Life In 19x19

Just for fun, let's imagine the rules of go where a little different...

At each turn, the player 'recieve' a stone of his color. he can then decided to play (as we usually do) OR... to keep the stone for later...

at its next turn, if the player decide to play, he can play all the stone he keeped on previous turn at once...

For example :

Turn 1 :

player A recieve at stone, and decide to keep the stone. (move 1 is keep the stone)
player B recieve at stone, and play (move 2)

Turn 2 :

player A recieve at stone, and decide to keep the stone. so he has two stones now (move 3 is keep the stone)
player B recieve at stone, and play a move (move 4)


Turn 3 :

player A recieve at stone, and decide to play the 3 stones at once (move 5)
player B recieve at stone, and decide to keep the stone.

and so on....

That would lead to that game ...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

I wonder at what time I will decide to play...
Well... anyway... it's a just weired "friday" idea

We used to play something similar where the stronger player would give the weaker player the handicap that three times during the game, the weaker player could play two moves in a row. It's really an enormous handicap, probably bigger than nine stones. You can't ever play a ladder or net if you're not willing to accept your opponent playing two moves in a row and ruining it.

The fact that both players can save up such moves makes it hard to imagine what the right strategy would be in this game. I suspect it would be fun to try at least once.

hyperpape wrote:We used to play something similar where the stronger player would give the weaker player the handicap that three times during the game, the weaker player could play two moves in a row. It's really an enormous handicap, probably bigger than nine stones. You can't ever play a ladder or net if you're not willing to accept your opponent playing two moves in a row and ruining it.

The fact that both players can save up such moves makes it hard to imagine what the right strategy would be in this game. I suspect it would be fun to try at least once.

Could be interesting giving three stones to someone the same rank and they get to move twice in a row once. Or similar. Might try it at the club.

I think I would bank a lot of stones. More than 25.

Thinking a bit more on this, I wonder how we should end the game...
The only thing I think that work is to consider that 'pass' followed by 'hold' ends the game. But of course 'hold' followed by 'hold' don't end the game, So we really have 3 distinct move, play, hold, and pass

If a player is allowed to play more than one stone at once, does that mean they are allowed to fill in more than one eye at once and hence be able to kill shapes that would otherwise be unconditionally alive?

It seems like the game would be drastically altered, and an arms race toward accumulating the largest possible bank might occur.

YeGO wrote:If a player is allowed to play more than one stone at once, does that mean they are allowed to fill in more than one eye at once and hence be able to kill shapes that would otherwise be unconditionally alive?

It seems like the game would be drastically altered, and an arms race toward accumulating the largest possible bank might occur.

Sure, two eyes isn't enougth to live anymore... and that's why I wondered how to end the game...
I think there should also be a limit to the number of stone someone can hold... maybe 4 or 5 stones at max.

but that was just a weird idea... the simplicity of go rules is really something that I like, my soon (6 yo) can play a game of go with me, but he still cannot make the horse move correctly at chess (but in the smae time, he also prefer to play chess over go... funny)


I used to read somewhere that quote that I really enjoyed :

The world is a game of Go, whose rules were unnecessarily complicated

oca wrote:

YeGO wrote:If a player is allowed to play more than one stone at once, does that mean they are allowed to fill in more than one eye at once and hence be able to kill shapes that would otherwise be unconditionally alive?

Sure, two eyes isn't enougth to live anymore.

So maybe the proposed idea not so good in its original form. But I think this would be easy to fix with this simple modification.

Place as many stones from your reserve as you like but each stone placed must be a legal move.

I think you'll now find that an unconditionally live group is still an unconditionally live group (the next to last move would not be legal)

A further possible modification "all stones must be legal as placed and the last stone may not be a capture" (if more than one stone played). Note that this would still be a very powerful advantage.

Mike Novack wrote:I think you'll now find that an unconditionally live group is still an unconditionally live group (the next to last move would not be legal)

That depends on how you define an unconditionally live group. In "normal" go

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

would be alive, but not in this version (white only needs two held stones to kill)

tj86430 wrote:

Mike Novack wrote:I think you'll now find that an unconditionally live group is still an unconditionally live group (the next to last move would not be legal)

That depends on how you define an unconditionally live group. In "normal" go

$$
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . X O .
$$ | X X X X X O .
$$ | O O O O O O .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

would be alive, but not in this version (white only needs two held stones to kill)

No. I used an unfortunate term we normally use in go for a different purpose. When we say a group is unconditionally alive we usually mean that it is alive against any attack if the proper responses are made. We don't mean that it cannot be killed even if an attack is ignored. Remember, an unconditionally alive group can be killed << suppose in the example given, white played on one or the other of the middle points as a ko threat and the ko worth more than the life of the group>>

So let's use the term absolutely alive to mean alive in a stronger sense, alive even if no response is made to an attack. I am saying such groups could not be killed in this variant of go if each stone placed must be a legal move.

What the single move player would need to learn is what extra defensive move(s) needed to make familiar unconditionally alive groups absolutely alive. That means that the single move player in effect has to give back some of the extra moves (where the multiple player chose to save the stone). My suspicion is that would need to make larger live groups (in shapes that could be made absolutely alive by adding just one stone) but not so large that a live group could be formed inside them (using multiple moves to do that).

Mike Novack wrote:...
Place as many stones from your reserve as you like but each stone placed must be a legal move.
...

Sure ! I like that idea !

Suddenly, a pass becomes one heck of a ko threat.

I've been absent for awhile, but I'd play a test game with the rule that each individual move must be legal (so two eyes live). I might play rather slowly, though.

skydyr wrote:Suddenly, a pass becomes one heck of a ko threat.

Well........ I think playing experience would determine that. This is a rather different game, and the experience of regular go (one move at a time) might need to be altered. Things like "what is a safe conmnmection" and "what is a safe group".

Remember how beginners tend to play far too "tight". Wrong for regular go, too slow, the looser connection cannot be broken (in just one move) and the shape of that not yet defended group is safe (against just one move). Well that "too tight" might be the way this game has to be played.

Seems potentially interesting. I guess the exact protocol should be like this:

On their turn, a player must perform exactly one of the following actions:

a) Pass.

b) Place one stone of their own color on their personal reserve and then take zero or more stones from their reserve (not necessarily all of them!) and place them, one by one, on empty points of the board, such that each of them constitutes a legal Go move by itself. Captures are performed upon each placement.

Some lingering questions, though:

a) Should "holding" (incrementing your reserve without placing stones on the board) lift ko bans? (I suppose so.)

b) How big should reserves be allowed to be? (As many stones as empty points there are on the board?)

c) How does the game end? (Suggestion: at the end of a player's turn following an opponent's pass, all the stones remaining in the player's reserve are lost. The player who passed keeps his reserve untouched. This could lead to some interesting strategic use of pass moves in earlier stages of the game, too.)