Are There Legitimate Reasons To Choose New Zealand Over Chinese?

[Mulsiphix1]

@yebellz

I believe, when playing a ranked game with automatic handicap, the OGS system will simply assign the same number of handicap stones for both NZ and Chinese rules

I remember us talking about this previously and I had performed a test. I deliberately assigned a handicap value though. Perhaps my findings there show that auto-handicap is different? I’m running out the door, so I don’t have time to test right now . But here is the relevant excerpt; food for thought (source):

Handicap
New Zealand rules do not award any point compensation for Handicap stones. For comparison, under Chinese rules Black gives White compensation for handicap stones, so that the area which they occupy is not counted. But under NZ rules, no such compensation is given. The rules also specifically state that Komi is not to be used.

To test this I played a match and gave Black 10 handicap stones.The final score for White reflects that no points were added to White’s score to account for handicap stones. However, if you mouse over the Captures text for White, you will see that it says it awards 10 points for Handicap. Despite it showing this, no points are actually reflected in the scoring.

This Handicap data is shown for all OGS games, despite what ruleset being utilized. However, White is afforded 0.5 Komi. I realize that this was done specifically to avoid ties on OGS, but it is worth mentioning as it deviates from the No Komi NZ rule specification for handicap matches.