Finishing a game

Hello all,

As a 25 q player, it is hard for me to judge territory, and what to do when i finish games. i know how to count, ect, but i do not know what to do with neutral territory, and damae, and just finish a game in general. i do play, play play though.

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While you’re getting the hang of this, our recommendation is that if your opponent passes and you can’t see any open boundaries or places that seem obvious that you could make points, it is best to also pass. In this way you can get a feel for the timing of such things from the community.

Here on OGS, neutral territory will be blue while all other intersections will be black or white.
If you are playing with Japanese rules or any other system that uses territory scoring, then dame can be left empty as it doesn’t effect the score.
If you are using Chinese rules or any other system that uses area scoring, dame are all worth points and should usually be played out.

In general, it is expected that users be patient and courteous with beginners. If that is not the case, please either click on the user’s name and click “report” or from within a game use the menu on the right hand side to “Call Moderator” - explain the situation and when a volunteer moderator is available we will come and resolve the situation. This can at times be immediate if you are lucky but being a volunteer team that can at times take minutes or hours, so please also be patient with us :slight_smile:

welcome to the server, I hope you have a great experience here!

We also have a wiki article on how to end a game which you may find helpful :slight_smile:

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Hiya, welcome.

Since you’re most likely going to be playing under Japanese rules, playing dame will not benefit you (nor will it hurt you) as @BHydden has explained.

To end the game, just make sure that all the territory lines are drawn (no open holes leaking into each others’ territory). If you were shrunk down and standing on the go board, you shouldn’t be able to walk from one color’s territory to the other, or any neutral area.

I’m sure the lovely folks here would be more than happy to tackle any specific examples you might have.

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