Anyone point me in the right direction where I can find an idiots guide to scoring at the end a game ?

Tiger's mouth has a decent tutorial. The The Interactive Way to Go also has a decent description (see item 22). Do you have any specific questions?

Hi,
These descriptions are incomplete, since they don't talk about dead groups and komi.

The standard(*) way to count score once the two players have passed in succession is :

-Remove dead stones that are left on the board and add them to the prisoners (you must come to an agreement with your opponent to decide what is alive and what is dead).
-Put the dead stones + prisoners inside the territory of their own colour (a seki with one eye or with several false eyes doesn't count as territory, nor do unsolved ko).
-Count the number of empty intersections that are now left in your territory and in your opponent's (you may rearrange the empty spaces into rectangular shapes as long as your don't change their size).
-Add the komi to White's score. The komi is a compensation of 6.5 points in japanese rule for an even game, 0.5 points in a handicap game.
-The player with the highest score wins.


(*) Another way of scoring is used in the Chinese rule, the New Zealand rule and Ing rule.

The AGA rule, the French rule and the British rule work basically as above with a komi of 7.5, except for the presence of pass stones that are added to the prisoners, and the eyes and false eyes inside seki, that are considered to be territory. Wether or not an unsolved ko is territory doesn't matter thank to the pass stones.

maybe this will help?
http://senseis.xmp.net/?ExampleGame

Many thanks for all the helpful replies. Very much appreciated

Do not be discouraged if it seems overwhelming at first . Scoring is not the easiest part of go. Compared to chess, it is the prize to pay for not having to learn the movement of each piece, initial position, castling, en passant, 50-move rule...

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

Total endorsement of the post above. It always makes me squirm when someone is explaining go and says "the rules are so much simpler than chess". When you consider the movement of the pieces etc., the statement is defensible, but when you try to explain why you are telling a beginner the game is over, chess checkmates go in simplicity at that point.

Which is one reason that I like the capture game for absolute beginners. It has a well defined end of the game and, with some experience, leads to positions where, instead of playing the game out to the bitter end, you can stop play by agreement and count territory. You also begin to learn the concept of dead stones, first with stray stones inside the opponent's territory and then, with capture-2, capture-4 and higher, that you can make sacrifices to capture dead stones. The idea that playing dead stones inside your opponent's territory is in general a good idea because he will have to fill territory to take them never comes up. The idea that a dead stone is equivalent to one point of territory may arise, but it is a bit subtle.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.