In example 1 it looks like black won by resign. You don't need to mark the dead stones in that case. If white hadn't resigned, then there are still a few more points that need to be played before the game can be scored properly. If scored as it is, white has no territory, because white hasn't sealed up any area. Once white plays G9, black actually has to respond on the right side, otherwise white can capture some stones. See the SGF attached.



After that, if both players pass, the game is in a state where it can be scored sensibly.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X . O . O O X |
$$ | . X . X O b O X X |
$$ | . W X X O a . O X |
$$ | . X O O O O O O X |
$$ | . X O O , X O X X |
$$ | . X X O X . X . X |
$$ | . W X O X X X . X |
$$ | . X W X W X W X . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . |
$$ -------------------[/go]

Notice that the stones are completely surrounded, and black can capture them no matter what white does. Therefore they are counted as dead and are treated as black's prisoners. The middle white group is not dead, as no matter what black does white can forever avoid capture (by forming two eyes - if black 'a', then white plays 'b', and vice versa). The black groups are all alive as white cannot capture any of them.

In the position above, white actually does have the opportunity to make a couple more points - first, by playing at below. Notice this puts the stones into atari. So black is forced to play a move inside his territory at in order to remove the atari, which costs him one point.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X 1 O . O O X |
$$ | . X . B O . O X X |
$$ | 2 O B B O . . O X |
$$ | . X O O O O O O X |
$$ | . X O O , X O X X |
$$ | . X X O X . X . X |
$$ | . O X O X X X . X |
$$ | . X O X O X O X . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . |
$$ -------------------[/go]

Secondly, if white plays at below, then black's stone is in atari, and black is forced to fill in one point of his territory, costing him one additional point.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wcm3
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X O O . O O X |
$$ | . X . X O . O X X |
$$ | X . X X O . . O X |
$$ | . X O O O O O O X |
$$ | . X O O 1 B O X X |
$$ | . X X O X 2 X . X |
$$ | . O X O X X X . X |
$$ | . X O X O X O X . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . |
$$ -------------------[/go]

Now there's no more that white can do, so this is the correct time for white to pass. He could pass in the first diagram, but then he would've missed out on two points.

One thing I would recommend is to always fill all of the dame (i.e. neutral points, the intersections that are neither player's territory) before passing. You don't have to, but by doing so, you will often force your opponents to fill in a bit of their own territory. Plus, when you play in real life (as opposed to online), everyone always fills in all the dame so that when they move the stones around during the counting phase no points are accidentally counted for one side that actually belonged to neither.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Thanks for telling me about Dame I will definitely write it down, and make a mental note to do that next game.

As far as the prisoners how are they dealt with? Are the dead stones picked up, and then all stones are rearranged using the prisoners to add to each players territory for the count?

How would it look after the stones have been re-arranged?

http://senseis.xmp.net/?ExampleGame

and the links at the bottom of that page
http://senseis.xmp.net/?ChineseCountingExample
http://senseis.xmp.net/?JapaneseCountingExample

Obviously what I'm about to say only applies to playing on a real board; on a computer everything is done for you.

When you capture a stone from your opponent during the game you'll store it to the side, traditionally in the flipped-over lid of the bowl your stones are in. At the end of the game the dead stones are removed and added as prisoners for each player. Then, you'll take the stones that you've captured and use them to fill in your opponent's territory. This is because one prisoner is worth one point for you, so the same effect can be achieved by using the prisoner to remove one point from your opponent. Atari and liberties and other such rules are ignored during this; we're simply adding the prisoners to the board to make counting easier.

After this, you'll rearrange stones within an area to try to make boxes, which are easier to count. For example, the three stones below may be rearranged within black's area to make it easier to count the territory (ignore the outside white area for this example).

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Beginners often feel hesitant to move to many stones around, and that's okay. This is done purely for convenience. If you don't make perfect rectangles, you just have to count a little more carefully.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

I was looking for pages like these earlier, but couldn't find any. I'll try to remember these pages next time this question gets asked.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

There should be a YouTube video for this. Actually, there probably is. But I'm about to go to sleep, and I'm not gonns look for it.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

The ugliness of Chinese-based rules for beginners is that you don't have to worry about if stones are alive of dead, you can just play it out and capture them (if you can), without bothering to learn the essentials of what make stones dead or alive.

With Japanese rules, if you play inside your own territory (to capture already dead stones), and your opponent doesn't respond (he passes), then you quickly learn the essentials of what is alive and what isn't, because you lose points, and games, because of it..

With Chinese rules, you have no incentive to read things out and become stronger.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Very well put. I teach all my students that they will never learn anything if they never make mistakes. Seeing things go wrong because of an error made under Japanese scoring is part of the learning process. Under Chinese scoring nothing can go wrong by playing inside a territory so they don't learn.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

This is not an ugliness of the Chinese rules, but a simplicity.

The incentive to learn about LD under area scoring rules is to improve one's score! Instead of making 0 new points strategically by removing already dead stones prematurely, making P>0 new points strategically by playing elsewhere in still unclaimed or unsettled regions improves one's score. This is so even for beginners.

It becomes - on the strategic level - ugly only if you fail to teach it to beginners. Quite like it would become - on the strategic level - ugly if you fail to teach for territory scoring rules that making -1 new point by filling one's territory and approaching the liberties of already dead stones prematurely is worse than instead making P>=0 new points strategically by playing elsewhere in still unclaimed or unsettled regions to improve one's score.

I disagree, the incentive is still there. The only possible issue is if they wait until all dame are filled, and then start capturing, otherwise their opponent is always getting an advantage for slack play.

The advantage for two beginners to be able to just sit down and play and be able to resolve a game without outside arbitration is worth a little slack play at the end.

(And I doubt that slack play will last long, it's just too time consuming to capture everything, they'll figure it out)

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Not to mention that beginners who learn Chinese counting don't suffer from "capturing disease".

Lets just agree that anyone who says "You don't need to learn/worry about life & death" is doing something wrong, regardless of rule set.

Really, there are no significant benefits to any rule set that outweigh the most important consideration: What are the people around you actually playing with.

Exactly!!
One of the best posts I have seen here in a long while. Thanks.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Nearest club from me is about 4-5hours away (not sure if they are even alive anymore). I am not sure what they are playing but for the most part im on my own

Uzziel, would you like to post more games for us to see what sorts of final positions you find worrisome? Both of the games you posted ended in resignation, so there was no need for you to decide which stones were alive and/or when you had reached the end of the game.

The reason example 1 ended in resignation is because I did not know when or how to end the game. Example 2 was just a bad example (from lack of games to choose from that i had on record).

I will have to play some more games to get back into the situations i am referring to before i can post more examples.

The examples I have posted so far are correspondence games that I had available.

The differences between the different rule sets are very minor, and if you're only playing online they all but disappear, because the server does the counting work for you. Generally, regardless of rule set, the following is broadly correct:

1. Just play the game. Try to kill groups, try not to get killed, try to surround areas, try to outwit your opponent.
2. If you reach the endgame without resigning, make sure you defend where appropriate, while trying to make as many points as possible.
3. Make sure you fill all the neutral points (dame) at the end while keeping a sharp eye on whether that forces new defensive moves.
4. Agree with your opponent on the dead groups.
5. Let the server count.

At no point here do you really need to know the difference between the rule sets. At almost every point, you will need to understand the strategy and tactics of the game. Players with a few months experience will generally have no problem with point 4, it just takes a bit of practice but the concept is generally obvious to player 20k and stronger.

With Japanese rules, people will sometimes forego step 3, but I would recommend against that, because it is very common that filling neutral points exposes (to beginners) weaknesses that need to be patched with defensive moves.

If you're playing in real life, and are unsure about how to count, let the opponent help you.

I will take your advice for online play, and maybe incrementally learn all of the rule sets.

Currently and probably for awhile at least I will not have a real game on a board, but that is what I would
like to happen for the majority of my games in the future. I enjoy playing and studying on a real board when
compared to a digital one.

I am not sure why, but when playing Go IRL I feel I am learning more than I would from a digital medium.


Thanks for your help.

I think you mean the differences for strategy. (Because the rules themselves are very different.)

Oh really? Sounds like the same old arguments to me and ignores the standard counter-arguments. The best way to learn what is alive or dead is to play it out, yet under Japanese rules the beginner is confused by the procedure because the rules require knowledge of what is alive or dead, and is afraid to play things out. In Chinese-style rules, instead of having some 3rd party expert to play with or hover over their games, the beginner learns by doing using simple rules that don't mysteriously change the score when you play things out.



What utter garbage, and this by an "AGA 5d". Are you saying beginners don't learn when their "safe" territory is utterly destroyed? Are you saying they don't learn when they play a zero-point defensive move and their opponents take points instead?