Life In 19x19

This is a good start, especially with the additional abstraction to count only newly gained live stones - not all life stones when this would be an overkill.

A player could also count all stones in a certain space. For example in a 4*5 rectangle. E.g. one sequence result area being: B 12 W 8, the other sequence result area: B 10 W 10, difference being 4 or 2 points depending on whether the evaluation is done in moku or zi.

tiger314 wrote:Maybe I am missing something obvious here, but why cannot a player unfamiliar with all the theory of area scoring just compare his area after a certain move and after his opponent's countermove and do the usual sente-gote movevalue endgame analysis?

Sometimes that is good. But more often endgame analysis is easier using territory counting. In fact, every Chinese pro that I am aware of uses territory counting to evaluate endgame plays, as a rule. (Not that they can't switch. )

Nobody else has mentioned it so I will, but in this year's Super Meijin, Japanese fans watching the final game thought Iyama had won by 0.5. But they had been misled by the fact that there was a seki on the board with a (fillable) point inside, which they had ignored under Japanese rules but which counted for Chen under the Chinese rules in force. Some of them were doubly misled because the broadcast showed komi as 7.5 (as is fairly common in Chinese sgfs) instead of 3.75, and so assumed this meant Japanese rules applied. To add to the mix, Chen got the last dame as Black.

I have seen nothing to suggest Iyama was confused.

John Fairbairn wrote: I have seen nothing to suggest Iyama was confused.

It was mentioned in Shukan Go that Iyama found out quickly afterwards, but made a mistake in byoyomi handling the situation.