Differences between rulesets

[yebellz]

@polar-bear

It’s worth noting that, in almost all games, the result will be the same regardless of scoring method.

This is true, but it seems to contradict with what you say earlier (which might cause confusion):

@polar-bear

[Japanese rules] also penalizes unnecessary plays inside your own territory, as you’re filling in one intersection with your own stone.

@polar-bear

The main difference [under Chinese rules] is that extra plays inside your own territory will not reduce your score.

Under both Chinese and Japanese rules, one damages their own score (usually by much more than one point) by making unnecessary plays inside one’s own territory. The only case where the above distinction applies is at the end of the game, when there no more worthwhile moves left to play (i.e., when both players would typically pass). Only then would playing further moves inside would cost a point under Japanese rules, but not cost any points under Chinese rules.

@polar-bear

There are some more complications such as pass stones and pass order with area scoring

These are not necessary complications to area scoring rules. Pass stones and the convention of “white passing last” are just bookkeeping tricks to get the area score while using territory scoring mechanics. See equivalence scoring as mentioned by @flovo.

@polar-bear

changes to how points are scored in seki as well.

Seki is an example where Japanese rules become a whole lot complicated to score. Under Chinese and virtually any other area scoring rules, sekis are treated like any other living group and any eyes are counted. However, under Japanese rules, since “eyes in seki” don’t count, one must always determine whether each living group is actually seki or not, which adds complications to the rules.

@AdamR

I am told Chinese is easier to program somehow

The Chinese (and other area scoring) rules are easier to program since life and death disputes are resolved by “playing it out”, which make the rules much simpler to formally state. On the other hand, life and death (and other issues, like ko/cycles) under Japanese rules is much more complicated to resolve (and sometimes cannot be accurately resolved by playing it out). Although in >99% of cases, the life and death status between both rules are the same, there are many different weird cases in the <1% where Japanese rules become extremely complicated to apply correctly. It is very difficult to accurately formalize the Japanese rules in a manner for computer programs to work with (see KataGo planned rules - drafted • Life In 19x19 and https://lightvector.github.io/KataGo/rules.html). That is why many go bots, analysis engines, and score estimators use either Chinese rules or the even more simplified Tromp-Taylor area scoring rules.

The complexities of the Japanese rules are not of interest to beginners, but I’ve been writing a thread going over some of these complications (this thread is still incomplete and has barely begun to touch upon the complexities of ko under the Japanese rules).

In most games, the differences between area scoring and territory scoring are smaller than they appear. I think, for many beginners, it is beneficial to overcome the illusion of a much larger difference, as I discuss here:

Different Counting Method, different Strategy?

I agree with this point: However, I do not support the argument made here: I think there is value to teaching beginners about both area and territory scoring, and how they essentially give strategically equivalent objectives, for the sake of dispelling these illusions and misconceptions. Area scoring and territory scoring are really just two ways of looking at nearly the same thing, so maybe giving both perspectives would help a beginner better understand the objective of the game. Area sc…