End of game under AGA rules vs .sgf files

[Uberdude]

I've just seen a post in which someone says he has had 8 disputes in 1000 games. That's about 8 times more than I've had in 50 years with Japanese rules, and I was a beginner once.

Did you check the games? Most of them were simply failures to recognise sekis, not more exotic things like moonshine life or that molasses ko that T Mark discovered. I'm assuming not many of your games over the last 50 years were on the internet, where it is easier to be more argumentative. In a club setting there is a more social atmosphere and it's a lot easier to smooth things over with a a friendly "that's a seki right?". When you can't see the face of your opponent, it's easier for a sore loser to be difficult.

[Phobos]

Hello to everyone.

I have a question about agreement phase under AGA rules.
Sorry in advance for my bad English.
I don't understand the machinery of stones passing in the agreement phase.
Copy from AGA Rules:

It is recommended, particularly if the players do not share a common language, that the following procedure be used to determine agreement on the status of groups. After two consecutive passes, the next player touches each connected string of opposing stones on the board which he or she believes to be dead. If the opponent disagrees, he or she also touches the same string. When a player is done indicating groups he or she believes are dead, he or she passes, passing a stone to the opponent as usual, and the opponent follows the same procedure. At any point, a player may resume play rather than continuing to indicate dead groups or passing. If both players pass and there was no disagreement indicated, the game is over, and all groups which the players have indicated as dead are removed from the board. If they both pass while a disagreement still exists, all stones remaining on the board are alive, and the board is counted as it stands. (The burden is thus effectively on the player who would be disadvantaged by such a result to resume play in the event of a disagreement.

I underlined the part I do not understand.

After a player touches the strings of opponent stones which he believes are dead must he pass a stone to the opponent player or not?

Let me make an example.
- Game.
- Player A passes.
- Player B passes. Game is ended. The agreement phase starts.
- Player A touches the dead groups of the players B and passes a stone. Is it right? If the opponent disagrees about dead groups must he touches the same groups before or after that player A have passes a stone?

Could anyone explain how the agreement phase works with some examples?

Sorry for my poor English.
Have nice day.

[yoyoma]

I've never used that formal procedure, I bet most people would not know about it either. I'm assuming you're a beginner with not much experience with how games end in practice? In most games after the passes, players just remove the stones that are obviously dead without asking.

Practically, if there is a confusing area the easiest thing to do is just... *slowly* start picking up dead stones that might be disputed, and look at your opponent to see if he objects. Or if your opponent starts to pick up your own alive stones, quickly let him know you don't agree.

ETA: I just realized this is one of those threads going into the gory details of the letter of the rules... A fun game in itself... but as I explained above most of the time doesn't matter.

[ez4u]

I've just seen a post in which someone says he has had 8 disputes in 1000 games. That's about 8 times more than I've had in 50 years with Japanese rules, and I was a beginner once.

Did you check the games? Most of them were simply failures to recognise sekis, not more exotic things like moonshine life or that molasses ko that T Mark discovered. I'm assuming not many of your games over the last 50 years were on the internet, where it is easier to be more argumentative. In a club setting there is a more social atmosphere and it's a lot easier to smooth things over with a a friendly "that's a seki right?". When you can't see the face of your opponent, it's easier for a sore loser to be difficult.

If I am reading it correctly, the seventh game is the most interesting.

[goTony]

I have read many of the posts on the different rule sets. I find it fascinating. But it does make my head spin. I understand GO by basic Japanese style rules. I also understand Chinese rules. But at the risk of upsetting people I understand the premise of the AGA rules, but find the application baffling because it feels contrived. I have only participated in one AGA tourney. Both formally and informally I saw no one play with AGA rules.

It seems to me that the AGA should accept a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things like bent 4 in the corner.

I believe most people smart enough to play and take an interest in GO can quickly understand the Japanese way of counting especially when started on small boards. Since even Chinese count this way in their head during a game is it not logical to go with it?

[RobertJasiek]

a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things

BASIC Japanese style ruleset do NOT allow players to play out things (in the one continued game sequence) because a) this alters the score compared to real Japanese style rulesets or b) leads to pass-fights, which do (a) and create different strategy. Such is avoided 1) in real Japanese style rulesets and also in my Simplified Japanese Rules by imagined-only playout (and the former also use arbitrarily many imagined playout sequences), 2) by pass stones and an equal number of moves in the game (White makes the last pass) resulting in different (area instead of territory) scoring with different strategy (as in AGA Rules) or 3) ruleset designs similar to (2).

What you want does not exist, and when you speak of "basic Japanese style rules", you imagine something close to the Simplified Japanese Rules while the real Japanese style rulesets are neither basic nor simple, see my commentaries on the Japanese 1989 Rules, the World Amateur Go Championship Rules and Verbal Japanese Rules: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

[goTony]

a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things

BASIC Japanese style ruleset do NOT allow players to play out things (in the one continued game sequence) because a) this alters the score compared to real Japanese style rulesets or b) leads to pass-fights, which do (a) and create different strategy. Such is avoided 1) in real Japanese style rulesets and also in my Simplified Japanese Rules by imagined-only playout (and the former also use arbitrarily many imagined playout sequences), 2) by pass stones and an equal number of moves in the game (White makes the last pass) resulting in different (area instead of territory) scoring with different strategy (as in AGA Rules) or 3) ruleset designs similar to (2).

What you want does not exist, and when you speak of "basic Japanese style rules", you imagine something close to the Simplified Japanese Rules while the real Japanese style rulesets are neither basic nor simple, see my commentaries on the Japanese 1989 Rules, the World Amateur Go Championship Rules and Verbal Japanese Rules: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/rules.html

I understand that. My point is that when people play they generally play it out unless they are smart enough not to. When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out. Regardless of what the official rule set implies. We do have a copy of GO; A Complete Intro to the Game by Cho Chikun that we have never referred to. ( Just handed out for newbies on loan : )

I have read many of the threads and links on the rule sets. It does get quite contentious and confusing. I find it far more confusing than a GO Seigen game. I believe that for most of us Westerners we play by an informal Japanese rule system, with playing out questionable positions, and courtesy and respect for the game and the opponent the unwritten rules.

[Bill Spight]

a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things

BASIC Japanese style ruleset do NOT allow players to play out things

I understand that. My point is that when people play they generally play it out unless they are smart enough not to. When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out. Regardless of what the official rule set implies. We do have a copy of GO; A Complete Intro to the Game by Cho Chikun that we have never referred to. ( Just handed out for newbies on loan : )

I have read many of the threads and links on the rule sets. It does get quite contentious and confusing. I find it far more confusing than a GO Seigen game. I believe that for most of us Westerners we play by an informal Japanese rule system, with playing out questionable positions, and courtesy and respect for the game and the opponent the unwritten rules.

You may find my note on the New Mexico rules of some interest. viewtopic.php?p=195058#p195058

As RJ might point out, they are not Japanese rules.

[goTony]

a basic Japanese rule set that allows players to play out difficult things

BASIC Japanese style ruleset do NOT allow players to play out things

I understand that. My point is that when people play they generally play it out unless they are smart enough not to. When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out. Regardless of what the official rule set implies. We do have a copy of GO; A Complete Intro to the Game by Cho Chikun that we have never referred to. ( Just handed out for newbies on loan : )

I have read many of the threads and links on the rule sets. It does get quite contentious and confusing. I find it far more confusing than a GO Seigen game. I believe that for most of us Westerners we play by an informal Japanese rule system, with playing out questionable positions, and courtesy and respect for the game and the opponent the unwritten rules.

You may find my note on the New Mexico rules of some interest. viewtopic.php?p=195058#p195058

As RJ might point out, they are not Japanese rules.

I looked at the example from the link you gave me. I do not mean to be obtuse nor argumentative, but why did black have to play in his territory first? If it is advantageous to win a ko sure, if not no. I admit we do not play by strict Japanese rules. I call them simplified for lack of a better term. Why can I not pass and let my opponent keep playing? If they so choose in an attempt to kill a group or win a ko? Why do I have to play in my own territory or give a pass stone that counts against me?


I have not conducted a tournament so I must admit that you have a greater grasp of the difficulties involved. I also appreciate the fact that you have done much to spread GO in Arizona.

[Bill Spight]

You may find my note on the New Mexico rules of some interest. viewtopic.php?p=195058#p195058

As RJ might point out, they are not Japanese rules.

I looked at the example from the link you gave me. I do not mean to be obtuse nor argumentative, but why did black have to play in his territory first?

He did not have to. In the second example, playing in the top left corner first would have given White five points there. In the first example, it did not matter where Black played.

Why can I not pass and let my opponent keep playing? If they so choose in an attempt to kill a group or win a ko? Why do I have to play in my own territory or give a pass stone that counts against me?

For the same reason that if you have a dead stone or stones that your opponent must capture to prove that they are dead, you must play a stone for every stone that your opponent plays. Otherwise he loses points by capturing the dead stones.

[RobertJasiek]

When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out.

If playout is imagined or undone, this is possible. If playout is an actual continuation of the game, you are NOT using Japanese style rules but create nonsense: e.g., a player plays 1 stone in the opponent's territory so that the opponent loses 3 points by having to play 4 stones in his own territory to remove the stone.

[Bill Spight]

When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out.

If playout is imagined or undone, this is possible. If playout is an actual continuation of the game, you are NOT using Japanese style rules but create nonsense: e.g., a player plays 1 stone in the opponent's territory so that the opponent loses 3 points by having to play 4 stones in his own territory to remove the stone.

They may not be using Japanese rules, but Japanese style rules describes what they are doing. As to whether they are creating nonsense, it depends upon how the play out goes. What you describe is extremely unlikely, as they are not complete beginners.

[Pio2001]

During centuries, in China and japan, go was played using territory counting, with no official ruleset. When an ambiguous shape appears, the problem is solved asking for the judgement of a third person.

The first complete official ruleset was the japanese one of 1949. It is huge (more than 50 pages ?), and tries to cover each and every exceptional configuration, although it is impossible, since there can be an infinity of them.
These rules are the ones that are the closest to the tradition of go, but they are a nightmare to use for federations that need to publish them (people who are new to go might just run away at the mere sighting of the rules), for the referees who must study them in order to help people during tournaments, and especially for programmers, who can't write any go software that follows them all.

Then, in 1975, China came with a much simpler ruleset using area counting. It is simple and clear, to the satisfaction of federations that must publish it and give it to the referees, and it can be easily programmed into softwares. But on the other hand, it is extremely heavy for the players, who have to count all the area at the end of each game.

Let's skip Ing's rules and New Zealand rules to go directly to the AGA rules, in 1991, that feature the simplicity of the chinese rules, and ask for just a little effort from the players : to give a prisonner when they pass and to have White make the last move.

The players usually don't care about rules. It is the go federations that must face this problem, and also the programmers.

Japanese-style rules have unsolvable theoretical problems, that occurs in one game out of 1000. A go federation can't seriously adopt them. The Nihon Ki-in has been criticised for doing so, and some players (Go Seigen) even demanded that they change that. Which was done in 1989... for the worse !
But since problems occur so rarely, the players themselves are perfectly ok with these rules.

Chinese style rules give no problems to any federation of programmer, but they strongly annoy the players in each and every game.

AGA rules seem to get the best of both worlds. Maybe the part that deals with life and death at the end (touching dead chains while handing prisoners) is too much. French and UK versions of the AGA rules have dropped this part.

When players have a contention at the club the consensus is play it out.

If playout is imagined or undone, this is possible.

Not always : if there is a seki of small value together with a four bent of higher value at the end of the game, for example, the four bent can only be killed sacrificing the seki.
Using imaginary play to prove that the four bent are dead, we come to the conclusion that the seki is dead in imagination, and that once the stones are removed, the intersections become imaginary territory for the opponent !

The 1949 japanese rules had an exception for this shape.
The 1989 japanese rules solved the problem introducing a new rule : ko fights are forbidden during imaginary play.
Chinese and area rulesets allow to play it out thanks to the use of area scoring, that permits real play-out.

[Bill Spight]

During centuries, in China and japan, go was played using territory counting, with no official ruleset. When an ambiguous shape appears, the problem is solved asking for the judgement of a third person.

{snip}

Japanese-style rules have unsolvable theoretical problems, that occurs in one game out of 1000.

Actually, they do not. A number of Japanese style rule sets avoid those problems, including Double Button Go.

A go federation can't seriously adopt them. The Nihon Ki-in has been criticised for doing so, and some players (Go Seigen) even demanded that they change that. Which was done in 1989... for the worse !

Indeed.

[Pio2001]

Japanese-style rules have unsolvable theoretical problems, that occurs in one game out of 1000.

Actually, they do not. A number of Japanese style rule sets avoid those problems, including Double Button Go.

Does my sentence become true if I replace "Japanese-style" by "territory scoring"