scoring

[speedchase]

Well, passing isn't really practical. To capture pieces you have to be a step ahead of the other person. So if you pass you'll naturally be a step behind. If you capture first then want to stop playing, well, ok, but there's a lot of space on the board.

What if someone wanted to? Would you allow it?

[snorri]

DarWIN, you have finally given me a reason to use the "blocked users" feature of phpbb forums. Congratulations.

Sadly, I have recently felt the need to start using the feature after doing without it for years. But it's really a very tiny number of offenders.

[DrStraw]

DarWIN, you have finally given me a reason to use the "blocked users" feature of phpbb forums. Congratulations.

Sadly, I have recently felt the need to start using the feature after doing without it for years. But it's really a very tiny number of offenders.

How is it done?

[Boidhre]

DarWIN, you have finally given me a reason to use the "blocked users" feature of phpbb forums. Congratulations.

Sadly, I have recently felt the need to start using the feature after doing without it for years. But it's really a very tiny number of offenders.

How is it done?

Go to profile and click "Add foe." Personally I don't bother with the feature.

[Bantari]

Hi darWIN

I absolutely agree with you. 100%!!
Counting surrounded empty spaces is boring, and so is playing to collect more and more of them. I think only boring people would have fun doing something like that. Very dreadful, for sure.

But I also think that counting dead stones is also boring. Why would you? 1,2,3,4...20,21,22...43,44,45,46....78,79,80,81,82....104,105,106... boooooring!!! I mean, its a GAME, yes? And a game should be fun, yes? This is why we all play, for fun, yes? So I love your ideas, but I think you did not take it far enough. Check this out.

When I play, I don't bother counting empty spaces, and I certainly do not bother counting dead stones. Why should I - its no fun at all!! I hate counting, even in school I hated it, and certainly not planning to do it for fun.

I think the main beauty and the most fun in Go you can have by making straight lines out of your stones! Just don't bother with killing stones, or surrounding points - just try to make straight lines. You can start with 'training' variant - whoever first makes a straight wall of 5 stones length wins! Diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. Perfect! Don't take much counting at all, and still has deep strategy. And what FUN!! This is how Go is supposed to be played!!

And the BESTEST PART:
When you master the 5-stone game, when it becomes too easy or too boring, or you simply need additional challenge - you can always expand to longer walls! 6-stone game, then 7-stone game... Ultimately, you can move to the full variant - whoever makes a bigger wall wins! Sure, you still need some counting, but never more than to 19, so all this stupid counting never gets too much.

The way boring people play Go cannot be scaled up like that unless you move to bigger boards, but then you need to upgrade hardware, and who can be bothered with that?...

So - the great wall game (which is the literal translation of the word 'Go' - or if it not, it certainly should be except the ancients got the name wrong, silly people) - this is definitely how Go is supposed to be played! Try it. I guarantee - you will LOVE it!! For sure. And if you are ever in California... let me know ahead of time.

Cheers.

[Mike Novack]

I have personal experience in the method of scoring affecting the outcome of the game. I captured 38 of a person's pieces, and they won, because they had more territory. How can you still defend it?

You think this is just a beginner trying to say their stupid way of playing? How can you say that, you people who move all of the pieces around at the end of the board as if board position doesn't matter, don't you have any appreciation for the pattern?

No, you just want to win, and you win your way, so you'll count all of the empty spaces, even though the board clearly isn't designed for that. It has uneven amount of intersections making the math more difficult and a lot of intersections making it time consuming. But if you want to bore yourselves to death counting it's none of my business, I know I have fairly good strategy.

a) "How can you still defend it" --- Go is a complex game. What you are saying with your example is that you mistimed a capture, made what was in effect an "endgame" move (a very big endgame move) when there were still bigger moves to be made first. In the situation you describe the opponent got to make at least two critical moves in exchange for that capture (and possibly more than two if you invested even more moves in making that capture). So you got 76 points with that capture and your opponent got how many with his or her moves?

b) "you people who move all of the pieces around at the end of the board as if board position doesn't matter, don't you have any appreciation for the pattern?" --- you are confusing a shortcut process commonly used for territory counting with territory scoring itself. Ignore that moving around of the stones. Don't do it. After filling in with the prisoners simply count all the spaces one by one. That is what territory scoring is. The moving around simply makes rectangles of spaces so the spaces inside those don't need to be counted one by one.

In other words, complain about what you are actually complaining about. Saying that you don't like the (usual) shortcut used by those who use territory scoring (because it destroys the patterns, etc.) isn't the same thing as objecting to territory scoring itself.

c) Following the other methods of scoring probably even more confusing to you if you understood how those actually worked. More math involved to understand why those make captured stones irrelevant.

[daal]

I have personal experience in the method of scoring affecting the outcome of the game. I captured 38 of a person's pieces, and they won, because they had more territory. How can you still defend it?

Simple - it's just a matter of the rules of the game. That's how go is played, and lots of people like it. To us it sounds like someone saying "basketball would be much better if you had soccer goals instead of baskets," or some such nonsense. Not everything about a game immediately makes sense (why do basketball players have to dribble when they run?) but as a basketball player, you know that there's more to the game than shooting baskets and it's the same with go.

[asura]

must play all over the board and most stones wins, it said, that must mean, that you have to play all over the board, and whoever captures the most stones wins.

Here your logic is flawed. If you don't have a rule that passing means to give the opponent a prisoner there is no relation between having more stones on the board and having more prisoners.

Anyhow, if you apply stone counting with this passing rule it will give the same result as other scoring methods except for a 2 point penalty for each group.

The key to understand all the different scoring or counting methods is to realize that they are only different ways to define (more or less) the same game. In almost all cases the strategy is the same no matter what rules you use.

[Polama]

In the earliest days of professional baseball, there were no called balls or strikes. You waited until you got a pitch you liked and swung at it. This worked for a time, but players saw the advantage in being extremely selective. Instead of swinging at the first pitch in the zone, choose a precise location you want to hit and wait for a ball to go through it. If that takes 60 pitches it's only wearing out your opponent. So they added called strikes.

Or in basketball, before the shot clock, you'd get ahead and then just run away from the other team. Don't shoot anymore, that just gives them a chance to get the ball. Run away, pass, run away, pass. So they added a shot clock.

That's score-by-captures go. A good player can play extremely defensive go and live every time. Playing for 'fun', you can both go all out and attack, attack, attack, but if I'm serious about winning I'm going to create a small corner group off the 3-3, and very carefully extend from it until the game is over. Some games seem deep but have specific winning strategies that ruin them when you play to win. That's score-by-capture.

Once you start playing good opponents, you won't kill their groups because they didn't notice the threat. You'll kill their groups because they overextended themselves trying to keep ahead in territory. Go becomes a walk on a knife's edge: if you play carefully, protecting your stones you'll lose by territory. If you over-extend trying to steal too much territory, you'll be killed.

[darWIN]

Hi darWIN

I absolutely agree with you. 100%!!
Counting surrounded empty spaces is boring, and so is playing to collect more and more of them. I think only boring people would have fun doing something like that. Very dreadful, for sure.

But I also think that counting dead stones is also boring. Why would you? 1,2,3,4...20,21,22...43,44,45,46....78,79,80,81,82....104,105,106... boooooring!!! I mean, its a GAME, yes? And a game should be fun, yes? This is why we all play, for fun, yes? So I love your ideas, but I think you did not take it far enough. Check this out.

When I play, I don't bother counting empty spaces, and I certainly do not bother counting dead stones. Why should I - its no fun at all!! I hate counting, even in school I hated it, and certainly not planning to do it for fun.

I think the main beauty and the most fun in Go you can have by making straight lines out of your stones! Just don't bother with killing stones, or surrounding points - just try to make straight lines. You can start with 'training' variant - whoever first makes a straight wall of 5 stones length wins! Diagonally, vertically, or horizontally. Perfect! Don't take much counting at all, and still has deep strategy. And what FUN!! This is how Go is supposed to be played!!

And the BESTEST PART:
When you master the 5-stone game, when it becomes too easy or too boring, or you simply need additional challenge - you can always expand to longer walls! 6-stone game, then 7-stone game... Ultimately, you can move to the full variant - whoever makes a bigger wall wins! Sure, you still need some counting, but never more than to 19, so all this stupid counting never gets too much.

The way boring people play Go cannot be scaled up like that unless you move to bigger boards, but then you need to upgrade hardware, and who can be bothered with that?...

So - the great wall game (which is the literal translation of the word 'Go' - or if it not, it certainly should be except the ancients got the name wrong, silly people) - this is definitely how Go is supposed to be played! Try it. I guarantee - you will LOVE it!! For sure. And if you are ever in California... let me know ahead of time.

Cheers.

You are a really mean person. It's not like I'm saying something that a dan from Japan hasn't talked about. I didn't bring it up, Yasuda Yasutoshi did, and I think counting captured stones to see who wins would be really awesome.

[darWIN]

also, if you want to win so badly that you'll just stop playing when you first capture something then you're not worth playing with, because you're what in basketball we call a bad sport.

[emeraldemon]

I sent this as a pm also but just in case you check here and don't see the pm:

If you are interested I'd like to play a few games with you online and maybe talk a little bit about scoring. You were obviously interested in go enough to come to the forums and talk about it, I don't want you to give up or get frustrated too soon. I really enjoy go and enjoy helping others play. If you want we can play a few games with your scoring rules also and see how it goes. pm me and I can walk you through a website where we can play online easily.

If you don't like that idea, you might try looking for a go club in your city where you can play real people over the board. You may find it more fun than arguing with us on the forums

[Chaos]

I think that playing to win is playing for fun.
Using abstract stategies is extra fun. As long as you still play to win.
But if you aren't both trying your hardest, then why is it fun? In your version, passing after getting a capture and forming eyes is the ultimate strategy for people who are trying their hardest.
That's why I like the traditional version 100x more. it isn't so simple.
You need to do everything within the rules that you can to win. and so does your opponent.

[Bantari]

You are a really mean person. It's not like I'm saying something that a dan from Japan hasn't talked about. I didn't bring it up, Yasuda Yasutoshi did, and I think counting captured stones to see who wins would be really awesome.

Does this "dan from Japan" actually walks the talk? Does he play like that, losing all his games, losing all the tournaments he play in? If he does, he is probably not a dan anymore.

My point is - I agree that you think this way and that to you this might be really awesome.
I took your way of reasoning and drove it to a little more extreme position to make a statement. You figure out what this statement should be.

Bottom line - the game you describe is not the game we play, its a different Game.
Go has certain rules, and what you suggest is not Go.
It might be fun and awesome, but its not Go.

You are free to play anything you want on a Go board with the Go stones (as I indicated in my previous post.) But if you want to play Go, you need to follow the rules of Go. It is really how simple it all is. Otherwise - you are talking about a different game, as I did - which we both are free to do, of course. This other game might be very much fun, and interesting, and all that - but its not Go. And you need to understand that.

PS>
I am not sure what you really want to accomplish by all that arguing here.

• You want us all to play your game instead of Go? Not going to happen.
• You want to convince us that your game is 'also fun'? Some of us might agree, but so what?
• That your game is better or more complex than Go? Well, its not.
• Or what?

From what I see - you are just a beginner (my apologies if you are not, but this is how you present yourself) - and this makes people think: he does not know what he is talking about. And your arguments seem to support that way of thinking. What people also think is: he needs to play real Go for a while, maybe a long while, to understand the reason for also counting the surrounded intersection, and how much beauty and complexity it adds to the game. Otherwise - it is just like trying to explain colors to a blind man.

Your argument is, basically, that why should anybody drink wine when beer is so much better. And you say it before even tasting wine.
But once you get a good taste of wine, you will never touch beer again! Trust me.

[darWIN]

I think that playing to win is playing for fun.
Using abstract stategies is extra fun. As long as you still play to win.
But if you aren't both trying your hardest, then why is it fun? In your version, passing after getting a capture and forming eyes is the ultimate strategy for people who are trying their hardest.
That's why I like the traditional version 100x more. it isn't so simple.
You need to do everything within the rules that you can to win. and so does your opponent.

You don't pass after you capture. The game continues. You fill up the board. A 19 by 19 board. I play this way all the time with my mom, and it's made me feel better because she was very sad, for reasons I don't really want to disclose on the net with a bunch of nerds, but I feel like I can really communicate with her again. It's like a game of regular go, I mean it looks almost the same, except you just count the captured pieces at the end. It's so much fun and so easy. It makes a lot of sense. It's a subtle difference. You want to take the whole board. When I first started playing with my mom, I was so much better I took the whole board, winning territory and pieces captured. but for the first time, I won more pieces but she had more territory. But the real reason we both won, is because we were spending time together. But I suppose you don't like spending time with people you just like telling people you're smarter than them.