Life In 19x19

xed_over wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:So I should probably start using Chinese scoring in concordance with the AGA rules?

AGA rules allow you to use either methods of counting -- with identical scores

But I doubt you'll find many people who will play with you using AGA rules except in an AGA tournament

If you're playing online mostly, then I wouldn't worry about it, because the computer will score it for you (after marking your dead stones). Most people won't even notice if their opponent has chosen a different ruleset online.

Hmm, ok thanks. I was under the uneducated impression that most people in the US probably used AGA rules in general, though I guess it makes sense that they might not since Go isn't nearly as popular over here as it is in Japan, Korea, and China.

RobertJasiek wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:the Territory method of scoring.
To me, this method seems the most natural

If "natural" is "you have known first". From an objective view, it depends on how one defines "natural". E.g., if natural is defined as "the same nature during a) playing the game and b) scoring the game", then Area Scoring is natural while Territory Scoring (as you know it) is unnatural: For Area Scoring, there is only one move-sequence and the moves can remain executed; for Territory Scoring, there is only one move-sequence while playing the game but there can be arbitrarily many move-sequences while scoring the game and moves during playing the game remain executed while moves during the scoring have to be undone. I am having difficulty finding some definition of natural so that Territory Scoring would be natural but Area Scoring not; it is easier to find other definitions so that both are natural.

what method of scoring should I use?

It depends on using where and for which purposes, on opponents and playing venues, tournaments or not. If you have some specific criterions, then answering is easier. E.g., if simplicity of the rules is a criterion, then Area Scoring is the choice, as you can find out:

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

neither one is necessarily right or wrong

It depends on what you mean by "right" and "wrong". Yes if you mean "justified by historical creation". If you mean "not having severe mistakes in the rules", consider those of a typical example ruleset for Territory Scoring:

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/wagcflaw.html

Yeah, by "natural" I meant "natural to me." Japanese scoring seems more natural to me since that is how I first learned and since every book I have on the subject has been Japanese or Korean. It's not that Area scoring seems abnormal to me (I don't mean to offend), it's just that it is different from how I have ever played so therefore less normal, if that makes sense

Mivo wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:For a beginner it matters very much because of the extremely different difficulties of rules understanding.

The finer points and the weaknesses of some rule sets don't concern a beginner, and I'd say they don't concern most players in general. When I started out, I was mostly confused by the existence of two "archetypes" of rules and I felt that area (Chinese) counting was more intuitive and I still believe it is easier to teach to someone (because they can make unnecessary safety moves without affecting the score), but most people online were using territory (Japanese) scoring, which is also what most books use, so I learned that. Once I had grasped it, it felt more "elegant" to me, but it's less straight forward.

Those different scoring methods, extended further by various organizations making modifications, are one of the chief reasons why Go isn't more popular "in the west", in my opinion. Chess doesn't suffer from the same issue. This is also why I always grin at "Go is easy to learn". No, it's not, it's confusing as heck.

I kind of like the fact that in Japanese scoring it makes me think more when doing "safety moves" in my own territory. While I think these could also make me and other beginners be too hesitant to place stones in their own territory, I think that this might help break a habit of over-focusing on one area? Again though, this is just my uneducated opinion.

RobertJasiek wrote:

HermanHiddema wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:For a beginner it matters very much because of the extremely different difficulties of rules understanding.

The evidence suggests otherwise.

The evidence is that still nobody could show me any beginner with a reasonable understanding of territory scoring rules. Therefore the evidence does not suggest otherwise. In particular, beginners tend to overlook simple facts such that filling liberties for final removals is a mistake. Almost all beginners are having great difficulties with reading more than one move deep or with the idea of playing inside an eye; this is the contrary to having an ability to distinguish life from death. Beginners reading the wrong introductions don't even know that sekis exist. Etc.

I honestly don't consider territory scoring all that difficult - but perhaps I am doing it wrong and oversimplifying it? Are there several steps to it that I'm not aware of? I'll have to read up on this...

emeraldemon wrote:I'm guessing the original poster has already given up on the debate in this thread, but I'll go ahead and share my experience.

I first found out about go when someone handed me a copy of [sl=GoForBeginners]Go For Beginners[/sl] . I found a friend who had also learned the rules somewhere, and the two of us just played each other, figuring out stuff by consulting the book and trial and error. Of course Go For Beginners teaches Japanese scoring.

For us in the beginning, the question of dispute resolution was quite confusing, and unfortunately it isn't explained at all (as I remember) in Iwamoto's book. After a few games we realized that someone could stubbornly force you to capture dead stones by not "agreeing" as a way of forcing you to fill in your own territory. Eventually we just agreed not to do this, it seemed somehow "wrong". I didn't learn the correct response (play it out, then roll back the moves) until much later. And for a beginner remembering how a position looked after fighting something out isn't necessarily practical.

The AGA solution seems simple and elegant to me: if your opponent forces you to capture stones, the must give you one prisoner for each time they pass. I wish I had known this rule when I was first learning, it would have caused less confusion for me. Maybe if I had a stronger player to explain how it works, it wouldn't have mattered, but I didn't.

You've definitely got some interesting points...how often do these types of difficulties come up in Japanese and Korean games that (as far as I know) don't have the pass stone rule?

---

Anyways, thanks for all of the answers! Nice to see that this is a very active community

For now I think I will stick with Japanese/territory scoring since that's what I know, that's what my books teach, and because that's what it seems like most online people play with. I'll probably try out Chinese/area scoring with a few games though, and might switch over.

Thanks again!

scutheotaku wrote:I kind of like the fact that in Japanese scoring it makes me think more when doing "safety moves" in my own territory. While I think these could also make me and other beginners be too hesitant to place stones in their own territory, I think that this might help break a habit of over-focusing on one area? Again though, this is just my uneducated opinion.

This should be true regardless of what rule-set you use. In area scoring, you get points for playing in the worthless empty points between territories; in territory scoring, you lose points for playing inside your own territory. Same difference. However, if you think territory rules make it easier for you to understand this aspect of the game, all the more reason to play with territory rules.

Pedantic point: beginners often play unnecessary moves inside their own territory in the middle of the game. This sort of move forfeits the 5-10 points that one could have gotten from playing in a valuable part of the board. This forfeit is far more important than the lost point of territory (under territory scoring) or the forfeited dame point (under area scoring). But humans are loss averse, so I suspect it's more obvious to beginners that they've made a mistake when you tell them they destroyed a point of their own territory than when you tell them they failed to make five additional points of territory.

scutheotaku wrote:I honestly don't consider territory scoring all that difficult - but perhaps I am doing it wrong and oversimplifying it? Are there several steps to it that I'm not aware of? I'll have to read up on this...

No, you're doing it right. Don't worry about it.

scutheotaku wrote: You've definitely got some interesting points...how often do these types of difficulties come up in Japanese and Korean games that (as far as I know) don't have the pass stone rule?

They come up very, very rarely - basically only when you're playing a game with a very ignorant, very stubborn sore loser. The final solution, regardless of what rule-set you're using, is to call in a tournament official/server administrator. And, as Hobbes was fond of saying, if you aren't playing in a tournament or on a server, clubs are trumps.

So these difficulties with the rules are all hypothetical. However, a certain type of person is more upset by hypothetical difficulties than by real difficulties.

jts wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:I kind of like the fact that in Japanese scoring it makes me think more when doing "safety moves" in my own territory. While I think these could also make me and other beginners be too hesitant to place stones in their own territory, I think that this might help break a habit of over-focusing on one area? Again though, this is just my uneducated opinion.

This should be true regardless of what rule-set you use. In area scoring, you get points for playing in the worthless empty points between territories; in territory scoring, you lose points for playing inside your own territory. Same difference. However, if you think territory rules make it easier for you to understand this aspect of the game, all the more reason to play with territory rules.

Pedantic point: beginners often play unnecessary moves inside their own territory in the middle of the game. This sort of move forfeits the 5-10 points that one could have gotten from playing in a valuable part of the board. This forfeit is far more important than the lost point of territory (under territory scoring) or the forfeited dame point (under area scoring). But humans are loss averse, so I suspect it's more obvious to beginners that they've made a mistake when you tell them they destroyed a point of their own territory than when you tell them they failed to make five additional points of territory.

scutheotaku wrote:I honestly don't consider territory scoring all that difficult - but perhaps I am doing it wrong and oversimplifying it? Are there several steps to it that I'm not aware of? I'll have to read up on this...

No, you're doing it right. Don't worry about it.

scutheotaku wrote: You've definitely got some interesting points...how often do these types of difficulties come up in Japanese and Korean games that (as far as I know) don't have the pass stone rule?

They come up very, very rarely - basically only when you're playing a game with a very ignorant, very stubborn sore loser. The final solution, regardless of what rule-set you're using, is to call in a tournament official/server administrator. And, as Hobbes was fond of saying, if you aren't playing in a tournament or on a server, clubs are trumps.

So these difficulties with the rules are all hypothetical. However, a certain type of person is more upset by hypothetical difficulties than by real difficulties.

Thanks for the nice, thoughtful response! I think I'm definitely sticking with territory scoring, but I do plan on learning area scoring (which I pretty much get right now, I think).

scutheotaku wrote:Japanese scoring it makes me think more when doing "safety moves" in my own territory.

Territory scoring and area scoring are very similar there: Under area scoring, you first want to play the endgame before making superfluous safety moves. The difference occurs after the endgame and if the score is 0 or 0.5: Then a safety move can lose the game under territory scoring but not under area scoring.

I honestly don't consider territory scoring all that difficult - but perhaps I am doing it wrong and oversimplifying it? Are there several steps to it that I'm not aware of? I'll have to read up on this...

Have a rough reading (as a beginner, you are already too interested in rules anyway:) ) of
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j_verbal_status.pdf
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html
Then tell me if you have been aware of the major territory scoring aspects. Warning: This is the reality of Japanese / Korean style rules. It could all be simpler as in
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/sj.html
but the Japanese and Koreans hate rules simplicity.

how often do these types of difficulties come up in Japanese and Korean games that (as far as I know) don't have the pass stone rule?

The major rules mistakes become relevant in each game, see
the section "Dead Stones in Territory Do Not Exist" in
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html

Under the pretence that the actually valid, official rules did not have any mistakes, occurrence of difficulties becomes a matter of frequency of difficult life and death status questions, where difficult depends on playing strength and the players' ability to notice the difficulty. IOW, beginners can have the greatest frequency but also they make many judgement mistakes about life and death so overlook quite some of the difficulties.

For now I think I will stick with Japanese/territory scoring since that's what I know, that's what my books teach,

Do they? Usually they hide most or all of the difficulties and fail to explain at least how to create a two-eye-formation.

RobertJasiek wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:Japanese scoring it makes me think more when doing "safety moves" in my own territory.

Territory scoring and area scoring are very similar there: Under area scoring, you first want to play the endgame before making superfluous safety moves. The difference occurs after the endgame and if the score is 0 or 0.5: Then a safety move can lose the game under territory scoring but not under area scoring.

I honestly don't consider territory scoring all that difficult - but perhaps I am doing it wrong and oversimplifying it? Are there several steps to it that I'm not aware of? I'll have to read up on this...

Have a rough reading (as a beginner, you are already too interested in rules anyway:) ) of
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j_verbal_status.pdf
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html
Then tell me if you have been aware of the major territory scoring aspects. Warning: This is the reality of Japanese / Korean style rules. It could all be simpler as in
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/sj.html
but the Japanese and Koreans hate rules simplicity.

how often do these types of difficulties come up in Japanese and Korean games that (as far as I know) don't have the pass stone rule?

The major rules mistakes become relevant in each game, see
the section "Dead Stones in Territory Do Not Exist" in
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html

Under the pretence that the actually valid, official rules did not have any mistakes, occurrence of difficulties becomes a matter of frequency of difficult life and death status questions, where difficult depends on playing strength and the players' ability to notice the difficulty. IOW, beginners can have the greatest frequency but also they make many judgement mistakes about life and death so overlook quite some of the difficulties.

For now I think I will stick with Japanese/territory scoring since that's what I know, that's what my books teach,

Do they? Usually they hide most or all of the difficulties and fail to explain at least how to create a two-eye-formation.

Thanks for the response!

Hmm, those rules are quite long
Still though, it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult, though I understand that it's probably much more difficult in pro (and even high amateur) games and that there needs to be a standardized way to decide these things for tournament purposes - right?

As for the couple of Go books I have, they do use territory scoring and they do explain how to create two-eye formations. I can't say that what I've learned is the same as the rules you posted above, but the books are Korean - perhaps this is a difference, though I've been told that both use the same scoring method. Are the life and death rules different then?

A question - are you trying to say that I should switch to area scoring?

Anyways, I'm not trying to focus on the rules too much...I simply want to know that I'm scoring correctly. Right now I'm playing most of my games in person, so I want to make sure that I can at least score so that a teaching game isn't filled with a lot of "um...I 'm not sure"'s during scoring...

PS: By the way, the books I've been reading are the first three from Jeong Soo-hyun and Janice Kim's Learn to Play Go series.

scutheotaku wrote:Still though, it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult, though I understand that it's probably much more difficult in pro (and even high amateur) games and that there needs to be a standardized way to decide these things for tournament purposes - right?

It is usually not difficult to ascertain the status of a settled life and death position, regardless of the level of the game. If a player disputes its status, generally there isn't a problem as this player can dispute it by trying to kill their opponent!

I suppose the biggest (maybe only?) problem is that there are some amusing positions where one player would lose points by proving it (generally this occurs in territory scoring but not area scoring). There is one relatively common example where 'the bent four in the corner is dead'. Confusingly, this doesn't refer to the bent four eyeshape, but to shapes like the following:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ -------
$$ | O . X O .
$$ | O X X O .
$$ | O X O O .
$$ | . X O , .
$$ | X X O . .
$$ | O O O . .[/go]

In this shape (assuming there are no other moves left to play on the board), can you work out the status of the group? In case it isn't obvious, this is something of a trick question, and is quite a hard problem because of this.

I won't post the answer here, because it's well analysed at http://senseis.xmp.net/?BentFourInTheCornerIsDead . It is a good example of a relatively common shape where the specifics of a ruleset can make a big difference in a life and death situation. However, it's worth emphasising that it's really not worth worrying about this, it's no kind of problem, and you're fine using whatever ruleset you find comfortable. Area scoring has some advantages, but I've personally never seen it used except to show someone how it works. I like AGA rules for the way they neatly allow you to count whichever way you prefer, but use verbal Japanese scoring in any non-tournament game. Counting territory is just the way almost everyone does it here (in the UK).

scutheotaku wrote:it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult

It can be easy or difficult in every game. This is secondary for correct rules application. Primary is whether you always determine / perceive the life and death statuses correctly.

As for the couple of Go books I have, they do use territory scoring and they do explain how to create two-eye formations.

Really? The beginner books I have seen mostly showed how a group with minimal life looks like but did not explain that every independent life could be transformed to a two-eye-formation, how to do that and how to consider several variations. Have the recent beginner books finally become better as a consequence of my efforts to explain two-eye-formation?

I can't say that what I've learned is the same as the rules you posted above,

I posted simplified rules. You don't want to know the official Japanese rules, don't you? I have linked only a commentary on them (but of course you COULD find all on my webpage;) )

but the books are Korean - perhaps this is a difference,

There are differences. See my webpage if you can't resist.

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

Are the life and death rules different then?

Their fine print, yes.

A question - are you trying to say that I should switch to area scoring?

Sure. There is a minor obstacle though: Go is a 2-player game and your opponent needs to agree:)

Anyways, I'm not trying to focus on the rules too much...

Right. Rules study prevents from becoming stronger because one lacks time to study strategy and tactics:)

I simply want to know that I'm scoring correctly.

If you use territory scoring, there is no simple answer. You would need to provide games or sample positions, I guess, and hope that somebody takes time for checking.

amnal wrote:I suppose the biggest (maybe only?) problem is that there are some amusing positions

The biggest problem is the rather frequent shapes with fake obvious status:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ -------
$$ | . . X O .
$$ | . . X O .
$$ | . . X O .
$$ | X X X O .
$$ | O O O O .[/go]

In a Go introduction in German TV ("Sendung mit der Maus"), it was taught wrongly...

RobertJasiek wrote:

HermanHiddema wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:For a beginner it matters very much because of the extremely different difficulties of rules understanding.

The evidence suggests otherwise.

The evidence is that still nobody could show me any beginner with a reasonable understanding of territory scoring rules. Therefore the evidence does not suggest otherwise. In particular, beginners tend to overlook simple facts such that filling liberties for final removals is a mistake. Almost all beginners are having great difficulties with reading more than one move deep or with the idea of playing inside an eye; this is the contrary to having an ability to distinguish life from death. Beginners reading the wrong introductions don't even know that sekis exist. Etc.

I've taught dozens of beginners, and they've all been able to grasp the rules and have gone on to become happy, active go players. Furthermore, millions upon millions of people in Japan and Korea have managed to successfully learn the rules and play the game for hundreds of years.

@scutheotaku: I wouldn't worry too much about the differences between Territory and Area scoring, they are pretty trivial. Stick to the rules that the people around you play, because ultimately, the purpose of learning this game is to have fun. It is better to play against other people, than to get into arguments with them about rules trivia.

HermanHiddema wrote:I've taught dozens of beginners, and they've all been able to grasp the rules and have gone on to become happy, active go players.

Right. I forgot that lucky beginners having a good personal teacher (and even with solid rules knowledge) at all have a much better chance.

Furthermore, millions upon millions of people in Japan and Korea have managed to successfully learn the rules and play the game for hundreds of years.

Those mythical millions of millions have not understood the rules well. As I know from many talks, only very few actually do understand the rules reasonably. It is more like they have understood life and death than the rules. So what they have is rather an implicit rough approximation of what the rules' effect means in ordinary cases. If they were asked to write down the rules, mostly they would create such nonsense as J1949 or WAGC79.

RobertJasiek wrote:

Furthermore, millions upon millions of people in Japan and Korea have managed to successfully learn the rules and play the game for hundreds of years.

Those mythical millions of millions have not understood the rules well. As I know from many talks, only very few actually do understand the rules reasonably. It is more like they have understood life and death than the rules. So what they have is rather an implicit rough approximation of what the rules' effect means in ordinary cases. If they were asked to write down the rules, mostly they would create such nonsense as J1949 or WAGC79.

If they understand the rules well enough to play, they understand the rules.

In a similar vein:

I understand the rules of football (soccer), but I have never even looked at a referee's handbook. There may be dozens of obscure edge cases that I have never heard of.

Numerous people understand computer programming, but if you ask them a question about, say, the pump lemma, they'll have no idea what you are talking about.

There is a difference between "understand" and "have studied in depth every possible edge case".

amnal wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:Still though, it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult, though I understand that it's probably much more difficult in pro (and even high amateur) games and that there needs to be a standardized way to decide these things for tournament purposes - right?

It is usually not difficult to ascertain the status of a settled life and death position, regardless of the level of the game. If a player disputes its status, generally there isn't a problem as this player can dispute it by trying to kill their opponent!

I suppose the biggest (maybe only?) problem is that there are some amusing positions where one player would lose points by proving it (generally this occurs in territory scoring but not area scoring). There is one relatively common example where 'the bent four in the corner is dead'. Confusingly, this doesn't refer to the bent four eyeshape, but to shapes like the following:

$$c
$$ -------
$$ | O . X O .
$$ | O X X O .
$$ | O X O O .
$$ | . X O , .
$$ | X X O . .
$$ | O O O . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ -------
$$ | O . X O .
$$ | O X X O .
$$ | O X O O .
$$ | . X O , .
$$ | X X O . .
$$ | O O O . .[/go]

In this shape (assuming there are no other moves left to play on the board), can you work out the status of the group? In case it isn't obvious, this is something of a trick question, and is quite a hard problem because of this.

I won't post the answer here, because it's well analysed at http://senseis.xmp.net/?BentFourInTheCornerIsDead . It is a good example of a relatively common shape where the specifics of a ruleset can make a big difference in a life and death situation. However, it's worth emphasising that it's really not worth worrying about this, it's no kind of problem, and you're fine using whatever ruleset you find comfortable. Area scoring has some advantages, but I've personally never seen it used except to show someone how it works. I like AGA rules for the way they neatly allow you to count whichever way you prefer, but use verbal Japanese scoring in any non-tournament game. Counting territory is just the way almost everyone does it here (in the UK).

Thanks, that really cleared some things up

RobertJasiek wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult

It can be easy or difficult in every game. This is secondary for correct rules application. Primary is whether you always determine / perceive the life and death statuses correctly.

As for the couple of Go books I have, they do use territory scoring and they do explain how to create two-eye formations.

Really? The beginner books I have seen mostly showed how a group with minimal life looks like but did not explain that every independent life could be transformed to a two-eye-formation, how to do that and how to consider several variations. Have the recent beginner books finally become better as a consequence of my efforts to explain two-eye-formation?

I can't say that what I've learned is the same as the rules you posted above,

I posted simplified rules. You don't want to know the official Japanese rules, don't you? I have linked only a commentary on them (but of course you COULD find all on my webpage;) )

but the books are Korean - perhaps this is a difference,

There are differences. See my webpage if you can't resist.

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

Are the life and death rules different then?

Their fine print, yes.

A question - are you trying to say that I should switch to area scoring?

Sure. There is a minor obstacle though: Go is a 2-player game and your opponent needs to agree:)

Anyways, I'm not trying to focus on the rules too much...

Right. Rules study prevents from becoming stronger because one lacks time to study strategy and tactics:)

I simply want to know that I'm scoring correctly.

If you use territory scoring, there is no simple answer. You would need to provide games or sample positions, I guess, and hope that somebody takes time for checking.

Yeah, the book series I have explains two-eye formations pretty well, I think. While I'm not sure how reknowned they are in the Go world, while looking for a good Go book I found that Janice Kim and Jeong Soo-hyun's Learn to Play Go series (the books I'm referring to) are the ones that seem to get recommeneded the most. As far as how new they are, the original printing was 1996, second edition is 1998.

I know what you mean on bad instruction books though. When I first picked up Go, I bought one of those set with the half-size (though still 19x19) board and the little, impossible-to-pick-up plastic stones. The set's Go manual was my introduction to the game, and well... Let's just say that it was pretty bad... It used territory scoring too, but it barely even mentioned life and death and certainly didn't explain it. In the end, the book had somehow led me to believe that stones were only alive if, and only if, they had some sort of connection (whether by open territory or by other stones of the same color) to the edge of the board... I thought this was the way to play for a couple of weeks until I picked up the Learn to Play Go series.

It seems like the full-length Japanese rules (not that I've read them) is mainly so long because of the technicalities (e.g. for resolving disputes). If you could please outline the general differences between the simplified Japanse rules you posted and the far-longer officila rules - or are the differences more minor and/or based on specific issues?

I'd rather not compare Korean and Japanese rules looking for differences, but I appreciate the link - nice website!

At the moment, all of the players I play in person are the people I have taught - so if I switch to area scoring, then I don't see them not.

I agree on rules study - I am focusing almost entirely on strategy and tactics, but I think it's important to an extent to get the concepts of the scoring method being used. Maybe I'm wrong though, I'm far from an expert at the game.

Thanks again for your lengthy responses!

scutheotaku wrote:I agree on rules study - I am focusing almost entirely on strategy and tactics, but I think it's important to an extent to get the concepts of the scoring method being used. Maybe I'm wrong though, I'm far from an expert at the game.

I'm not sure what you really mean here in terms of how much you focus on what, but it seems a little dubious. You can play perfectly good go (including all the subtlety and ideas of any high level go game) with nothing more than the concept that at the end of the game you must have more stones on the board than your opponent (well...plus that you take turns to play, have the capturing rule, and a simple ko rule). The idea of territory follows on this when players realise that they don't need to fill in some areas because their opponent can be killed if they play there themselves, so 'territory' is invented to save time.

Whilst there is a little more than that to the normal rulesets, it's all you need to play the game, and studying the ruleset in more detail seems of very minor value for improvement itself. That is to say, rules investigation may be interesting on its own, but it's something almost completely separate to strategy and tactics.

amnal wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:I agree on rules study - I am focusing almost entirely on strategy and tactics, but I think it's important to an extent to get the concepts of the scoring method being used. Maybe I'm wrong though, I'm far from an expert at the game.

I'm not sure what you really mean here in terms of how much you focus on what, but it seems a little dubious. You can play perfectly good go (including all the subtlety and ideas of any high level go game) with nothing more than the concept that at the end of the game you must have more stones on the board than your opponent (well...plus that you take turns to play, have the capturing rule, and a simple ko rule). The idea of territory follows on this when players realise that they don't need to fill in some areas because their opponent can be killed if they play there themselves, so 'territory' is invented to save time.

Whilst there is a little more than that to the normal rulesets, it's all you need to play the game, and studying the ruleset in more detail seems of very minor value for improvement itself. That is to say, rules investigation may be interesting on its own, but it's something almost completely separate to strategy and tactics.

Yeah, I guess you are right! To be honest, I'm not really sure what I was thinking

amnal wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:Still though, it doesn't seem like deciding life and death is that difficult, though I understand that it's probably much more difficult in pro (and even high amateur) games and that there needs to be a standardized way to decide these things for tournament purposes - right?

It is usually not difficult to ascertain the status of a settled life and death position, regardless of the level of the game. If a player disputes its status, generally there isn't a problem as this player can dispute it by trying to kill their opponent!

I suppose the biggest (maybe only?) problem is that there are some amusing positions where one player would lose points by proving it (generally this occurs in territory scoring but not area scoring). There is one relatively common example where 'the bent four in the corner is dead'. Confusingly, this doesn't refer to the bent four eyeshape, but to shapes like the following:

$$c
$$ -------
$$ | O . X O .
$$ | O X X O .
$$ | O X O O .
$$ | . X O , .
$$ | X X O . .
$$ | O O O . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ -------
$$ | O . X O .
$$ | O X X O .
$$ | O X O O .
$$ | . X O , .
$$ | X X O . .
$$ | O O O . .[/go]

In this shape (assuming there are no other moves left to play on the board), can you work out the status of the group? In case it isn't obvious, this is something of a trick question, and is quite a hard problem because of this.

Looking at this again, it doesn't really seem to me that a problem like this would be hard to decipher. Right away I was able to see that black was dead - or is this wrong?

HermanHiddema wrote:If they understand the rules well enough to play, they understand the rules.

Playing is trivial: Alternation, removal of libertyless stones, no immediate ko recapture. Rather understanding the rules well enough means to understand the reasoning behind scoring well enough.