Practical alternatives to superko

[DrStraw]

if there are practical alternatives to superko then we would be using it already.
if you think you can invent something that so many great minds didnt think of then you head must be about to burst.

There is a practical alternative to superko and it was in use for hundreds of years until someone came up with the, in my opinion, stupid idea of superko. That idea is No Result.

[Magicwand]

if there are practical alternatives to superko then we would be using it already.
if you think you can invent something that so many great minds didnt think of then you head must be about to burst.

There is a practical alternative to superko and it was in use for hundreds of years until someone came up with the, in my opinion, stupid idea of superko. That idea is No Result.

DrStraw, I agree 99% with your statement.

but as a math and programmer myself i dont think superko is useless.
as 5 years old boy, I learned that taking one stone and opponent taking same stone that i placed... would be problem so we play somewhere else first and we called it ko threat. <--- very loose definition but worked on me for 20 years.

20 years later i read that it was to avoid duplicate board position (which is one good and logical way to describe the situation).
now they expanded the idea of duplicate board position to all possible problem areas known to go board to avoid tie game.

can people apply that idea to triple+ ko or other situation without getting confused?
i think even professionals will have hard time remembering all prior position.

Chochihun even for that that it was his turn to take ko during championship match.
now what would happen if it is triple or quadruple ko. only alpha-go will be able to trace such sequence.

Current rule of tie game in such rare situation is fine and people still can enjoy game without crazy rule such as super ko.

[illluck]

if there are practical alternatives to superko then we would be using it already.
if you think you can invent something that so many great minds didnt think of then you head must be about to burst.

I don't disagree with your position that superko is pretty decent (and I don't mind NR either), but I really don't think this kind of thinking is very helpful. You can apply this to finding new variations in Go, making science discoveries, or writing new stories. Yes - when you are looking at something that others have looked at, you should be prepared to look at the issue from another perspective or in more depth, but to dismiss such attempts is frankly silly.

[RobertJasiek]

In practice, No Result has the same difficulty as superko: one must be able to recognise repetition.

Great mind? Thanks;)

Discovery would already be used? Organisations often need decades to fix even much simpler problems of their rules. Just because something is practical does not mean it would be adopted quickly.

[luigi]

if there are practical alternatives to superko then we would be using it already.
if you think you can invent something that so many great minds didnt think of then you head must be about to burst.

I don't disagree with your position that superko is pretty decent (and I don't mind NR either), but I really don't think this kind of thinking is very helpful. You can apply this to finding new variations in Go, making science discoveries, or writing new stories. Yes - when you are looking at something that others have looked at, you should be prepared to look at the issue from another perspective or in more depth, but to dismiss such attempts is frankly silly.

Exactly. With that mindset, nothing would ever be invented.

[DrStraw]

can people apply that idea to triple+ ko or other situation without getting confused?
i think even professionals will have hard time remembering all prior position.

Chochihun even for that that it was his turn to take ko during championship match.
now what would happen if it is triple or quadruple ko. only alpha-go will be able to trace such sequence.

That is exactly why I don't like the superko rule. Imagine telling a complete beginner that he cannot play a point because it reproduces a previous position. He may understand the concept but will not be able to recall the previous position.

[hyperpape]

While "greatly" is subjective, I would argue that the 2-2-2 and 2-2 variants are not small changes--they prohibit what go players would perceive to be utterly ordinary ko threats, as in my example (it could be easily modified for the 2-2 rule). Without trying to create a technical definition, I would say that intuitively, a substitute ko rule should never prohibit a placement in an "unrelated" part of the board--unless perhaps that unrelated part of the board is part of a second ko fight. Any rule that fails that condition stops being a refinement of the ko rule and becomes a new go variant (this latter distinction is also fuzzy).

Now, go variants aren't the worst thing in the world. Redstone, for instance, seemed pretty interesting. There might even be some go variant in the space of possible games that would have been a better game than go. But given the fact that I've spent years learning the actual game of go, and the complications around the ko rule are manageable, I'm actually far less interested in go variants than I am in new games that do not have any particularly close relation to go.

[luigi]

While "greatly" is subjective, I would argue that the 2-2-2 and 2-2 variants are not small changes--they prohibit what go players would perceive to be utterly ordinary ko threats, as in my example (it could be easily modified for the 2-2 rule).

The 2-2 rule is more restrictive than the 2-2-2 rule, so your example is valid for both. Of course, one can always refine those rules by having them apply only to sequences of two disturbing captures and by stating that the move after such sequences can be anything except a disturbing play (to be defined as a move with all common features of all capturing and non-capturing moves in all forced cycles). That brings the game further closer to Go and complies better with your requirement for substitute ko rules.

Without trying to create a technical definition, I would say that intuitively, a substitute ko rule should never prohibit a placement in an "unrelated" part of the board--unless perhaps that unrelated part of the board is part of a second ko fight.

This is what the "disturbing capture" variant aims to accomplish. Not all disturbing captures will be part of ko fights, but all captures that are part of ko fights will be disturbing captures, since they are defined by the shared features of all captures that are part of ko fights.

Any rule that fails that condition stops being a refinement of the ko rule and becomes a new go variant (this latter distinction is also fuzzy)

I think I've always presented Stoical Go as a Go variant, and I agree that these new ones are too. But I also think they are refinements of the ko and superko rules.

[Pio2001]

There is a practical alternative to superko and it was in use for hundreds of years until someone came up with the, in my opinion, stupid idea of superko. That idea is No Result.

Hi,
I disagree here. The "no result" is even worse than "impractical", it is just impossible to apply in real life.

Imagine the final game of your national go championship. The winner of the game will be this years' go champion of your country.
You have rent a hall for the championship and must return the key in the evening. As usual, the planning of the championship is late.
The two players have their plane booked for the next morning to go home. For the night, they sleep at local player's homes.

After two hours of play, the game ends with no result. What do you do ?

a) Tell the basketball team using the hall after you that they must cancel their championship because you need the hall to replay the game.
b) Have the two players replay the final in your living room and tell them not to pay attention to your nephew who is yelling at the TV set watching the basketball championship.
c) Tell your federation that there will be no champion this year.
d) Having the match replayed another day, but too late to qualify your champion for the World Amateur Championship.
e) Rely on the high probability that no national final ever will end with "no result".


My opinion on the topic is that the the opposition of the simplicity of the rules vs the complexity of the game is an essential part of the beauty of go. Therefore my preferred option is just "no repetition allowed" (i.e. positional superko). This is the simplest rule.

My choice is also based on the fact that a rule should be short and easy to understand. I have always found very odd that no go books for beginner have a chapter called "rules of play".

Remembering repetitions is much easier than playing a long life ko, or even a bent four. For a triple ko, you play 5 captures, a ko threat exchange, 5 captures, a ko threat exchange etc. From a tactical point of view, there is no difference between a triple ko and a simple ko. The player who has more ko threats wins the triple ko.
I don't know how a quadruple ko behaves, though.

According to the statistics in the Go Player's Almanach, between 1960 and 1995, 12 games ended with no result, that is one out of 7300.
Out of these 12 games, 5 were triple ko, 5 were quadruple ko, 1 was eternal life, and 1 was an adjudication.

[oren]

There is a practical alternative to superko and it was in use for hundreds of years until someone came up with the, in my opinion, stupid idea of superko. That idea is No Result.

Hi,
I disagree here. The "no result" is even worse than "impractical", it is just impossible to apply in real life.

No result has been applied in real life many times. My favorite was a tv championship that ended that way. The players got a short break, change of officials and tv commentator, and they restarted the game.

That was easy...

For longer games, you can decide if you want ties or if you want a rescheduled match. Saying it's impractical is a bit silly.

[luigi]

I realize that my variants aren't quite Go, so it was to be expected that Go players wouldn't quite approve of them.

At this moment, my favorite way to handle repetitions in a way that the resulting game is still Go (i.e. in a way that changes only the way long cycles behave and nothing else, just as superko rules do) is Jasiek's Basic-Fixed-Ko rule. The effort needed to recognize repetitions is greater here than it is under the no-result rule (since you can only play out cycles once as opposed to infinitely many times) but lower than it is under superko (where no cycle can ever be played out to the end). And, most importantly, groups involved in would-be cycles are just alive, which seems adequate as you can never capture them under traditional rules (with no superko). So instead of voiding the game, you can just play on without worrying about those groups anymore. This further reduces the amount of mental effort spent in handling repetitions compared to superko.

It seems the perfect compromise between no result and superko to me. Out of curiosity, for those of you who dislike superko: what is your stance on that rule?

[Magicwand]

So instead of voiding the game, you can just play on without worrying about those groups anymore. This further reduces the amount of mental effort spent in handling repetitions compared to superko.

It seems the perfect compromise between no result and superko to me. Out of curiosity, for those of you who dislike superko: what is your stance on that rule?

Sorry about being blunt but
Ary you Triple Kyu?
you have no idea what you are sayin.

[Magicwand]

For those who think superko will work. I will give you simple triple ko. It has 6 move sequence to comeback to original positon.
imagine you have two triple ko. you can create 36 move sequence to make them come back to original position for two triple ko.
I am only talking about triple ko. now you imagine quad. i didnt do math on that but i will assume triple ko and quad ko.
will generat well over 100 move sequence to burnout possible move.

Now you KYU players who can not even understand simple life and death or review your own move past 10 move.
can you remember all 200 positions of ko if that come up? I strongly doubt that you remember past 10.

Now is that a solution for human being? NO!

$$ Very simple triple ko w little twist to confuse you
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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Very simple triple ko w little twist to confuse you
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In Korea when we play handycap game and score tie then it is a tie.
In Korean we call that (和局) <== I think it is correct character.
I think it means good game since nobody lost.
game doesnt necessary have winner and loser.
You will live to play another game.

[luigi]

For those who think superko will work. I will give you simple triple ko. It has 6 move sequence to comeback to original positon.
imagine you have two triple ko. you can create 36 move sequence to make them come back to original position for two triple ko.
I am only talking about triple ko. now you imagine quad. i didnt do math on that but i will assume triple ko and quad ko.
will generat well over 100 move sequence to burnout possible move.

Now you KYU players who can not even understand simple life and death or review your own move past 10 move.
can you remember all 200 positions of ko if that come up? I strongly doubt that you remember past 10.

Now is that a solution for human being? NO!

$$ Very simple triple ko w little twist to confuse you
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O X . X . |
$$ ---------------------------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Very simple triple ko w little twist to confuse you
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . X X |
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$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This difficulty doesn't apply to the Basic-Fixed-Ko rules, though. You can see without much calculation that none of the groups can be killed. Therefore, since we know playing out cycles is never beneficial under those rules, none of the players will play in that area for the rest of the game (except perhaps for ko threats).

[RobertJasiek]

For two triple or quadruple kos on the board, unless you know and can apply the theorem of Spight-Davies-Rickard (IIRC, these were involved) about how to fight multiple n-tuple-kos, the possible long sequences can indeed be (too) hard to remember, especially if the first few plays are played too quickly before really starting to try remembering moves.

Why care? In practical games, multiple n-tuple kos never occur! They are fun for theoreticians only. From a practical POV, the worst that would happen is one quadruple ko (or one quintuple ko) possibly with one most valuable basic ko fight elsewhere on the board. This is worth discussing because it occurs every ca. 50.000th game or less frequently.

One triple ko under superko, uh sure it is a 6 play cycle but emphasising this shows no understanding whatsoever how a triple ko can be fought under superko: like a basic ko. After one ko capture in the triple ko, make a ko threat elsewhere on the board. This is equivalent to three successive ko captures in the triple ko followed by a ko threat, which is equivalent to five successive ko captures in the triple ko followed by a ko threat. One triple ko is that easy!

Since the practically occurring cases can be handled by humans, superko is for humans.

Korean long cycle tie (like Japanese long cycle no result) has the same burden on the players to recognise occurrence of a cycle as superko, so is not easier at the moment of first creating a cycle. Only allowed recycling (for some time) without penalty can relax this so that stupid players can play cycles a few times before recognising that they are recycling indeed. Would they be proud of showing their weak cognitive skills?

Wait, if a game is a tie, then why play another game? Tournament rules exceptions, I see.

(Due to attending the European Go Congress, I might not find time to continue discussion until afterwards.)