Life In 19x19

RedStick wrote:My question is: Is it somewhat disingenuous to say that the rules of Go are simple when people have so much trouble conceptualizing their implications in simple L&D situations?

In chess you can just explain what each piece does and the idea of checkmate and people seem quite comfortable.

Would it be more accurate to explain the rules as kind of tricky, but they become natural with a little experience. Being up front with the fact that their first couple of games will be the Go equivalent of gibberish.

There are a few ways you can judge whether the rules of a game are simple.

Practical knowledge:

1. How long does it take to explain enough of the rules so that a beginner can start playing casual games?
2. How likely is it that the beginner will remember those rules a few days or months later, even if they don't play in the intervening time?

Complete knowledge:

3. How much would you have to know to adjudicate any disputed game in any tournament, anywhere?

I think for go, the practical knowledge required is fairly basic. On point 2, I think go is better than chess. On point 3, I don't know enough about chess to comment. Just as children learn to play baseball, football, chess, etc. without mastering the huge official rule books for these games, any beginner can learn to play go without worrying themselves about the details too much.

However, the complete knowledge level is embarassingly hard to reach for go, especially considering that it does not need to be. There are unfortunately many rulesets, and that complicates the issue greatly. Even worse, no ruleset is well-known enough that you can expect all players to know it. Saying "such-and-such a ruleset has simple rules" is not helpful to a beginner if no one plays that way. Esperanto has a simple grammar and no irregular verbs, but somehow the world has not been convinced to drop all their native languages to speak it.

I think it is honest and proper to warn beginners that there are some different rulesets, but that most of their differences only take effect at the very end of the game, and that the differences only very rarely affect who wins or loses.

The idea of simplicity in any game to me comes down to what is required to play. Things like life and death, basically anything else I think is a branch of the fundamentals of the rules. If you know that a shape with no liberties and dead and the rule of ko, you can play. I've taught 6 year olds how to play with those two rules. They take a long time to come up with rules and the need a reminder of what's alive or dead at sometimes, but their response is always "ooooh", instead of "really?!". Much like other games of simplicity, the nuances of the game may disguise it's deceptively simple nature but one of my favorite chefs of all time said, "simplicity is the last thing a master learns". Just because someone constantly asks questions about this and that doesnt' change the fact. If you had two beginners and explained the rules and left them to it, they could play a game. Not very well but they at the very least could do it.