A compendium of OGS's terrible scoring system confusing beginners

[dragon-devourer]

All this talk of auto-scoring seems a bit silly to me I do not think it wise or even desirable to have a super accurate AI-based auto-scorer. Ultimately, this is a game between two players and it is up to the players to agree upon the outcome of the game. I quote from the Japanese rules:

@Nihon Kiin

These rules must be applied in a spirit of good sense and mutual trust between the players.

…

Article 9. End of the game

1. When a player passes his move and his opponent passes in succession, the game stops.
2. After stopping, the game ends through confirmation and agreement by the two players about the life and death of stones and territory.
3. If a player requests resumption of a stopped game, his opponent must oblige and has the right to play first.

Article 10. Determining the result

…

4. After both players have confirmed the result, the result cannot be changed under any circumstances.

Therefore:

• Players should pass when they think the game is over, not when AI thinks the game is over.

• The result should be what the players agree it to be, not what AI tells them it should be.

• If both players agree on the result, then that is the result regardless of any counting mistakes that are spotted later by them or anyone else.

• Any auto-scoring is just a suggestion to take advantage of the fact that we are playing on a computer and thus save manual counting. It is still the responsibility of the players to check the score and confirm their agreement or otherwise.

• In the case of BobStevenage vs. Klaiddom1 highlighted by @Kosh, they both passed so the game stopped. It is correct that the one point of black “territory” next to the ko stone is not territory. It can even be confirmed by playing it out if necessary. But white needs to say so before accepting the auto-score. But in reality, both players confirmed the result so that is the result; and thus, as far as I can see, it was wrong for the game to be annulled (unless there were other circumstances I am not aware of).

• In the case of a beginner vs a beginner, they may well score the game “incorrectly” according to how more experienced players would see it, but if they agree then that is the result. Such things are unlikely to persist for very long as they play more opponents.

• In the case of bots, there may well be an issue. I am not too familiar with bot games so I don’t know how the scoring works but I can see the potential for issues when there isn’t a second human to judge and agree to the result.