This would downgrade fights and sacrifices imho.
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My main reason is that, as a lower-ranked player, I find late invasions frustrating. It feels unfair that, as the invader, a mistake costs you one point, while for the defender, it can mean losing the whole game. Youâre right that this would diminish the value of sacrifices. I think though, it might also encourage more aggressive play to target weak groups and make players work harder to save them. Then again, Iâm just a lower-ranked player.
As lower ranked getting the right value of stones is a hard time. How many did I met whoâs goal is clearly to not give up even 1 stone during the game. We can create a new rule, a new game but thatâs no more go.
About moyo and invasions, to be fair the reverse is a fact too: over concentration and confusion between moyo and territories.
âWe can create a new rule, a new game but thatâs no more goâ yes of course, I enjoy thinking of ways to improve go but in reality, it is as perfect as a game could be In my opinion.
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Thatâs the point of the whole thread
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Well some changes would make a drastic change, some less. Weighting the capture of stones, would put it in the first category, as affecting the goal of the game itself.
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Weighting the capture of stones will certainly affect strategy, but Iâm not convinced it will affect the goal of the game itself, that being to efficiently surround territory.
Even if it were, it is still inherently on topic.
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mechanics inevitably lead to territory maximizing. If goal would be âwho captures more stones winsâ, then both players just would never place stone that is possible to capture. They would try to create alive groups everywhere and hope that opponent do something risky. Game between 2 strong players inevitably draw. To fix it we can forbid to pass and goal is who captures 10 stones first wins. Then players would try to create bigger territory than opponent and then play inside own territory until opponent would destroy 2 eyes of their own group or would start to place stones in your territory.
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Yep sure, even gomoku is on topic
alternative fix:
If number of captured stones is equal (for example 0), then who has more stones on the board wins. Pass allowed.
It would be very painful variant. If you are too safe, you would never lose because your stone is captured, but you would always lose because not enough area/territory. If you would try to maximize territory fast you likely would lose because 1 of your stones is captured (opponent would immediately start to be safe after that). It would be hard to find balance.
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possible to replace with area like in Chinese or empty territory like in Japanese
barely anything would change
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I think that this would be an interesting alternative to Capture Go, by which I mean specifically the variant where the first player to make any capture wins and passing is not allowed (someone eventually must win, since players have to eventually start filling their own eyes). This form of Capture Go essentially involves extremely cautious play, while still having the aim of controlling the most area possible, but the concept of life and death is greatly changed. For example, a group with a single two-point eye is alive, since the opponent cannot capture it without first sacrificing one throw-in stone.
With your proposal, it seems like the game would play out somewhat similarly to Capture Go, in that players would have to play very cautiously, with the game potentially decided by the first âmajorâ capture, the strategic aims falls back to stone counting (or area or territory counting, with your further suggestions), if no big unbalanced captures are made. However, whatâs nice about your proposal is that the life and death status of groups is not as significantly changed. A group with a single two-point eye is dead, since the opponent can now afford to sacrifice a throw-in stone to capture it (and then most likely win the game).
Itâs a nice variant to consider, since it takes the edge off of vanilla Capture Go. Sacrificing some stone(s) is now okay, if it leads to the inevitable capture of a bigger group.
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