This is a 9x9 game I played recently (I played black), and I have a question regarding who wins? Because the white stones are dead, but if I go to kill them I lose, because of Komi (6.5), but if I don’t I win (with 0.5). I ask because we were disagreeing about if the white stones were dead. How should one handle a situation like this?
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I’m assuming that this is under Japanese rules, since you mention that playing out the capture would cost you points. You do not need to and should not play out the capture, but instead the stones are removed during scoring, since they are dead.
The white stones on the left-side of the board are dead. Under Japanese rules, Black should pass in this situation and proceed to scoring. White is incorrect to assert that their stones are alive. However, during scoring, to settle such a dispute, you have to argue that you could hypothetically kill those stones. Under Japanese rules, life and death needs to be arbitrated (under somewhat convoluted rules, including a special ko rule, that are too complicated to fully describe here), instead of continuing actual play to capture dead stones (which could cost points that changes the outcome of the game). This arbitration involves the consideration of hypothetical play outs, where stones that are determined to be dead are (typically) removed, without the need for additional actual plays that change the score.
All of the above is a bit of a simplification to describe the general procedure and there are a lot of complicated issues in rare, edge cases.
Ultimately, if there is still disagreement among the players, you can call a moderator to resolve.
Another option is to play under area scoring rules (like Chinese or AGA), where disputes can be more simply handled by resuming play to capture dead stones.
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This is exactly why people dislike Japanese rules for newer players. Having to arbititrate simple life or death positions is insane.
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The use of “arbitrate” is misleading, in that it suggests it requires a 3rd party arbiter, but it doesn’t: the 2 players can do it.
Although I agree Japanese rules do have shortcomings, I think we should be fair and acknowledge some of this is specific to online go servers’ (OGS, KGS, IGS and others) version of (improperly implemented) Japanese rules: when I taught beginners Japanese rules in person I could demonstrate the dead stones were dead and then rewind and score and people understood this.
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You must be teaching other types of beginners than I usually am. I mean, sure, they often enough say ‘yes, I understand’. But next time they encounter the same situation they are as helpless as before. It usually takes many iterations before they really get it. That is my experience.
Quite possibly, students at Cambridge University (not the only group I’ve taught, but the largest) should be smarter than average.
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