My very first game

[Bill Spight]

Even in the US, not everybody likes to use the AGA rules. Think global.

This is easier said than done. Which is more global, area counting or territory counting? There may be more countries where territory counting is the norm, but I imagine there are more people in China using area counting than there are using territory counting overall.

As a beginner, though, don't worry about any of this. The right ruleset to use is the one everyone you know uses.

Great advice....however, I live in Georgia...out in the boonie's with limited travel options (I take care of my parents and on my off days are usually taking them to appts ect). So the ones Ill be playing with are my children (both girls ages 10,12) and 'hopefully' my wife. I hope one day I can get others interested but I would like to learn more before I try to interest others. I guess the most Ill be playing others (not in my household) would be on KGS.

The AGA rules were designed with people like you in mind: beginners playing other beginners. Area rules allow any question of life and death at the end of the game to be decided by play. You can just play on until all the stones left on the board are alive. I would suggest scoring just stones plus territory. The whole bit about pass stones is to allow counting territory plus prisoners, which most US players were used to when the AGA rules were adopted.

[Rowen]

Okay, I've played more games and I think I'm learning a little. I'll post my most recent game I played on IGS using Smartgo 3. I lost, but I think I saw more than I have before. Still missed a few Atari's but I feel I'm making progress, slow progress but progress just the same.

Here is the game:

[skydyr]

Okay, I've played more games and I think I'm learning a little. I'll post my most recent game I played on IGS using Smartgo 3. I lost, but I think I saw more than I have before. Still missed a few Atari's but I feel I'm making progress, slow progress but progress just the same.

Here is the game:

I think the biggest thing to take away from this game, at least the early part of it, is that if you elect to split the board in two without fighting or invasions, make sure you have the larger half. The trick to this, of course, is learning to recognize early enough when you are behind on the board, and also learning how long you can wait before invading and still do it successfully, which comes with practice. As a general rule, though, when there are two competing moyos, or frameworks, as in this game, it's the goal of the player with the larger one to keep building, and the goal of the one with the lesser framework to invade, since if both players invade, ignoring each other, the larger moyo has more to lose.

White's problems seem to start at through where white seals off a relatively small amount of territory while black expands his moyo on a much larger scale. With and , white desperately needs to plonk a group down in black's unconsolidated framework to prevent it from all becoming territory. For a while afterwards, there is a possible invasion point around R10, but I think black could let that live small and still win on territory without trouble, and it could be relatively complicated if black doesn't do that. If you look at the board around move 30, black controls the right half of the board with a bit of looseness, but white only really controls the left 4 lines, plus a chunk on the bottom and a bit on the top.