Do Japanese Rules ( or their KGS implementation ) suck ?

[ethanb]

I always fill the dame when playing online, no matter which scoring system and no matter what server.

At the end of a game in person, you can say "hey, you've gotta fill once there" and they'll do it or you can play it out and then take back so they can defend if it's a casual game.

Online, since most servers try to "fix" internal dame for you, people get lazy about it. It often works, but I've been bitten enough times by points that needed to be filled but weren't, that I always play out dame now - never ever trust the server to get it right. Judging whether a defensive move needs to be made inside can be difficult, perhaps NP-hard. People wouldn't be willing to wait 15 seconds after passing for the server to fully evaluate every single chain, and frankly I still wouldn't trust it 100%. Best just to play them out.

[RobertJasiek]

Right, never trust a programmer about non-trivial implementations.

***

What does false eyes mean? Is living with false-eyes no territory?

[flOvermind]

I think in that concrete case it means "can be forced to be filled". But I have no idea whether "forced in alternating play" or "forced with one player always passing" is meant

[Bill Spight]

Right, never trust a programmer about non-trivial implementations.

***

What does false eyes mean? Is living with false-eyes no territory?

I think that the term false eye is ambiguous in English, that different writers use it differently. Some would say that the eyes in the Two Headed Dragon ( http://senseis.xmp.net/?TwoHeadedDragon ) are false, some would not. I accept both usages, but I would prefer to call those eyes defective, to remove the ambiguity.

[Bill Spight]

I always fill the dame when playing online, no matter which scoring system and no matter what server.

At the end of a game in person, you can say "hey, you've gotta fill once there" and they'll do it or you can play it out and then take back so they can defend if it's a casual game.

Online, since most servers try to "fix" internal dame for you, people get lazy about it. It often works, but I've been bitten enough times by points that needed to be filled but weren't, that I always play out dame now - never ever trust the server to get it right. Judging whether a defensive move needs to be made inside can be difficult, perhaps NP-hard. People wouldn't be willing to wait 15 seconds after passing for the server to fully evaluate every single chain, and frankly I still wouldn't trust it 100%. Best just to play them out.

If I understand the Korean rules correctly, once the game has reached the dame filling stage, if you think that your opponent needs to make a protective play when you fill a dame, you warn him. Then if he does not defend, you can try to punish that. (I suppose that it is considered improper to bluff the warning. )

[ethanb]

Right, never trust a programmer about non-trivial implementations.

***

What does false eyes mean? Is living with false-eyes no territory?

I think that the term false eye is ambiguous in English, that different writers use it differently. Some would say that the eyes in the Two Headed Dragon ( http://senseis.xmp.net/?TwoHeadedDragon ) are false, some would not. I accept both usages, but I would prefer to call those eyes defective, to remove the ambiguity.

Weird, I've never seen those type of eyes called false (except in that Sensei's article, and even there they just say that they LOOK false.) I would feel it was odd if I heard the term "defective" in that context too - those are real eyes. But it's better than overloading "false eye" if you must have a term for the shape, that's for sure.

The only way I've seen "false eye" used is to mean "an open internal liberty of which one (or more) surrounding chain(s) of stones may be placed in atari if all external liberties are taken."

What books use it otherwise (so I can avoid them and warn others?)

[kirkmc]

If they were truly false, you could force the player to connect, proving that they are false. Calling them false is showing a misunderstanding of the concept of eyes - the fact that two of them connect makes them real eyes and unkillable, hence they're not false.

[topazg]

At the risk of opening a can of worms, perhaps real eyes should be "independent" eyes (i.e. an eye independent of the status of other connected chains)?

[kirkmc]

Why? The example above shows two eyes that, because of their shapes, are real. Why do they need to be independent?

You often see situations (sorry, I don't know how to make diagrams easily), where a group has one eye at each end - what you could call "independent" eyes - and a false eye connecting two strings. Yet because of that situation the false eye is not false and counts as a point. It doesn't contribute to live, since if it were the second (and not third) eye, it would be truly false, but in its context it is real.

[RobertJasiek]

Still I do not know whether KGS-Japanese Rules score points in fake false eyes of a) independent life or b) sekis.

[kirkmc]

Still I do not know whether KGS-Japanese Rules score points in fake false eyes of a) independent life or b) sekis.

In most cases, sekis are clearly marked as not being points. But I recall seeing once or twice a seki that KGS though was either a living or dead group, giving points to one side or the other. For fake false eyes - if you mean what I said above, false eyes connecting two groups each with one eye - it counts the point, in my experience.

[Woodstock]

Whilst this is techincally true, I've never ever seen it happen and be a problem. And I can't envisage a situation (well...I could maybe make a really contrived one) where it ever would be. You aren't losing time if the game is in the scoring phase, so that isn't a problem.

Disputes over the status of groups are a frequent occurrence with beginners ,
however. Also , during scoring phase a player can press undo and restart the game
along with the timer without consent of their opponent while he / she is talking
to an admin. This can be a problem.

Of course this particular issue doesn't depend on rulesets. But take a rather
complex , yet common dispute : Bent 4 in the corner.
Lots of people have never heard of it , thus insist on living in seki. Under Japa-
nese rules the group is dead automatically without having to play it out. All this
takes explaining and convincing and is pretty much unfeasible in a blitz game.

Afaik , with other rulesets both players can agree on seki. If one disagrees ,
the sequence has to be played out including removal of ko threats and subsequent
ko fight. However , there are cases with irremovable ko threats such as smaller
sekis , double kos etc which might enable the second player to win the ko.

Under Japanese rules these players are screwed although the game is favorable to
them just because they happened to choose a ruleset which didn't consider this
particular case.

As wms points out, whilst you are factually correct, your point is not a good argument when noting that this is more often a problem in all other rulesets.

Concerning the false eyes scoring problem ... I don't know about you , but I much
rather prefer a system where all liberties must be filled at all times to one
where only certain kinds of liberties must be filled.

This question seems a little unfair, like asking "Do you still beat your wife?".

Unlike your example , my question implies nothing. By answering you don't admit
to anything beyond expressing your opinion on the matter.

I also agree that it's somewhat standard on go servers and there's some merit to coherency.

Well sure , but just because everybody is using them doesn't mean we should prefer
Japanese rules. A friend of mine is programming a Go server of his own and I'll
be sure to tell him to choose a different standard ruleset ^^

[amnal]

Whilst this is techincally true, I've never ever seen it happen and be a problem. And I can't envisage a situation (well...I could maybe make a really contrived one) where it ever would be. You aren't losing time if the game is in the scoring phase, so that isn't a problem.

Disputes over the status of groups are a frequent occurrence with beginners ,
however. Also , during scoring phase a player can press undo and restart the game
along with the timer without consent of their opponent while he / she is talking
to an admin. This can be a problem.

Of course this particular issue doesn't depend on rulesets. But take a rather
complex , yet common dispute : Bent 4 in the corner.
Lots of people have never heard of it , thus insist on living in seki. Under Japa-
nese rules the group is dead automatically without having to play it out. All this
takes explaining and convincing and is pretty much unfeasible in a blitz game.

Afaik , with other rulesets both players can agree on seki. If one disagrees ,
the sequence has to be played out including removal of ko threats and subsequent
ko fight. However , there are cases with irremovable ko threats such as smaller
sekis , double kos etc which might enable the second player to win the ko.

Under Japanese rules these players are screwed although the game is favorable to
them just because they happened to choose a ruleset which didn't consider this
particular case.

Everything you say is technically true, but the extreme unlikelihood of it ever being important makes me doubt its relevance. Maybe a bent four in the corner situation will lose a few beginners a few games, but so will stuff like missing atari, failing to punish stupid invasions, filling in their own eyes in seki etc. I won't deny that the Japanese treatment of bent four is not ideal, but I don't think it is a terrible burden for the beginner to bear.

As wms points out, whilst you are factually correct, your point is not a good argument when noting that this is more often a problem in all other rulesets.

Concerning the false eyes scoring problem ... I don't know about you , but I much
rather prefer a system where all liberties must be filled at all times to one
where only certain kinds of liberties must be filled.

In the KGS system, all liberties must be filled at all times or the score may be wrong. I have no problem with that. But sometimes I don't play the game properly and leave liberties unfilled.

It is not the case that only certain kinds of liberties must be filled. It is the case that certain kinds of liberties must be filled to ensure that the score is correct. this perhaps promotes laziness, but it's hard to imagine a scoring system where this would not be true. Plus, again, the effect on anything is tiny.

[Cassandra]

...
Bent 4 in the corner.
Lots of people have never heard of it , thus insist on living in seki. Under Japa-
nese rules the group is dead automatically without having to play it out.

Japanese rules have a local view on status evaluation, there is no room to "play something out using the whole board" after the end of "play". The sole and only question to answer during status evaluation is "Can this one and only one chain of stones be taken of the board ?" for each chain of stones on the board seperately.

In most cases, not in all, concluding status of Bent-Four will be found to be "dead".

[Harleqin]

Japanese rules have a local view on status evaluation, there is no room to "play something out using the whole board" after the end of "play". The sole and only question to answer during status evaluation is "Can this one and only one chain of stones be taken of the board ?" for each chain of stones on the board separately.

It seems, then, that a server that implements "japanese rules", but does not implement such an analysis, actually has an incomplete rule set. In other words, one should not rely on the players to reach agreement through informal communication (as this only works when the players are sufficiently experienced), but, in the case of a dispute, start an analysis phase for each disputed string, probably with infinite takebacks. For this, you need to define "local", of course.