Alcadeias wrote:
I would like to know: What is the most natural, instinctive, simple, logical, intuitive and elegant scoring system? The Japanese territory scoring system or the Chinese area scoring system?
Hi,
I vote for the chinese aera scoring system.
Natural/logical : one step above the japanese system, I'd say, if we order them as Stones > Aera > Territory + prisoners.
Instinctive/intuitive : way above the japanese one from my point of view. The winner can be guessed just looking at the board and trying to evaluate the aeras. The fact that prisoners must be substracted is not something instinctive for me.
Simple : the japanese system has a point here. It's easier to count the score, both mentally, before the end of the game, and practically, after the end of the game ,with the japanese system.
Elegant : with 15 or 20 "precedents" that had to be handled as exceptions to the rule in the official version of 1949, some even in contradiction with other parts of the rule (three points without counting), and with the schizophrenic version of 1989 (different rules before and after the players pass their turn in succession), nothing could be
less elegant than the japanese system.
Ok, the question was rather about the scoring system than the ruleset. Maybe if the japanese rule would have taken the opposite direction from the beginning, that is, counting every free intersection surrounded by living stones as territory, a more elegant system may have been found.
But the fact that the position must be counted as it is when the players have passed is a consequence of the territory counting system (otherwise, one could just pretend to live in order to force his opponent to add stones), and that leads to difficult problems.
The aera system is much more elegant in solving any problem by just resuming the play. A definition of life and death is not even needed since, in last resort, we can directly apply the fundamental rule 1 stone = 1 point (resuming the play until all dead stones are captured, and counting every remaining one).