking...

There is a possibility you can use it as a ko threat. There are also times when you may consider doing it for extra time if it makes an answer required.

How can it be used as a ko threat? Using Araban's diagram:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Playing at T19 as White
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . X O 2 |
$$ . . . . . . X X O |
$$ . . . . . . . X X |
$$ . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

if white plays suicide, all three stones are now gone and its black turn. black plays . Now white is in the position as before. Ko threat = 0.

*edit* unless..... you were talking about it as a threat in order to take another ko on the board.... hmmmmmm

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I'm thinking...

Remember, a ko threat is a move which your opponent answers. Since black answered (in order to keep his two eyes), that *was* a ko threat. Ko threat = 1.

Good thing its against the rules then.....

*edit* My bad... quote#2 was from amnal not oren... sorry amnal.....

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I'm thinking...