Right, we are not worried about the groups being alive, we are only worried about the scoring. Also, note that I said necessary, not required.
In the position in Diagram 15, the black and white groups are both alive, but in seki because of the dame at A , so neither side has any territory. A move at A is needed to make Black’s and White’s eyes into territory.
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So if you have black and don’t play A, then you cannot claim the 3 points surrounded by black. As for OGS, if the score estimator marks them as points, I should be able to unmark them.
I am not arguing whether it makes sense, I am just stating the Japanese rules. See the video shared by @smurph for a real life example.
We know that you will not be able to “just state” Japanese rules with any consistency or usefulness. You only have to read the “Preface” and “Conclusion” I linked to before to be convinced of this.
Therefore, there are two separate conversations:
A theoretical one about the twists and turns of the Japanese rules.
A practical one about “The Japanese rules at OGS”
I only just learned in the last week how far apart these two conversations are. Having learned that, I find the first topic fascinating in the same way that the Antarctic is fascinating.
The second topic is the one that seems to matter more, and I’m keen to be on top of.
Allow me to correct you. The paragraph I quoted is directly taken from the rules and crystal clear. Let’s not do a hasty generalization.
Are you implying that they are different from the official Japanese rules? Then it might be good timing to post a link, because so far the whole conversation and references have been to the official rules.
Here, in discussions, and as we make decisions when we are called to do that.
Much like real law: there are laws written, then they are tested in cases, and those cases used in precedents as examples of how the law is interpretted. This doesn’t mean there is “another law”, it just means that laws are always subject to interpretation.
I find that analogy to legal case law to be quite troubling. There is a huge difference between a system of laws intended to govern society versus those intended govern an abstract board game.
I don’t think a well formed set of rules for go should leave ambiguities that are open to interpretation, nor require complex analysis and lengthy discussions to determine the correct, intended judgments.
If the intent is to closely resemble the official Japanese rules/conventions, then I think it seems a bit arbitrary and error-prone to have the “Japanese rules on OGS” only exist in discussions and decisions as they are made. I hoped there would have been a better system for implementing Japanese-style rules on OGS.
You are welcome to suggest one. I mean that earnestly. If the community reviewed it and agreed to it, it could well be a useful resource for moderating.
The commentary we’ve all read tells me that this would be non-trivial.
It may also bring the (silly, but still real) risk that OGS would then become known for having “it’s own” Japanese rules, as opposed to being like everyone else and just interpretting the “real” rules.
The upside is you might also become famous as the person who succeded in writing a usable Japanese ruleset for online go servers…
I realize the thread is about popularity of Japanese rules, not their efficacy. But I’d like to offer an opinion, from the perspective of someone who still exists more or less on the fringes of Go culture.
Perhaps the Japanese rules are intuitive for players more familiar with the game. For me this discussion is a turn-off.
If I had any desire to discuss at length the particulars of a rule book, I’d have taken up Euro games in earnest.
Do the Chinese rules have as many caveats?
Please don’t take this as snotty. I still like all you guys.
You shouldn’t be put off by the technical abstract hypothetical rules debate about Japenese.
All this stuff almost never surfaces in actual games.
I don’t know why it is, but I find it much easier to count the empty spaces + prisoners than worry about stones and dame, so Japanese seems much easier.
(I also have this feeling that players are less inclined to fill the dame under Japanese, which is a big plus in my book, since I play correspondence).
No, the Chinese (and other area scoring) rules are much simpler, since life and death disputes can be settled by playing it out, rather than adjudicating things by determining the hypothetical best play out while imposing a modified ko rule.
Ultimately, the strategy and outcome under Chinese and Japanese rules are almost always the same. The biggest differences occur in some rare edge cases, but in those cases, I think the Chinese rules have the clear advantage of being easier to adjudicate.
Jasiek’s “2003” rules attempt to accurately capture (in a more precisely defined way) how the official 1989 rules are applied in Japan. These 2003 rules are still very complex (perhaps more so, since there are a lot technical definitions to slog through), and I personally cannot attest to the quality of the effort, since I have not tried to fully understand it. Maybe this one can be ruled out if you are concerned about the complexity for effective moderation.
Several other proposals attempt to simplify the rules, perhaps making them a bit easier to apply and consistently moderate. There are trade offs between simplicity and how closely one tries to adhere to the official Japanese rules. Each of these proposals would have to be carefully studied to weigh their merits. I cannot make a suggestion, since I have not thoroughly studied them.
It seems that you say above that OGS is currently already using “it’s own” Japanese rules, since you expressed that there is a significant difference versus what is written. Adopting a new interpretation of the rules is essentially adopting our “own” set of rules, which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing.
I think consistency, transparency, and clarity are more important. That’s why I object to a practical application of the rules that functionally exists as a series of discussions and decisions. I would prefer to see a clear, written standard as the authoritative rules, even if that document is not the 1989 text (which maybe it shouldn’t be).
A comment like this seems a bit sarcastic, despite expressing sincerity earlier. I have no interest in inventing yet another Japanese-style rules proposal, nor any illusions about my ability to do so.
Counting the difference in the number of prisoners (black’s captures minus white’s captures) is a quick way to determine the difference in the number of stones on the board (black stones minus white stones). Just add one if black was the last to make a move. If the players have made an unequal number of passes, add that difference as well.
@GreenAsJade I don’t share that feeling/experience. As already said you don’t have to play dame in Chinese too. Well I play them most of the time whatever. Each rule has own drawbacks, I feel Chinese to be more friendly/understandable for lower level players, and Japanese more esthetic after as long as nothing troublesome happens. (It does happen, just consider how often the case of L group in the corner show itself).
I share the guess that Japanese rule is most used because it’s the rule by default and because weiqi was introduced by Japan to westerners in its history.
To return to the original question, SanDiego is correct. Go was introduced to the West via Japan. Also, go was most developed culturally and competitively for centuries in Japan. Korea recently took over as the reigning champion of the go/baduk world, but Korean rules are identical to Japanese rules. (It remains to be seen as China attempts to take the lead whether the world might begin to prefer Chinese rules.)
So for all these historical reasons, Japanese rules (and terms) have always been the default in the Western world.
The Japanese rules technically imply that dame need to be filled in order to prevent “normal” living groups from being consider in seki, which would nullify their territory.
Filling dame appears to be the practice in at least some formal, professional situations (as seen in the video that @smurph linked above). Note that filling the dame also aids with their counting procedure, making it easier to rearrange territory into rectangular regions without worrying about accidentally counting dame.
Of course, in common practice, especially in many informal and internet games, players using Japanese rules will often leave some dame unfilled, yet don’t assert that all adjacent stones are in seki.
The rules would allow a player to assert seki (and nullify associated territory), but it also allows their opponent to resume the game and fill in dame to remove the grounds for that assertion. Hence, actually making such claims (perhaps in a futile attempt to win a lost game) would seem ridiculous and even insulting.
So are players technically violating the Japanese rules by not filling dame, while regarding adjacent stones as not in seki? Perhaps, but not in a manner that changes the result of the game, and only as an informal way to avoid extra moves. I view it as the players basically coming to the mutual understanding that they won’t waste time with actually playing inconsequential stones, but still pretend that they have filled the dame for the purposes of determining life/death/seki and counting the score.
However one views this practice, I think it is way too strong to say that it is evidence that the written 1989 Japanese rules are nonsense. The rules are not rendered invalid simply for not codifying an informal shortcut.
As another example, in the video mentioned above, we also see professional players rearranging stones (while even breaking border lines!) in order to make manual counting easier. This method is not technically sanctioned by the rules (even if you allow some rearranging, breaking the borders would clearly render territory invalid), but no one seems to object since it is understood that they are not really changing the score.
To be clear, I do think that there are significant drawbacks to the Japanese rules (mainly revolving around the complexity of life/death adjudication), but I don’t think that dame being left unfilled is a source for substantial criticism.
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