Maybe this has been suggested before. Then it must have a name and a reference.
I propose the ultimate simple counting system for go. I think it reproduces the game of go as we know it in 99.xxx% of the games; having a simple ruleset at the same time.
Suicide, capture,handicap, komi and ko rules are chosen independently.
Rules:
1. B gets 181 + K black stones, W gets 181 - K stones or one less according to the komi rule. K is an integer fixed by the komi rule. Removed stones are returned to the owner.
2. The player who has all his stones at on the board after his turn has won the game.
3. On his turn a player should pass or add a stone. The first phase ends after two consecutive passes. Then the game enters the second phase. After two consecutive passes in the second phase the last passer has lost the game.
4. In the second phase there is no capture, ko or suicide. The board only changes by the addition of single stones with the restriction that players are only allowed to play adjacent to a friendly stone. (where it may touch an unfriendly stone as well.)

Questions:
1. Are such rules proposed before. If so: where, under what name?
2. Would the game be significantly different in the playing phase under these rules compared to the usual rulesets used nowadays.
3. Would the results differ significantly.
4. Any suggestions for better formulation, clarification?

edit1: replaceded "at" with "on"
edit2: in rule 1 I added a sentence about removed stones.

With the phrasing of rule 2, it would seem any play by black results in his win. All of his stones are "at" the board and his turn has ended. I think I get what you mean, but rules should be extremely literal. Could you please elaborate what you mean?

You would have to actually surround and remove all dead stones from inside your territory in phase one...

Is my english such bad? I mean: All his 170+ stones on the board.

replacing at with on was the intuitive fix. I just wanted to make sure : )

That might be boring. It does not affect the score though, every stone placed is a gain. Counting under current rules is also boring. Resigning is a short cut. In on line games players may agree on a automated procedure even before the end of the first phase.

This seems more complex than "score 1 point for every intersection surrounded by stones of your color", and if I'm understanding correctly gives the same result. What am I missing?

Such a scoring changes the game dramatically. If you do not want to suggest stone scoring, then write "occupy or surround".

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If simple counting rather than simple scoring is the goal, then you can use, e.g., 1) fill, then remove pairs of one black and one white stone each or 2) fill, then rearrange the stones on the board so that almost one half is black and one half is white. A different approach simple for stone scoring is prisoner counting: http://senseis.xmp.net/?PrisonerCountingForStoneScoring

I don't think I'll ever understand why people feel the need to make scoring simpler. Japanese scoring is dead easy and Chinese scoring is even easier.

Even if this scoring system didn't require you to play about 111 extra moves in due tedium (based on an average of 250 moves a game, which is the number used to judge the time allowed by different, linear time systems), it would all fall apart the second one of the players accidentally dropped a stone under the table. Also, you'd need to count the stones before you begin to ensure that black does, indeed, have exactly 181 stones and white exactly 180.

Let's put this down on the hallowed list of silly ideas, move on and play more Go.

"Easy" enough to be understood after centuries of failures, then 10 years of my preliminary studies and 11 months of my more than full-time work;)

http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j2003.html
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j2003com.html
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/wagcflaw.html
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/wagcmod.html
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

Up to now people find "my" rules tedious,laborious and time consuming.
No complaints were made that these rules are too complex or would change the game too much or. ( I am not sure I understood Robert correctly though).
To address the first issue one might allow for an early compromise in which the players agree on the life and death status of their groups after which the captured stones are removed and the remaining board is filled up as in the second phase. This can be done in a few seconds as no thinking is needed, apart from some dame and seki points. My rules are intended to fall back on if no compromise is possible and to explain the game to beginners.


Please do so. Feel free to skip this section of the forum. ....
If at game end the loser has few stones left he will easily notice if stones are missing. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

As a side issue, attempts to get rid of boring phases has resulted in lots of problems in Go rules.

Answers:
1. These rules are mostly equivalent to Ing rules. Differences:
- Under Ing rules, the komi is handled slightly differently: white gets to place 4 stones inside black territory, which is equivalent to a K value of 4 for your rules.
- Seki with an odd number of shared liberties gives the first player to fill an extra point under your rules.
- Ing rules filling can be done in parallel, which is much faster.
2. It would be mostly equivalent.
3. It is theoretically possible to construct positions with large dead, but uncaptured, groups allowing a player to win while far behind under other rules.
4. Suggestions:
- I assume that captured stones are returned to their owner? Otherwise a single capture makes the winning condition under rule 2 impossible for the captured player.
- If stones are indeed returned, then the winning condition in phase two is equivalent to that under rule 2 (the first player to have all his stones on the board passes first, hence the other player loses).

EDIT: Ah, captured stones are indeed returned to the owner, as mentioned under rule 1.

Hey Cyclops! Your scoring method seems simple, yet, like some have already commented, boring.

About the ruling though, should White not get 181 - 0.5K and black 181 + 0.5k? The difference in stones is then equal to komi. Right now, the difference is 2 times komi.

Actually, Japanese rules have been understood perfectly for centuries. It is just that that understanding included the option of having a referee decide disputes. The modern approach, where we want an algorithm that can perfectly decide every possible situation, is not inherently better, IMO, it is just more popular under current cultural norms.

Having a highest authority to make an arbitrary decision is a way of handling an ambiguous scoring system, but it is not a way of allowing easy understanding in the sense of predicting the authority's decisions. A scoring must be easy BEFORE and AFTER possible decisions. This is so if before and after are always the same, i.e., if scoring is independent of arbitrary decision-making.

The decision is not arbitrary, it is based on a good understanding of the spirit of the rules. Most people who themselves have a good understanding of the spirit of the rules are quite capable of predicting such decisions with reasonable accuracy. That kind of thing is in fact very common in areas which are much less clear-cut, such as e.g. law.

Your post made me curious. I have two questions for someone like John Fairbairn, the resident expert on historical matters. It doesn't have to be John. If anyone else knows the answers, please feel free to post it here.

1) Were there rule disputes in the Edo period? If yes, then what was the method of resolving them?

2) Did the great Go Seigen feel that having a referee decide disputes was superior to having the matter codified in the rules? If I recall correctly, Go Seigen, on at least one occasion, insisted on the codification of a related rule as a condition of accepting the referee's judgment in a rule dispute. That makes me think that Go Seigen was in favor of clear rules that eliminated ambiguity. Of course, Go Seigen was Chinese (i.e., there was a cultural difference), but he did come to Japan at a relatively young age.

From my perspective it doesn't look like there were very many rules disputes that came up. Those that did, don't appear to have derailed the popularity of the game.
I find it nice that Chinese professionals don't like superko, and prefer to have a rematch instead.

_________________
North Lecale

It terms of rulesets that prescribe a certain number of stones be given to each player, the Ing rules is one example. In fact, unless I'm missing something, your system is---for all practical purposes---the same, at least at the level of having the same advantages and drawbacks.

Opninions vary on whether Ing counting is desirable. I will provide mine.

1. In princple, one can use it without the players being able to count.

2. Management of stones can be a problem. I've been in a number of real-life tournaments with Ing counting and without fail there is some game where players get confused because some stones were lost, dropped on the floor, etc. because the board at the end of the game doesn't have the pretty result shown in the SL page I linked to. In fact, I don't think I've been in a single tournament run by Ing rules where a TD didn't have to be called due to this.

2. The management of stones is supposed to be improved by the use of Ing Bowls, but too often they are more trouble than they are worth. The Ing bowl is a great idea---in principle. However, it suffers from serious design and manufacturing defects. For example, stones can get stuck in non-standard orientations, making the count wrong. Also, plastic shards tend to break off the wheels leaving sharp edges, which is not something one really wants to worry about in, say, a youth tournament. Springs break. Wheels stick. I can go on. In most tournaments there is some player who can't use the bowl correctly (or gets frustrated with an actual broken one) and winds up dumping all the stones out the side of the board in some disruptive fashion.

That being said, the desire for simplifying rules is often motivated by the goal of making life easier for beginners (or computers), and if these players are playing on 9x9 or smaller boards, stone management is much less of an issue and the tedious overhead mentioned by others on this thread is also not much of a problem.