Some play blitz informally with capture the king, but officially it’s the same as in classical, if your opponent leaves their king in check, claim the win
This is your preference and it is ok. But don’t be too hasty when it comes to rules, there are good reasons why it is done the way it is. Area does have its own problems:
First, it cannot use the simple ko rule. Second, it has problems from B’s extra move in every other game (losing score accuracy, difficulties in choosing komi).
Third, most experienced players use territory in their mind during playing, since it is more effective to count without all the stones. So in an area-only world people would still need to learn both methods.
Btw an interesting fact: go in the world is only really popular in the two countries that use territory scoring exclusively (Japan and Korea). This oc may be pure coincidence, or despite the rules not because of them. But at least territory scoring is no obstacle - like in OPs case he just needs to force the opponent to fill with pass/resumption (similar to regular teire).
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I mean generally, in geometric sense. Winner is same in most cases in both Japanese and in Chinese rules, so all your arguments are not relevant to my preference.
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lol wat… have you checked goratings.org recently?
EDIT: thanks for providing a link for “popularity” - I now see that this was based on per capita estimations. Still, I think the first comment in that thread is telling
The most important part is the survey methodology page, not the results pages:
All IGF members (national/territorial associations of Go) were asked to answer the using their data or best estimations. Some of the questions, such as “Estimated number of people who are aware of Go”, required a rough estimation based on each association’s experiences and knowledge since there was no data to suggest a specific number.
I dunno man, it kind of sounds a lot like, “We asked some guy in each go association to give us a wild guess”?
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I would consider popularity to be related more to the fraction of the population that plays it in a country/region, than with the absolute number of people that play it in a country/region.
The population of China is more than 10 times the population of Japan, and almost 30 times the population of South Korea. So while go is more popular in Japan and South Korea, they are still outnumbered by China.
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There are big misconceptions here because inside China popularity of go varies a lot according to provinces. You’ll find that Guiyang for example to have big and numerous go places (the province had its own tv channel for go too), same in Sichuan (and not only in the capital Chengdu ) but you’ll have hard time to find where to play in Guangzhu (although you may have still some chance) or in Shanghai.
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Besides the controversial popularity argument I may comment a bit more on the other arguments, not much to prove that a rule is better but as balance between both.
Yes this is logical as it seems easier to count less things. You ll still have to keep track and include prisoners so that we ll have same quantities of stones on the board but that doesn’t look like an annoyance as big as counting more things.
During the game indeed it seems logical to use territory scoring but that doesn’t create the preference vs area scoring at the end of the game which is a different situation with a different goal (scoring the game instead of estimating for coming strategies), timeframe pressure, etc…
At the scoring phase, we ll have to use a different set of arguments (position a bit destroyed in area rules, easyness to determine rarities or to explore deeper for players with less experience , and even if you have more to count the ability to remove or add stones make it much simpler to get rectangular shapes, etc etc…)
So this argument that we use territory scoring during the game has no significance concerning the choice of the ruleset itself. In my opinion the territory rules were made to generalize a process where we avoid counting the stones to get all more confortable even in the scoring phase, but that process generated its own difficulties.
For the example you mention here
The equivalence in scoring between both set of rules is holding on that extra stone, sure but what set is wrong in this? I think myself that the problem comes from having oversimplified with the territories set and get rid of this extra move, and that’s what was corrected in AGA or European rules to ensure equivalence.
It’s nice to point out that area rules may have its own limits. Now It’s not the ruleset which needs a thick booklet on oddities on the side.
The day i will run into one of these, i would prefer to follow the area rules so as to have better chance to determine the result by myself, without having to start or search for a thread like this one. And the ruleset choice has like no consequence on the convenience to use it online anyway.
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Maybe this is a bit subjective, but I think the superko rule is much simpler than the sort of ko rules needed for territory scoring. The only downside of superko is needing to compare against repeating any past board position, but in practice, the relevant history is often only 6 moves or less (i.e., it is exceedingly rare to encounter longer cycles than a triple ko) and it’s trivial for a Go server or program to help keep track. Regardless, I insist that superko is much simpler from a conceptual standpoint than the ko rules used for territory scoring.
For Japanese rules (I’ll address these specifically here, since there may be intricacies in how these differ from other territory rules), the simple ko rule is actually not that simple. First, long cycles can lead to a game ending with a “no result”, which is not the same as a tie or jigo, and requires the game to be replayed to get a result, or just abandoned, if replay is not convenient. Additionally, the possibility of no results from long cycles leads to some people getting confused about how exactly that works. For example, the sending two-returning one cycle (and similarly sending three-returning two cycle) is a case where a repetitive cycle emerges that should not end in no result, but I’ve seen cases where players misunderstanding the rules will believe that it should immediately cause a no result (before the player with the capturing advantage can eventually break the cycle after accumulating enough prisoners for it not to make a difference).
Second, many, many people wind up misunderstanding how the ko rule works differently when resolving life and death under Japanese rules. The weird thing is that a different ko rule is applied when evaluating life and death under hypothetical play (i.e., one that effectively nullifies the use of ko threats). Maybe the most common way this emerges is with understanding how to handle bent-four in the corner for Japanese rules. I’ve seen several cases of players getting confused about how to handle this, and misapplying the rules in various ways (e.g., insisting its a seki or requiring point-losing ko threats to be used in a game resumption). It gets even more confusing if something like moonshine life pops up, and I think you already know (based on other discussion in the forum), there are even subtle differences between how Japanese and Korean rules handle various forms of that.
So, in short, I would say that it is a big disadvantage of territory scoring that they avoid a superko rule, by instead using a combination of the simple ko rule plus loads of complicated special ko rules for handling longer ko cylces and ko in the life and death determination phase.
It’s also possible, and sometimes more convenient, to estimate the territory score, by counting the area. For example, on a small board, one might be able to draw a line cutting a board in half and count how many stones of each color line on or over that line.
AGA rules demonstrate how one can conveniently get the area score using territory counting methods with pass stones. Actually, on the matter of which is more convenient to practically count, I would say that area scoring has the advantage of flexibility, since one could use area counting methods, if one prefers, or one could equivalently use territory counting methods (with pass stones). Not needing to distinguish eyes in seki is another convenience common to various area scoring rules.
I think the scoring granularity issue is the only convincing argument illustrating a disadvantage of the common forms of area scoring rukes. However, if one wants to address that, one could use a simple variant of any of the common area scoring rules, by adding a button. This would yield scoring granularity of territory scoring, without all of the complex baggage that comes with territory scoring. Basically, something like New Zealand rules with a button would be much simpler than Japanese or Korean rules.
I think is just a coincidence, and the per capita popularity probably has more to do with population dynamics and overall size. One could also point out that Chinese rules are what the majority of Go players use.
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There are further downsides. Just like area scoring cannot use simple ko, territory scoring cannot use superko. So it is not an universal rule. I think it is a misunderstanding of the “ko” concept. Being able to retake a ko after a pass is essential - ko bans are time-based, not position-based.
Just take OPs position as an example: being able to force B to fill is natural, and under territory scoring requires ban lifting passes (and the ability/threat to recreate a previous position if B doesn’t connect). This is how the area and territory game stays coherent (since area scoring has equivalent pass substitute).
Superko may also have a role in attracting or repelling beginners. My experience is the latter - it is very hard to get new players interested if they are supposed to remember previous positions. Board games don’t work like this. Even go doesn’t work like this, since real superko is not used in any major ruleset. Ko is just a local shape which forbids immediate recapture in it - easy and convincing.
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I never introduce superko to a beginner anyway. That’s totally theoretical and useless. And i wait as long as possible to explain the ko situation ofc.
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There’s a great article about introducing beginners to the game:
If you are running into the issue of repelling beginners by getting into the intricacies of ko rules (either superko or the even nastier complexities of ko for territory rules), you are teaching beginners the wrong way.
I think the Japanese rules would be far more repellent, if one attempted to present their full details to beginners learning the game. I think that area rules are far more friendly for introducing beginners. As for keeping track of past positions, this is usually not an issue, as situations where long cycles could even arise are quite exceedingly rare.
The AGA, Chinese, and New Zealand rules are all implemented with “real” superko on OGS. I’ve heard that traditional application of the official Chinese rules does retain some “no result” situations, for triple ko and eternal life, however, on OGS superko is simply always enforced, preventing any cycles.
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I think that is an OGS bug. Afaik Chinese rules honor (true) long cycle draws not just in “some” cases but basically always (even for false cycles like misplayed moonshine lives!). At least this is the case in professional practice, according to a Korean rules researcher. AGA/NZ significantly differ from Chinese rules, while C-J-K are similar on this.
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Yeah, years I go I made the mistake of teaching Japanese rules to beginners; they always seemed to feel stupid when I said the rules were simple and then had to explain life and death just so they could count. I switched to area rules at some point and haven’t looked back.
I came across this poster recently, which I think is a great primer:
Exactly what beginners need to know to play against each other (plus some history).
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Why can’t either simple ko (and ways of handling longer cycles, such as a simple longcycle rule), or superko be used with either territory or area rulesets?
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In a similar vein, OGS does not properly implement the Japanese rules either. Game resumptions are mishandled and we don’t have any solid support mechanism to help the players resolve life and death via hypothetical play. We also don’t have built-in support for no results, and it requires calling a moderator to end and annul the game.
The real complexities of the Japanese rules, specifically how to resolve life and death is mostly left up to the players to figure out, so inevitably, in many games, these rules are misunderstood and misapplied as well.
To be clear, I’m not in favor of the traditional Chinese rules either, due to the possibility of no results. However, I do like that they have the simpler life and death resolution methods common to area scoring rule sets.
My preferences are for the simplified Chinese rules (as implemented by OGS, where superko is always applied), AGA rules (the strict wording of these say that superko should always be applied, even if that might not always be the case in even over-the-board tournament play, but I consider that the mistake of tournament organizers that have only mistakenly claimed to be following AGA rules), and New Zealand rules.
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Well, you could hypothetically combine area scoring with simple ko, or territory scoring with superko, but it would result in some weird situations in some rare cases that would seem aesthetically unpleasing.
So, in order to achieve what some might prefer, and to maintain as much consistency as possible with tradition and other rule sets, the article linked by @jannn is arguing that one should not make these hypothetical combinations.
There is actually a lot more that could be said about weird things happening involving ko, with either the application of superko of simple ko rules. See: Basic Ko Anomalies at Sensei's Library and Superko Anomalies at Sensei's Library
Ultimately, when it comes to arguing for or against certain aspects of various rule sets, there is a degree of subjectivity involved. It can be difficult to precisely measure what is really simpler or more complex, and matters of elegance and/or tradition are definitely subjective.
This article presents arguments and opinions that are mostly in opposition to my own, but I think it offers a good contrary perspective: Thoughts about Go ruleset elegance
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We also don’t have support for “both lose”, Article 13 of Japanese rules. IIUC, this is the correct game result when the players have passed before all the points have been made/defended (such as a wall with viable cutting points or a corner with a viable invasion) and their collective oversight is big enough to determine the winner.
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Interesting. I’m not interested in defending simple ko, I prefer superko (I think it can work in practice by requiring that the opponent of a player who plays a Superko-violating move must point that out before playing a move, at which point the position is checked against the game record, and if the objection is true, the violator loses their turn), but I don’t see the article’s observation of superko in territory scoring to be an issue. So what if some positions put a player in zugzwang? It will be rare, and that’s just an interesting implication of the rules
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Yes, that’s right, there is no official support for it, and among beginner games, this is actually far more common than situations that lead to “no result”. However, the funny thing is that we don’t really get many complaints about its omission.
Since game resumptions (under Japanese rules) are mishandled on OGS, this avoids the issue of neither player wanting to press “resume game”, if they discover an unsettled position during scoring. Under official Japanese rules, asking for the resumption should give the other player the next move. However, OGS simply resumes the game following the natural turn order (i.e., the player that had passed first gets to play first when resuming).
I think that’s a perfectly valid position to take on the issue. It’s a really a matter of subjective preference.
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I never realized there were so many score cheaters on OGS! Taking wins and not doing the honorable thing and self-reporting that it should be a double-loss result 
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