Again you lost sight of common sense, Robert.

In a game of Go a player will exploit any possibility to cumulate as many opponent's stones as possible, if this will ensure him victory.

The technique mentioned by you may lead to a very long game, but is not suitable to prevent defeat.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Suicide: First calling it suicide, then referring to no suicide in human religions is setting conclusions before facts.

Majority real world ruling is a valid argument but not the only argument. By giving that argument a high priority for some reason, surely the conclusion is clear.

Long cycles: Common sense: J1989 violate common sense in many respects. So does it even matter that IYO I would be violating common sense while in my opinion it is of little relevance for J1989 interpretation? Just imagine what would happen if I interpreted J1989 by common sense: "The whole ruleset is a joke to be thrown away entirely." This would not do J1989 justice though. With non-common-sense approaches to it, one can get much more out of it, among which is one of the sketches of formal go terminology. (But the no result rule contibutes little to that.)

Long cycle: Many stones yield victory: You presume the players to be able to count (some children might not) and to be reasonable (create a scoring end) after just having been unreasonable (playing through unequal cycles instead of resigning before).

Since a major Go ruleset, Ing, includes suicide, it's already late to say it.

I'm curious in any of the recorded professional games run with Ing rules, has suicide ever been used?

I suppose that Ing had have his very special motivation to create a ruleset not seen before.

So he had to build his set around a "new" architecture, allowing him to establish a clear-cut border between his rules and what had been known before.

One cornerstone of traditional rules is the prohibition to place a stone on the board, which thereafter (= after the "move") has no lifeline left.

"Suicide" is easy to realise - much more easily than very special types of Ko - so it's first choice for diffentiation.

But what remains true: It is not in accordance with East-Asian thinking.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Go is not philosophy it is logic. It does not make sense to compare it to anything in the outside world. There should not be any arbitrary rules, and prohibiting suicide is arbitrary. It's about time that suicide goes the way of Tibetan ko rules and setup stones.

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"Those who calculate greatly will win; those who calculate only a little will lose, but what of those who don't make any calculations at all!? This is why everything must be calculated, in order to foresee victory and defeat."-The Art of War

... is a contratiction in terms.

I do not think that Western "logic" is the best foundation to understand an East-Asian game.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Go is a world-wide game.

Logic is a world-wide science.

As a complete information game, logic is a very suitable foundation for understanding Go.

But, it is only a suitable one. Considering its roots, philosophy seems suitable also.

Can you derive from philosophy a) why the Japanese professionals chose to write J1989 §12 as they did and b) why it might or might not be appropriate to have this rule in the context of the other J1989 rules?

I would rather claim that the rule's basic idea was a political decision in 1949: The 1949 Rules express a coexistence of two factions among the Japanese professionals - those in favour of a combination of basic ko rule and no result ko rule versus those achieving the mentionting of the (not pursued but prominently stated) principle of prohibition of whole board repetition in the 1949 Rules.

So what we see is politics rather than philosophy.

In my opinion it is not suitable to judge a text, which is written following East-Asian tradition, using the instrument of Western logic combined with seeing nothing else than that, as you tend to do it.

I suppose that in Japanese understanding, it is neither necessary to have written rules, nor to have rules covering every (and you mean every possible) aspect of the game nor to give always a "countable result".

So Japanese will find in more appropriate - in my opinion - to be able to agree to "no victory nor defeat" or at least having a written rule picturing the cirumstances, when "no victory nor defeat" applies in detail (something like my proposal in an earlier posting). AFTER it has happened.

There will be no need to prohibit a very special type of move during the entire game. One reason may be that it is always possible to make a mistake by not recognising a very special position on the board. And you must keep every position of the game in mind !

------------------------------------------

This kind of Japanese thinking can be found in the couverage of "suicide", too. What takes us back to the topic of this thread.

There is no Western-style direct ban of "suicide". The term "suicide" is not even mentioned in the text.

There are two possible ways to have this "not mentioned" in the rules.

A) It is first stated that no stone without liberty can exist on the board. Second there is a description of taking your opponent's stones off the board, if there are stones having no liberties left, as the final step of your "move".
B) Or it's the other way round. First there comes the text for the "move" procedure. Second it will be said that you must not place any stone on the board that has no lifeline left.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Go is a game. It is not philosophy or logic.

Cassandra, philosophy is an exact science, too. You seem to think that we mere westerners can never understand the mystical Go rules, and that they can never be written down. I think that that is just handwaving nonsense. The tradition that you seem to perceive as so profound and complete simply does not exist.

Traditionally, it has just not been thought about situations where a suicide move could be sensible. I don't know whether there has been some professional player in the 19th or 20th century who wanted to play a three-stone suicide as a ko threat, but it is not inconceivable.

Even in the 1930ies, top players did not know how to resolve a mannen ko at the end of the game.

Honinbo Shusai held the opinion that a ko that cannot be won by one player can be left open by the other, and counts as a point (which I believe is correct).

Honinbo Shuei held the opinion that a moonshine ko could live (which I believe is wrong).

Traditionally, a long cycle has been accepted as indefinitely repeatable, i.e., the game would not be able to be finished and would thus be left unfinished (which I believe is unnecessary).

The history of Go rules is a history of struggle, discovery, and dispute even before any westerner was on the scene.

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

Hi, Harleqin,

I would agree with


The struggle for RULES is a Western one.

I think that even today not every professional player in Japan will know what Japanese Rules exactly say.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Please remove my nick from the edited "quote"; it is exactly what I have NOT said.



And to emphasize: I do not agree with you; the struggle for go rules is not a western one.



How do you infer any deeper meaning or consent in those rules, then?

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

I suppose that Japanese refrain from cutting every detail into a "rule", because they are not sure about the implications (or have not discussed these to an extend that they found a consensus). Or create one rule-extension based on a single occurance.

One example:


Taking both sentences together with your comments in parentheses, we have a contradiction in terms.

Implication of sentence 1 is the question "And how to handle what lies 'behind' the Ko ?"

This gives not only the question "Can a Moonshine Ko live ?" but also "How to count 'Teire', which are connected to the Ko ?" and "Can there be territory in a Mannen Ko ?", resulting in "Can there be territory in a Seki ?".

And suddenly we struggle with questions of Life & Death and of definition of Territory. Even for games that will not end as one-pointer.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

I shall just post one comment on that for now. I shall try to clear up your questions later---it will be a bigger post, and I do not have time for that right now).



Well, yes: the struggle is still going on. Why should we not discuss it?

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

Cassandra you are wrong wth the following:

1) "Japanese refrain from cutting every detail into a 'rule'". Quite contrarily J1989 are an attempt to specify every detail into the rules. J1989 failed but tried very hard. See, e.g., the hypothetical ko rule, which is useful as an extra rule only in one or two shapes the J1989 authors were aware of.

2) "The struggle for RULES is a Western one." This is very misleading. The struggle for rules is as much an Eastern one.

3) "a text, which is written following East-Asian tradition". The J1989 text is not written as something we would perceive as East-Asian tradition. Rather it approaches a Western style to pile definition upon definition and to use aritificial, abstract terms for that.

4) "Western logic". Once more: Logic is NOT Western but universally valid and used.

5) "logic combined with seeing nothing else than that, as you tend to do it." This is misleading: a) I also use other means. b) Insights gained from logic do not become invalid just because someone concentrates on means of logic.

6) "in Japanese understanding, it is neither necessary to have written rules". Wrong. Since 1949 it has been considered necessarsy among Japanese professionals.

7) "nor to have rules covering every (and you mean every possible) aspect of the game". Wrong. J1989 try to cover every possible aspect of the game (as far as rules of play and closely related tournament rules are concerned). J1989 know that they fail to achieve this desire but they take great care to provide three ko rules, lots of game ending procedures and exception handling procedures also then.

8) "There will be no need to prohibit a very special type of move during the entire game." This is very misleading because J1989 introduce the very special type of move "pass for a particular ko".

9) "There is no Western-style direct ban of "suicide". The term "suicide" is not even mentioned in the text." You overinterpret the clumsy, indirect J1989 description of no suicide.

I'm looking forward to do so.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Just a short reply.

Obviously, they could live over 1250 years without.

By the way: Japanese style is "Watch the master and imitate.", not "Follow written instructions."

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Personally, I tend to agree with Cassandra on this point.

Its my understanding that rules have only been deemed necessary because of sponsorship. Sponsors tend to prefer clear outcomes -- winners and losers. Otherwise, perhaps nobody cares if a game is unresolved or unfinished.

(there may be other factors as well, but this one seems the biggest to me)