Quote:
Well, in principle, yes, stone scoring implies placing as many stones on the board as possible. But it seems to be historically inaccurate to suppose that this was done in practice. We have records of old games played under the old Chinese rules (i.e., using group tax), and so far, I have never seen one in which the board is filled to its limit.
We have extremely little data to tell us how old Chinese games were scored, so we have to make some assumptions and some guesses to add to the smidgeon we do know.
There are three sources to guide us:
1. Actual game records.
2. Comments in text.
3. Tradition.
Let us look at each of these in turn.
Actual game recordsThere are lots of these. It is true that we never see a record with all the moves filled in. We also very, very rarely see the actual result given. Very many results that are seen now have actually been added by later editors who were not at the scene. At least, we have no record yet of Dr Who being a commentator.
What we do have is a fair number of game records that appear to end at what we might call the dame stage, as if playing under Japanese rules. However, there is a subtle difference. Under Japanese rules, we should only stop when all fill-in moves have been made. In the Chinese case, you can see examples where such fill-in moves have not been made - no reason to make them under Chinese rules. So that gives us an indication that Chinese stone-counting rules were in force.
As to why records stop at this "dame stage," it may be a question of neither intelligence nor preference. In practical terms, one likely reason is that it would cost an arm and a leg to inscribe many more (and unnecessary) moves on a block and, if you did, you would make the game record unreadable. This is especially so because cost constraints meant that almost always only one diagram was used per game.
Text commentsThese are sparse but there are some and they all point in the same direction. For example, one player wryly complains at the end (i.e. before the dame stage) that he had too many groups. So we can infer group tax was in operation. Another game excites the spectators because one side had just one group. Ditto. But of more interest is a comment of the type where, as a momentous tussle is coming to an end, one player sighs that it is now clear that he is going to lose by 1 zi. In other words, top players were capable of counting a game closely during play, and, except in presumably rare cases of disagreement, they would see no reason to do the actual count-up. Indeed, that might explain why results are rarely given. The point is, the sort of people who authored go books were invariably strong players, and often very strong players. They were amateurs but typically took only two or three stones from the guoshous. We may assume that they, too, were, capable of counting a game without doing all the fiddly stuff at the end.
TraditionEven today, Chinese players seem unbothered about filling in all the dame. It does not take long at all, especially if you've been doing it all your life. And this is the main element they retained when switching over to Japanese-style play - why? My experience is that it's only western players who are unused to it who object. And I believe they object not to the time it takes but to the possibility, in their suspicious minds, that the opponent may be more familiar with the process and may rip them off in the count-up. There are many westerners who get very upset of they lose by, say, 51 instead of 50 points, and, according to a non-go book I am reading, there is a good explanation for this by evolutionary psychologists. I didn't know
they existed till now!. But under the heading of tradition, and also looking back at old Chinese society in terms of social evolution, we can confidently say that the time it might take to count up a game the Chinese way would hardly be an issue. With no tv, no movies, no internet, no social media, no pop concerts, no Superbowls, no car trips, no holidays abroad and so on, they'd probably welcome anything to fill the time in. Indeed, I'd say that filling in the dame at the end while chatting with the opponent would be a welcome form of winding down after a tough game. (And even so, today.)
On a slightly different tack, as far as I can see there is a (total?) lack of discussion among the rules mavens about pay-back stones for last move and handicap stones. I've not seen anything in old Chinese texts either, as far as I can recall, but tradition fills the breach here, too. And what I see in English texts doesn't seem to marry up all that well with what I see in Chinese texts, though I admit I try to avoid reading about rules as much as possible.