Quotation reference:
viewtopic.php?p=184893#p184893



In this context, we are speaking about such beginners that are interested in reductions and invasions.

In the other thread, you have asked for lower and yet lower levels of abstraction, so you should not be surprised that explain them.

Reduction and invasion are concepts on a higher level than outside and inside. Territory is an even lower level of abstraction. Beginners should understand the lower levels before the higher levels, therefore they should understand territory before outside / inside and both before reduction / invasion.

A beginner interested in the topic should roughly understand the distinction made in my first message in the referred thread, in which I did not define inside / outside because a beginner's perception is good enough to distinguish them. My answers to your request for clarification on the lower levels of abstraction demonstrate that the distinction between inside / outside is meaningful; a beginner need not understand the details (for the purpose of understanding invasion / reduction; for the OT purpose of understanding territory, partial knowledge of the details is useful) but he can appreciate the intermediate level concepts of invasion / reduction more by knowing that there is a meaningful foundation for them.

Since a beginner should start with the lowest of the mentioned levels (before the higher levels), he should understand territory. First, a rough understanding of territory ("where the opponent cannot live") is good enough. Second, a beginner should also begin to understand amounts of territory. I support the idea that beginners on their way to intermediate strength must learn to count territory not by guessing or wildly approximating amounts of territory but by knowing which are the intersections belonging to territory.

For this purpose, 0-territory (aka current territory, i.e., the territory a player already currently has) is both suitable (also) for beginners and as accurate as they can determine the territory intersections. Among the concepts for accurate territorial judgement, current territory belongs to the simplest and therefore is particularly suitable (also) for beginners. This is so regardless of the possibility of embedding the concept as the most basic case of the general concept of n-territory. Beginners familiar with the first step of assessing territory can then proceed to also assessing 1-territory (aka half territory); beginners can do so because they can imagine playing 1 extra stone to defend a territory region. Beginners need not 2+ - territory, so they need not the general n-territory.

Rather than asking whether beginners need such levels of abstraction, you should recall that they need first territory, second inside / outside, third invasions / reductions. I.e., they need the more basic, low levels of abstraction before the more advanced, high levels. At any level, they do not need all available details yet.

Are you sure this post should be in the beginners forum?

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“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance.” ― Robert Quillen