Life In 19x19

Having a highest authority to make an arbitrary decision is a way of handling an ambiguous scoring system, but it is not a way of allowing easy understanding in the sense of predicting the authority's decisions. A scoring must be easy BEFORE and AFTER possible decisions. This is so if before and after are always the same, i.e., if scoring is independent of arbitrary decision-making.

RobertJasiek wrote:Having a highest authority to make an arbitrary decision is a way of handling an ambiguous scoring system, but it is not a way of allowing easy understanding in the sense of predicting the authority's decisions. A scoring must be easy BEFORE and AFTER possible decisions. This is so if before and after are always the same, i.e., if scoring is independent of arbitrary decision-making.

The decision is not arbitrary, it is based on a good understanding of the spirit of the rules. Most people who themselves have a good understanding of the spirit of the rules are quite capable of predicting such decisions with reasonable accuracy. That kind of thing is in fact very common in areas which are much less clear-cut, such as e.g. law.

HermanHiddema wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:

Charlie wrote:Japanese scoring is dead easy

"Easy" enough to be understood after centuries of failures, then 10 years of my preliminary studies and 11 months of my more than full-time work;)

Actually, Japanese rules have been understood perfectly for centuries. It is just that that understanding included the option of having a referee decide disputes. The modern approach, where we want an algorithm that can perfectly decide every possible situation, is not inherently better, IMO, it is just more popular under current cultural norms.

Your post made me curious. I have two questions for someone like John Fairbairn, the resident expert on historical matters. It doesn't have to be John. If anyone else knows the answers, please feel free to post it here.

1) Were there rule disputes in the Edo period? If yes, then what was the method of resolving them?

2) Did the great Go Seigen feel that having a referee decide disputes was superior to having the matter codified in the rules? If I recall correctly, Go Seigen, on at least one occasion, insisted on the codification of a related rule as a condition of accepting the referee's judgment in a rule dispute. That makes me think that Go Seigen was in favor of clear rules that eliminated ambiguity. Of course, Go Seigen was Chinese (i.e., there was a cultural difference), but he did come to Japan at a relatively young age.

From my perspective it doesn't look like there were very many rules disputes that came up. Those that did, don't appear to have derailed the popularity of the game.
I find it nice that Chinese professionals don't like superko, and prefer to have a rematch instead.

It terms of rulesets that prescribe a certain number of stones be given to each player, the Ing rules is one example. In fact, unless I'm missing something, your system is---for all practical purposes---the same, at least at the level of having the same advantages and drawbacks.

Opninions vary on whether Ing counting is desirable. I will provide mine.

1. In princple, one can use it without the players being able to count.

2. Management of stones can be a problem. I've been in a number of real-life tournaments with Ing counting and without fail there is some game where players get confused because some stones were lost, dropped on the floor, etc. because the board at the end of the game doesn't have the pretty result shown in the SL page I linked to. In fact, I don't think I've been in a single tournament run by Ing rules where a TD didn't have to be called due to this.

2. The management of stones is supposed to be improved by the use of Ing Bowls, but too often they are more trouble than they are worth. The Ing bowl is a great idea---in principle. However, it suffers from serious design and manufacturing defects. For example, stones can get stuck in non-standard orientations, making the count wrong. Also, plastic shards tend to break off the wheels leaving sharp edges, which is not something one really wants to worry about in, say, a youth tournament. Springs break. Wheels stick. I can go on. In most tournaments there is some player who can't use the bowl correctly (or gets frustrated with an actual broken one) and winds up dumping all the stones out the side of the board in some disruptive fashion.

That being said, the desire for simplifying rules is often motivated by the goal of making life easier for beginners (or computers), and if these players are playing on 9x9 or smaller boards, stone management is much less of an issue and the tedious overhead mentioned by others on this thread is also not much of a problem.

HermanHiddema wrote:The decision is not arbitrary, it is based on a good understanding of the spirit of the rules. Most people who themselves have a good understanding of the spirit of the rules are quite capable of predicting such decisions with reasonable accuracy.

I simplified. When disputes in otherwise predictable environments (Edo / Meiji Japan Go) arise then because they focus around the there ambiguous aspects. Such aspects lead to unpredictable decisions.

Javaness2 wrote:I find it nice that Chinese professionals don't like superko

Among Chinese, Korean and Japanese professionals, there are each two factions: liking versus disliking superko. (I do not have enough evidence for Taiwanese professionals.)

Is that in the same way that there are those who believe in Santa, and those who do not believe in Santa?

I have been reading the ing rules. If that is the best translation I am afraid they are way too complex for a beginner or for me to understand. So if "my" rules define about the same game I am proud because they are much simpler. I am confident that the practical issues raised here can be solved once the players agree on the statuses of their groups and after removing and filling following the agreement. For example by the scoring methods mentioned by Robert such as pairing stones or rearranging the stones. The boring end then only exists if players refuse to resign or to agree. But that is also boring under present rules.

I believe in Santa!

cyclops wrote:For example by the scoring methods mentioned by Robert such as pairing stones or rearranging the stones.

Please call counting procedures 'counting procedures'! They are not scoring methods.

HermanHiddema wrote:
Actually, Japanese rules have been understood perfectly for centuries. It is just that that understanding included the option of having a referee decide disputes. The modern approach, where we want an algorithm that can perfectly decide every possible situation, is not inherently better, IMO, it is just more popular under current cultural norms.

I don't think that's true, one is a game for 2 players, and the other is a game for 3.

If we ask, "Which is a better game for 2 players" I think one of the two is disqualified.

shapenaji wrote:

HermanHiddema wrote:
Actually, Japanese rules have been understood perfectly for centuries. It is just that that understanding included the option of having a referee decide disputes. The modern approach, where we want an algorithm that can perfectly decide every possible situation, is not inherently better, IMO, it is just more popular under current cultural norms.

I don't think that's true, one is a game for 2 players, and the other is a game for 3.

If we ask, "Which is a better game for 2 players" I think one of the two is disqualified.

I doubt human nature will ever allow us to get rid of referees altogether.

Certainly, though, the algorithmic approach creates a better game for computers to play.

RobertJasiek wrote:Having a highest authority to make an arbitrary decision is a way of handling an ambiguous scoring system, but it is not a way of allowing easy understanding in the sense of predicting the authority's decisions. A scoring must be easy BEFORE and AFTER possible decisions. This is so if before and after are always the same, i.e., if scoring is independent of arbitrary decision-making.

The referee is there because humans occasionally disagree. That is unavoidable, no matter how clearly defined the rules may be. It might be nice to replace the referee with an algorithm or automated system but even determining the life and death of a group is NP-hard - it's impossible, regardless of the counting rules.

This system seems unnecessary. What's wrong with the current system? Time consumption? This is worse. Accuracy? Not really any room for error no matter what you do. And as soon as you lose a stone you're screwed.

Charlie wrote:determining the life and death of a group is NP-hard - it's impossible, regardless of the counting rules.

Area scoring does not need to rely on life and death at all. At the end, a stone scores for a player by being on the board. This is not NP-hard or harder but it is of constant (immediate) "complexity": O(1). One only needs to identify the stone's colour. Determining all stone colours and all territory intersections is in O(n), i.e., linear complexity.

The difference between scoring and counting:

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/endrules.html
http://senseis.xmp.net/?Scoring
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/int.html