Passless lentears?

[Elom]

The same as territory scoring except . . .

--No passes. Scoring begins by pointing to all groups on the board you think aren't alive. Your signals agreement by removing those stones.
--Self capture is allowed, but self captured followed by your opponent also capturing one of you lenses results in an automatic loss. Might make for some interesting ko-fights including bent-four in the corner positions .
--Komi is given by giving white seven prisoners at the start of the game and then minus half a point from Whites score.

Would this work as a ruleset? If so, would it be a beginner-friendly ruleset that looks like territory scoring--like AGA--but in this case actually count in territory?

[RobertJasiek]

No-pass go with territory scoring has valid rules but changes strategy fundamentally due to pass-fights becoming relevant.

[Matti]

I thought pass fights were a different thing.

No pass go however introduces a new stage in the game which coud be called post-yose. Playing inside opponents territory will gain you moves in various eye shapes.

[Bill Spight]

I thought pass fights were a different thing.

No pass go however introduces a new stage in the game which coud be called post-yose. Playing inside opponents territory will gain you moves in various eye shapes.

Straight no pass go has a different concept of territory from regular go. In particular you cannot count a dead stone as one point. That's why Berlekamp introduced returning a prisoner as a move. You still get a group tax, however. Berlekamp altered his rules to take care of that, as well.

As for pass fights, I'm of the opnion that there cannot be a pass fight with no passes.

[Bill Spight]

Would this work as a ruleset?

With more precision, sure.

If so, would it be a beginner-friendly ruleset that looks like territory scoring--like AGA--but in this case actually count in territory?

The no pass version of the Capture Game is a beginner friendly rule set that can be understood as using territory scoring. That is, the players can stop the game at some point and count territory to determine who wins. It does have a group tax, but that is a minor difference, IMO.

Similarly, Capture-2, Capture-4, etc. are also territory scoring games, also with a group tax. The more stones you have to capture, the more the game resembles regular territory go.

[Elom]

Would this work as a ruleset?

With more precision, sure.

If so, would it be a beginner-friendly ruleset that looks like territory scoring--like AGA--but in this case actually count in territory?

The no pass version of the Capture Game is a beginner friendly rule set that can be understood as using territory scoring. That is, the players can stop the game at some point and count territory to determine who wins. It does have a group tax, but that is a minor difference, IMO.

Similarly, Capture-2, Capture-4, etc. are also territory scoring games, also with a group tax. The more stones you have to capture, the more the game resembles regular territory go.

Interesting, it seems a full ruleset derived directly from capture go may be dualization of area and territory scoring that speaks in stones but counts in points (I think AGA speaks in points and counts in stones).

[Splatted]

If I'm understanding correctly, wouldn't a player that's losing just force the game to coontinue until one player ends up having to fill an important eye and lose their group? This could go on indefinitely since the board would keep getting reset, and there would therefore be no such thing as too far behind to make a comeback, so the winner would inevitably be the most patient player.

I don't think this is anything like any current scoring method as in those there is no way to force an opponent to play and unsettle a settled position. Without passes there would be no such thing as a settled position.

[Elom]

If I'm understanding correctly, wouldn't a player that's losing just force the game to coontinue until one player ends up having to fill an important eye and lose their group? This could go on indefinitely since the board would keep getting reset, and there would therefore be no such thing as too far behind to make a comeback, so the winner would inevitably be the most patient player.

I don't think this is anything like any current scoring method as in those there is no way to force an opponent to play and unsettle a settled position. Without passes there would be no such thing as a settled position.

Yes, I should have added that self-capture is allowed as long as your opponent doesn't capture any of your stones on the next turn. A sort of in-between self capture rule but I'm not sure if this works .

[Bill Spight]

If I'm understanding correctly, wouldn't a player that's losing just force the game to coontinue until one player ends up having to fill an important eye and lose their group?

Allowing sacrifice makes for complications, which Elom has not accounted for in this sketch of the rules. However, it is almost certain that the player who can force the opponent to fill an eye and lose their group is the winner, not the loser. That's one main reason why, to approximate modern territory go, you allow a player to return a prisoner as a move instead of playing a move on the board. As Matti points out, straight no pass go is quite a different game from regular go.

Without passes there would be no such thing as a settled position.

Passes were invented in the 20th century. Games ended by agreement, not by consecutive passes. In fact, one of the questions raised by the famous 1928 rules dispute in Japan ( https://senseis.xmp.net/?TenThousandYea ... ulesCrisis ) was whether a player had the right to make a move or an obligation.

Anyway, if suicide is not allowed, then you can certainly have positions that are settled because the player whose turn it is has no play and therefore cannot kill the opponent's stones.

[RobertJasiek]

As I wrote in https://senseis.xmp.net/?PassFight
"You can model no pass go by allowing passes but using the rule that the first player to pass loses the game."

[Splatted]

Thanks Bill. I actually wasn't imagining sacrifices but after you pointed it out I can see that it's likely necessary for the situation I described.

[Bill Spight]

Thanks Bill. I actually wasn't imagining sacrifices but after you pointed it out I can see that it's likely necessary for the situation I described.

Sorry I if wasn't clear. I didn't mean sacrifice in the usual sense of playing a stone which the opponent can kill or capture, I meant self-capture.

[Splatted]

Yes that's how I interpreted it. I thought the dominant player would eventually have to start filling up their eyes if the game went on long enough but I realise that won't necessarily be the case. i.e.

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I thought after black captures at a the continuation would invariably mean black filling in his own eyes and giving white a chance to make a comeback, but of course white would have no legal moves so the game would end.

[Matti]

A single stone suicide dos not cahnge the position, so it should be counted as a pass-

[jaeup]

A single stone suicide dos not cahnge the position, so it should be counted as a pass-

I guess Elom's suggestion implicitly assumed a kind of prohibition of the whole board repetition (probably PSK, but can be SSK or others). Any set of statements without specifying its attitude towards the whole board repetition cannot really make a rigorous ruleset.

So, in this kind of attempt, usually a singe stone suicide is prohibited automatically by PSK. Whether it is "prohibited" or "allowed but forfeit instantly" is only a matter of technically. I prefer the former for the informal rule explanation, but prefer the latter for the formal rulewriting, because I feel that "deciding the winner" should always be the ending of the rule application algorithm.