I can't figure out how to count.

[Jedo]

In the first picture, the marked score is correct because all the black groups aside from the one on the middle left cannot make two eyes. For example, if black plays o19 then white plays p19 and black is dead. The situation is the same for all the other black groups, even if it is not immediately obvious.

In the second picture, the black groups in the lower left upper left and upper right corners are all dead. The scoring engine seems to be confused by the fake eyes and possibility of making fake eyes (such as with A16). The block in the lower right technically has 4 eyes as it stands (4 distinct divided up areas) and in fact could make more if he felt like it for some reason.

You are correct, the giant black group is not dead because of the multitude of eyes he has in the upper right. Those black stone in the lower right are counted as dead because they do not have any eyes, or any way of making any and are inside white territory.

Just to emphasize, any stones/groups without the possibility of making two eyes are considered dead at the end of the game, even if they have liberties remaining.

Hope this helps!

[RobertJasiek]

It depends on which rules you are using but for the moment let us pretend it did not matter and all you would be interesting in is determining life and death.

The idea is: Continue to play! Continue until you will have removed all that you can remove! As you have already noticed, you can't remove a group with two eyes. If the territories are bigger than two single point eyes, continue and try to remove but you will notice (with good strategy play) that all you get is two (or more) eyes, which you can't remove.

Then back to the rules. There are two different classes of rules:

1) Area. This is empty intersections plus your stones still on the board. Here the continuation described above works correctly.

2) Territory. This is empty intersections plus opposing stones removed from the board. Here the continuation described above does not work because during continuation empty intersections are filled and thus lost. Descriptions of how to score under such rules might be too difficult for you at the moment. However, on the server on which you have been playing, maybe such rules are being used. Bad luck. You will probably produce wrongly scored games. I might explain but I do not want to confuse you.

[daal]

It looks like you could use a tutorial on the basics. Here is a great place to start:

http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/

[Bill Spight]

Looking at your examples, it is obvious that the computer program does not know how to score.

At this point in your go career it is probably better to play against humans, who can give you help and advice. KGS is a friendly place.

[EdLee]

Hi lunixer, welcome to Go!
Life-and-death is not the most important thing, but it is very important,
along with other equally important ideas.
As others have suggested, try to find nice people (on KGS, for example) to play.
Try to finish 100 games as quickly as you can.

[fwiffo]

Yes, it's definitely not counting correctly It's not marking dead stones correctly on its own, which is resulting in an incorrect score. Most of the time players need to mark dead stones as such. If you're ever in a situation where you're confused about whether stones are alive or dead, either just keep playing until they're captured (or you determine that they're not capturable), or ask a stronger player for clarification.

My experience is that there are always people willing to help beginners on KGS.

Identifying dead stones during scoring and the concept of territory are the first big hurdle beginners have, but you'll get the hang of it after a few games. Once you're past that, you can really start enjoying the game.

[xed_over]

Looking at your examples, it is obvious that the computer program does not know how to score.

At this point in your go career it is probably better to play against humans, who can give you help and advice. KGS is a friendly place.

Does everybody else agree that this program is counting incorrectly? I've been playing some people, some computers on goshrine. If it's not counting correctly I'll move to KGS.

No, its not that its counting incorrectly. But rather that it doesn't know how to mark dead stones.

So, its counting correctly with the information its been given. If you mark the dead stones properly, then the score will be more accurate.

[pete]

goshrine.com uses gnugo to determine life/death status of groups. The first and last screenshots are what I would expect, and I think gnugo's assessment is fine. The second screenshot shows a game that you resigned (http://goshrine.com/g/fa67bbc3). In this case, goshrine should not be marking any territory or life/death, so it seems there is a small bug.

-Pete

[Mivo]

I feel that at this point you would really benefit by playing some 9x9 games. The games are faster and L&D status may be easier to determine (and seeing why, too). On a small board you can also manually count the score without much effort. Leela Lite and Igowin are both free and have an automatic rank/handicap system (the rank is not the same as used elsewhere).

[Joaz Banbeck]

Never try to learn counting from a computer. They are notoriously bad at it.

[Li Kao]

Never try to learn counting from a computer. They are notoriously bad at it.

Why? Counting a finished game is just a matter of deciding life and death. And computers shouldn't be worse at that than most kyus.

[Mike Novack]

a) If you think the computer (program) has counted the score incorrectly, might want to tell us why. But should note that the "count in progress" (projected score) and the "final count" are very different matters. I haven't bother to count more than the first example where it is clear that there is just one live black group on the board and black has just two points.

b) Please don't say "computers" do ....... (whatever). Say "computer programs" or better yet "program X" does thus and so. The computer itself isn't playing go; a program running on the computer is. You shouldn't generalize too much.

c) Whether computers (computer programs) are useful learning tools is very dependent on how used. Not completley fair to declare "bad learning tool" just because easy to misuse. Used properly probably can be a good learning tool. Just learn their limitations, the conditions under which they (each particular program -- of the ones you propose to use) will be poor "teachers" from which you would learn bad habits and under what conditions they would be good teachers.

[bogiesan]

I played four games in my first week of go. I played with a friend who y explained things to me. I me ergs whim a decent game in five years but I understand the game because of Rad's patience.

Play with other human beings. No online. Sitting at a board. That is how you learn to count. It is how you learn to enjoy go.

David Boise id