Japanese Rules Popularity

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@andysif

Like the “bent 4 in the corner” in the other posts, it could have been easily resolved by playing it out, instead of resulting in a time out game where both parties felt they have been cheated.

There are also some interesting things that can happen with Chinese rules when there is a bent four in the corner along with another seki providing an unremovable ko threat. I discuss a particular example here:

Life and Death under Chinese Rules

Consider the following board position under Chinese rules with a 5.5 point komi [game1] Which stones are alive or dead? Who will win this game and by how much? What is the best line of play? The purpose of this example is to explore how life and death is handled under Chinese rules. Pause here to consider the above questions if you wish to treat this example as a problem, before reading on into the rest of the discussion. Discussion Note that white’s group in the top-left forms a “bent fo…

Although it’s just a rare edge case, I prefer how this situation is handled under Chinese rules.