Unfortunately this is not so, because a very common effect of these new rules is that the first half an hour of every tournament is spent explaining the rules and then repeating the explanation for latecomers or those in the toilets, with further adumbrations, and so annoyance to others, during the games for those who didn't grasp or (like me) couldn't hear the explanation. The consequence is a half hour of boredom and then either missing the lunch break or getting home half an hour later.

So the solution may instead be to bring along a meat cleaver and defeat your opponent with that. As the proverb tells us, キリ一本が勝負のカギ。

that's basically how they settle it in the new movie, Divine Move.

At least in the US, there are significant communities of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans that are part of the broader go community. While it would be nice to appeal to tradition as the way we play, which tradition would you care to pick and choose to the exclusion of others? Pass-stones are a kludge, to be sure, but they do allow for a game that is countable to the satisfaction of players coming from either the area counting or territory counting traditions. I'm highly skeptical that it's better to ignore one group of players for another because someone made a subjective judgement that this tradition is better than that one.

Komi bidding, however, does seem rather pointless when I suspect the majority of the games played at the tournament are won by margins greater than people would be bidding over.

Isn't that the whole point of komi bidding? If you think that having komi < 10 won't affect the outcome of the game, but you would rather play black, then you would want to bid up to at least komi of 10. If your opponent thought that that komi 10 would affect the outcome more than going first, then you both are happy with the result. Seems sort of like a new Joseki for Nigiri.

Of course, a lot of this depends upon how it's done. I think komi bidding would be fun to do before a game, but if people were being really pedantic about the bidding rules or trying to game them in some way, that could be really annoying. The same is true if someone tries to be really annoying about normal Go rules (like agreeing on which groups are dead, etc.). It seems like most of this comes down to playing with the nice people

To go off at a tangent first, I personally am not agin AGA rules - I helped the BGA introduce them in the UK - but I'm not their greatest fan either. By choosing them you are discriminating a little against Japanese and Korean players who are used, for example, to treating bent four as dead without the need to play it out, so it is about more than just pass stones. As it happens, my experience is that both Japanese and Chinese players are uncomfortable with AGA-style rules, and indeed most westerners are too, to some degree, judging by typical tournament behaviour where AGA rules are technically in force but virtually no-one takes a blind bit of notice and typically plays under what might be called "traditional" (i.e. Japanese based) rules. I've seen this even at a US Congress. My sense is that something like 95% of players in AGA-rules events I've seen have skipped the pass stones. (I've even come across players who weren't aware that AGA rules were in force, and had they been aware they wouldn't have known what they were.)

Further, it is my experience that, among amateurs, Japanese/Korean players are uncomfortable playing with Chinese rules, but Chinese players are totally comfortable playing with Japanese-style rules. There is a good reason for this - they effectively apply Japanese rules when they are counting mentally during a game. Both the area (territory + stones) and territory-alone concepts are therefore familiar to them. Indeed, the entire corpus of Chinese pros (and Taiwanese pros) routinely plays under Japanese, Korean, Ing and Chinese rules within China, depending on who the sponsor is. There are a very few Korean and Japanese pros who are used to playing under Chinese rules because they take part in events in China, but on the whole JK pros lack the Chinese flexibility. So from that point of view, Japanese/Korean rules, especially the modern version where dame are all played out, would probably be the best option if you had a wide spectrum of players to cater for. That is not saying that Japanese/Korean rules are perfect, just that they lie within the comfort zone of nearly all players, and so next to no-one is being ignored.

But to come back within the circle, my impression is that by "tradition" Dr Straw really meant western tradition, which is Japanese-based to be sure, but is still distinctively western. Using clocks has long been normal in western events, for example, but until recently was alien to Japanese players. We have always used komi even when Japanese pros sometimes did not. We have sometimes used free placement of handicap stones, and Japanese players have even copied us there. But the element that most western adherents of "tradition" cleave to, perhaps, is not rules but the ethos of Japanese go that has been handed down to the west. There is something quixotic in this, of course, but those adherents tend to dislike changes that encourage those who try to win games on rules technicalities, for example.

Yikes! Perfect case in point. It sounds like I would not enjoy playing someone like Robert Jasiek who would resort to these sort of rule technicalities and misleading of opponents just to win a game.

In a tournament setting for amateurs with a wide range of skill, I consider them necessary (when compared to the alternative). Even with "a little skill", disputes can still arise. For example, here are eight games that I personally played in that could have benefited from dispute resolution. The ranks are from 12k to 9k. One of the games was a KGS tournament game, back when KGS used Japanese rules for tournaments (they have long since switched to AGA).

Can Dr. Straw present an "elegant" way to resolve those disputes in the Japanese tradition, in a tournament setting? Or perhaps John Fairbairn?

By the way, if pass stones are considered ugly or confusing, the easy solution is to drop the Japanese pretense and just use area scoring/counting without the pass stones.



Maybe for pros and dans this isn't a problem, but AGA tournaments are meant for a wide range of players. Such players may not even be able to correctly identify a bent four, let alone know how to remove it via play. And if a player can't remove it via play, then arguably it shouldn't be marked as dead. It so happens that the KGS tournament game I played in and mentioned above involved a bent four shaped. Also, there's no need to play it out if both parties agree to the status (though if I was a kyu I would challenge my opponent to remove it -- skill needs to be demonstrated in tricky situations).

I've just seen a post in which someone says he has had 8 disputes in 1000 games. That's about 8 times more than I've had in 50 years with Japanese rules, and I was a beginner once.

Choice of the word "elegant" always conveys to me being afflicted with a mathematical view of the world. Even though it can take quite a bit of conscious effort, I would prefer go to be played in either a "gracious" way in which you try to explain away the problem, but give way if the opponent is obdurate, or a "considerate" way in which make sure you learn the rules and social conventions before you enter a tournament, or a "humble" way in which you seek to learn rather than get a "1" on a scoresheet. Think of go as like driving. There, passing a test and considerate behaviour are not just desiderata but essentials, and graciously giving way can make the traffic flow so much more smoothly.

Actually, I'd like to call "gracious, considerate, humble" behaviour "elegant", but regrettably it's been hijacked for another use.

Yes, and your point? My games are all documented and online for your perusal. I have demonstrated that even with "a little skill", disputes can still arise. On the other hand, I can't verify your statement or your memory of your 50 years of playing Go.



"Afflicted"? Should I say you are "afflicted" by your adherence to Japanese tradition? And it's not math, so much as it is logic. For all the pretense around Go and tradition, at its heart Go is a simple and logical game. It's just that centuries of shortcuts and tradition based on agreement among skilled players has resulted in perverse situations that defy logic and undermine the basic premise of competition through skill.



That's a long way to drive to avoid playing out a game of Go using simple rules. I don't see anything elegant about that, or even gracious.

Did you check the games? Most of them were simply failures to recognise sekis, not more exotic things like moonshine life or that molasses ko that T Mark discovered. I'm assuming not many of your games over the last 50 years were on the internet, where it is easier to be more argumentative. In a club setting there is a more social atmosphere and it's a lot easier to smooth things over with a a friendly "that's a seki right?". When you can't see the face of your opponent, it's easier for a sore loser to be difficult.

Hello to everyone.

I have a question about agreement phase under AGA rules.
Sorry in advance for my bad English.
I don't understand the machinery of stones passing in the agreement phase.
Copy from AGA Rules:

I underlined the part I do not understand.

After a player touches the strings of opponent stones which he believes are dead must he pass a stone to the opponent player or not?

Let me make an example.
- Game.
- Player A passes.
- Player B passes. Game is ended. The agreement phase starts.
- Player A touches the dead groups of the players B and passes a stone. Is it right? If the opponent disagrees about dead groups must he touches the same groups before or after that player A have passes a stone?

Could anyone explain how the agreement phase works with some examples?

Sorry for my poor English.
Have nice day.

I've never used that formal procedure, I bet most people would not know about it either. I'm assuming you're a beginner with not much experience with how games end in practice? In most games after the passes, players just remove the stones that are obviously dead without asking.

Practically, if there is a confusing area the easiest thing to do is just... *slowly* start picking up dead stones that might be disputed, and look at your opponent to see if he objects. Or if your opponent starts to pick up your own alive stones, quickly let him know you don't agree.

ETA: I just realized this is one of those threads going into the gory details of the letter of the rules... A fun game in itself... but as I explained above most of the time doesn't matter.

If I am reading it correctly, the seventh game is the most interesting.

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

I have read many of the posts on the different rule sets. I find it fascinating. But it does make my head spin. I understand GO by basic Japanese style rules. I also understand Chinese rules. But at the risk of upsetting people I understand the premise of the AGA rules, but find the application baffling because it feels contrived. I have only participated in one AGA tourney. Both formally and informally I saw no one play with AGA rules.

It seems to me that the AGA should accept a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things like bent 4 in the corner.

I believe most people smart enough to play and take an interest in GO can quickly understand the Japanese way of counting especially when started on small boards. Since even Chinese count this way in their head during a game is it not logical to go with it?

_________________
Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

BASIC Japanese style ruleset do NOT allow players to play out things (in the one continued game sequence) because a) this alters the score compared to real Japanese style rulesets or b) leads to pass-fights, which do (a) and create different strategy. Such is avoided 1) in real Japanese style rulesets and also in my Simplified Japanese Rules by imagined-only playout (and the former also use arbitrarily many imagined playout sequences), 2) by pass stones and an equal number of moves in the game (White makes the last pass) resulting in different (area instead of territory) scoring with different strategy (as in AGA Rules) or 3) ruleset designs similar to (2).

What you want does not exist, and when you speak of "basic Japanese style rules", you imagine something close to the Simplified Japanese Rules while the real Japanese style rulesets are neither basic nor simple, see my commentaries on the Japanese 1989 Rules, the World Amateur Go Championship Rules and Verbal Japanese Rules: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

I understand that. My point is that when people play they generally play it out unless they are smart enough not to. When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out. Regardless of what the official rule set implies. We do have a copy of GO; A Complete Intro to the Game by Cho Chikun that we have never referred to. ( Just handed out for newbies on loan : )

I have read many of the threads and links on the rule sets. It does get quite contentious and confusing. I find it far more confusing than a GO Seigen game. I believe that for most of us Westerners we play by an informal Japanese rule system, with playing out questionable positions, and courtesy and respect for the game and the opponent the unwritten rules.

_________________
Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

You may find my note on the New Mexico rules of some interest. viewtopic.php?p=195058#p195058

As RJ might point out, they are not Japanese rules.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I looked at the example from the link you gave me. I do not mean to be obtuse nor argumentative, but why did black have to play in his territory first? If it is advantageous to win a ko sure, if not no. I admit we do not play by strict Japanese rules. I call them simplified for lack of a better term. Why can I not pass and let my opponent keep playing? If they so choose in an attempt to kill a group or win a ko? Why do I have to play in my own territory or give a pass stone that counts against me?


I have not conducted a tournament so I must admit that you have a greater grasp of the difficulties involved. I also appreciate the fact that you have done much to spread GO in Arizona.

_________________
Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

He did not have to. In the second example, playing in the top left corner first would have given White five points there. In the first example, it did not matter where Black played.



For the same reason that if you have a dead stone or stones that your opponent must capture to prove that they are dead, you must play a stone for every stone that your opponent plays. Otherwise he loses points by capturing the dead stones.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.