Whoever has the most captures wins the game?

My first move: pass. Defeat me.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Yeah, that's why you need to lose the pass rule to have capture-go approximate real go.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

This discussion reminds me of Myungwan's statement at go congress this year that it's difficult for people to improve after a certain point when they learn go via capture go, and they should instead learn about the game in terms of efficiency. When you think of the game in terms of capturing stones, it's difficult to see past this, and when you reach a certain skill level, you hit a wall because to win the game, you have to have a different mindset than capturing stones.

That being said, capturing is a lot of fun, so if people just thought of the game in terms of efficiency and not in terms of capturing, we might have fewer people stick with the game.

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be immersed

AGA rules, please hand me your pass stone.

Yep, and if you explicitly drop the pass rule, then they'll be no confusion about whether you were playing real Go or Capture-Go.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Not really. The game you showed me has absolutely no strategy involved. It's luck. Whereas in a capture, the strategy is tricking your opponent, finding their weaknesses, and making your stones solid from attack. If two players were able to make their stones unable to capture, they both showed a solid admirable strategy and I think that makes it a draw. Who cares about territory when it takes so much thought just to keep your stones safe.

Well, it doesn't take that long for players to get to a point where they can live with all their stones on the board, regardless of attempted tricks. How do you score then, or are all games draws above a certain level?

playing by who has more empty space doesn't make sense to me. You have to place a stone on the board to play. In a close battle, a small territory can have just as clever strategy as a larger one.

It doesn't even make sense to me that people argue about this. This game is very old, you'd think they'd have agreed upon something like how you win by now.

But the end of the game... maybe that's always been a bit neither here nor there. When playing for capture, the end of the game you can just feel, that it is time to stop, but in territory you have to wall off all of your borders before you stop so there is an actual end of the game.



If you just make walls then it's luck as to who has more, and if you try to take the whole board, there is going to be capture anyway. The part of the game I see as being the strategy is capturing and keeping your stones from being captured. Your scoring makes no sense.

I say if you were able to capture more pieces than your opponent you won, then you showed better strategy at Go. Tricking your opponent is harder than building a wall. It doesn't change the rules one bit.

Okay. You play your way and I'll play mine.

I disagree. Capturing more pieces than your opponent is irrelevant to your "strategy at Go", because the winner of a game of Go is not decided by who captures the most pieces. Capturing more pieces shows one thing: that you performed better at capturing pieces.

The objective of the game of Go is not to capture, but to get more points. Capturing stones is only one way of achieving this, and if you make capturing your sole objective, you are limiting yourself, and do not have good "strategy at Go".

A good "strategy at Go" is one that leads to winning the game. Whether or not that leads to more captures is irrelevant.

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be immersed

With your rules, you really wouldn't be able to appreciate a beautiful sacrifice sequence to get overwhelming influence. You'll just be happy to take the few stones.

I don't sacrifice. And I don't want to count that many spaces. It's tiring. You aren't thinking about the strategy needed to capture stones. Think about it. You'll see that it is an intense amount of strategy.

If you're trying to surround empty space, then that is a goal.

If you're trying to surround pieces, then that is a goal.

But capturing pieces you can do regardless of whether you're trying to surround empty space or the enemy. While you're busy trying to surround empty space it's far easier to capture you than while you're trying to surround pieces. Because you aren't paying attention. Think about that.

That's what I used to think. However, since then I have had some experience with capture go, and I think that it is actually a more strategic game than go. Because all you need to live is a single eye with two points, it is easier to make a live group, and, with a little experience, the game becomes one of territory. The first one to come down to a one point eye loses. It is a kind of territory go with a group tax. The key question then becomes how to make the most territory with the fewest plays. I. e., efficiency.

That is actually the progression I observed with one of my students, who did not want to take a handicap. So we played capture go on small boards. On the 7x7 I saw that I could make a live group by invading on the 2-4 point, threatening to jump to the 2-2 on either side. It was like playing a wedge on the third line on a larger board.

Once you move to Capture 2 you can't just live with a 2 point eye. But you can with a 3 point eye, until you move to Capture 4. As you increase the number of captured stones needed to win, the game becomes more like regular go, mainly because it becomes harder to live.

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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.

I am afraid that you are talking to people who have thought a great deal more than you have about such things.

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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.

If I understand correctly, you are arguing that capture go can be a game of strategy and can come down to the idea of efficiency. I agree with this.

You might also be saying that capture go converges to regular go in terms of strategy, and maybe this is where I was arguing something different (it's not totally clear to me, because I don't understand what "Capture 2" and "Capture 4" are). If played optimally, it's not clear to me whether the strategy for Go and Capture Go are different (aside from the pass ideas mentioned earlier).

I had thought that, since winning conditions were different, then the optimal way to play would be different between the two games. I'm not totally sure, now, though.

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be immersed

Apart from the passing rules mentioned, I think that the larger the board is, the harder it is to have capture go equate to regular go in terms of strategy, given the number of spaces you expect to be left at the end of the game. The smaller the board, the better it holds up, as on a large board, it's easy to sacrifice a decent sized group to gain an overwhelming advantage elsewhere, but this doesn't hold up in capture go. Additionally, there's no reason to invade in capture go, because you might die, but consolidating a smaller area is fine and carries no penalty.

¡Bueno!



Capture N is a game where you have to capture N stones to win. To capture a group with a 2 point eye you have to sacrifice 1 stone. To capture a group with a 3 point eye you have to sacrifice 3 stones. To capture a group with a 4 point eye you have to sacrifice 6 stones. Etc. The more stones you have to capture to win the more like regular go the game becomes. Capture 50 might be virtually indistinguishable from regular go, I dunno. But who wants to play Capture 50?

Iehiro, at http://www.vimage.co.jp/~iehiro/cgi-bin/gocaffe/ , teaches using a progression of Capture Go, Capture 2, Capture 3, Capture 4, and Capture 5, and then teaches Zaru Go ( http://senseis.xmp.net/?ZaruGo ), which is almost the same as territory scoring with a group tax. IOW, Zaru Go is a close variant of regular go.

I would suggest Capture Go, then Capture 2, Capture 4, and Capture 7. I would also suggest in Capture N that you be allowed to pass and hand over a pass stone instead of reducing a group to a one point eye. That makes the game more like regular go, too.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Indeed. And because it is easier to live in Capture Go, outside strength does not pay off as much as it does in regular go.



Actually, invasion is safer in capture go, as it is easier to live. And invasion pays off, once the players are experienced enough, since the game will likely come down to territory.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

But as per darWIN's rules, there is no territory. Only captures matter, and one can presumably choose to stop playing at some point.