Strategic differences due to group tax

[jann]

I meant: stone scoring -> territory scoring with tax -> drop tax.

[John Fairbairn]

John Fairbairn can correct me, but the oldest known description of weiqi suggests stone counting, while the oldest existing scored game records appear to have used territory scoring with a group tax.

I'm not sure I can. Rules bore me. What I can say is that, for those who have GoGoD's New in Go (which, I think, comes with the GoGoD database) GoGoD published, at Chen Zuyuan's request, our English version of a paper of his on the history of go rules. Most of the answers are in there.

Chen is the world's premier rules researcher, not least because he can read all the old texts. He has continued his research, and one later item is a major book on cyclic kos. A further huge addition to the go canon is a joint work last year with pro Li Zhe which shows that Chinese go theory was far more advanced than previously thought even in China. And since it predated by a very long time anything written down in Japan, it was presumably well in advance of Japanese theory. Whoever did the PR job for Japanese go was the kind of guy that it looks like President Trump might now need.

What I can add, peripherally, is that there is no actual evidence that group tax was ever used in Japan. Or starting stones, if we accept the pretty overwhelming evidence that the Nichiren game was a forgery. Hayashi Genbi may still be blushing in Heaven.

The Japanese term for group tax is kirichin (cutting tax) but this was a term made up by Japanese go researchers. They also were the ones who decided to call the rules they originally inherited from Tang China "Japanese rules" (and the two stages of more recent Chinese rules were dubbed Primary and Secondary Chinese rules, the latter being the version with group tax removed). They freely acknowledge the misnomer, but it did at least reflect modern practice. However, when they talk about Tang rules, they specifically call those "Japanese rules with group tax" (切り賃つき日本)ルール), but given they accept the misnomer that really means "very old Chinese rules with group tax".

The only element of Japanese play that hints at group tax is the rule about not counting points surrounded in a seki, but that can be twisted to support any inside in any argument. The usual cop-out is to refer to Primitive Rules, which nobody actually knows, and the evidence from Tibetan and Mongolian go warns us that it would be rash to make assumptions based only on what we know as of now. We will probably have to await deciphering of the still unread cache of Tibetan documents found not too long ago in Gansu Province to find more clues from that far back.

Apart from some tantalising allusions to go in the Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book (which I covered extensively in New in Go), and of course the Shosoin boards, the history of go in Japan is a blank page for the equivalent era there. The first work to discuss theory, in a very minor way, was the Igo Shiki of 1199. Then, apart from game records and some poems, nothing till about the time of Mozart and Beethoven, and nothing really substantive till Honinbo Shuho at the end of the 19th century. Rules research is a very recent thing in both Japan and China. Japan probably has the lead there, from about the 1920s, but that was stimulated by what they discovered when they invaded China.

[Bill Spight]

John Fairbairn can correct me, but the oldest known description of weiqi suggests stone counting, while the oldest existing scored game records appear to have used territory scoring with a group tax.

I'm not sure I can. Rules bore me. What I can say is that, for those who have GoGoD's New in Go (which, I think, comes with the GoGoD database) GoGoD published, at Chen Zuyuan's request, our English version of a paper of his on the history of go rules. Most of the answers are in there.

Chen is the world's premier rules researcher, not least because he can read all the old texts. He has continued his research, and one later item is a major book on cyclic kos. A further huge addition to the go canon is a joint work last year with pro Li Zhe which shows that Chinese go theory was far more advanced than previously thought even in China. And since it predated by a very long time anything written down in Japan, it was presumably well in advance of Japanese theory. Whoever did the PR job for Japanese go was the kind of guy that it looks like President Trump might now need.

Chen makes the reasonable assumption that the group tax was originally a feature of stone scoring, and was carried over to territory scoring when that change occurred, at some point before the time of existing scored game records. If you start with territory scoring, it is far from obvious how you get a group tax, nor is it obvious why a dead stone counts as one point of "territory". But if you start, as Berlekamp did in the '80s, with no pass go, the group tax is an obvious feature of territory scoring, and I later showed that, from that standpoint, dead stones are part of the definition of territory. To derive something like modern Japanese and Korean territory scoring, Berlekamp had to go to some trouble to eliminate the group tax.

What I can add, peripherally, is that there is no actual evidence that group tax was ever used in Japan.

Before Davies came up with the terms, territory scoring and area scoring, territory scoring was informally called Japanese scoring and area scoring was informally called Chinese scoring. Not exactly correctly in either case. We have ancient Chinese game records that appear to use territory scoring with a group tax, but no such Japanese game records with a group tax. If the group tax was dropped from weiqi before Japan inherited it from China, then it was not used in Japan, but if the group tax was still part of the rules in China, then it is very likely that it was inherited by the Japanese. But there is no direct evidence either way.

The Japanese term for group tax is kirichin (cutting tax) but this was a term made up by Japanese go researchers. They also were the ones who decided to call the rules they originally inherited from Tang China "Japanese rules" (and the two stages of more recent Chinese rules were dubbed Primary and Secondary Chinese rules, the latter being the version with group tax removed). They freely acknowledge the misnomer, but it did at least reflect modern practice. However, when they talk about Tang rules, they specifically call those "Japanese rules with group tax" (切り賃つき日本)ルール), but given they accept the misnomer that really means "very old Chinese rules with group tax".

With the understanding that very old Chinese rules counted territory, dead stones, and prisoners.

The only element of Japanese play that hints at group tax is the rule about not counting points surrounded in a seki, but that can be twisted to support any inside in any argument. The usual cop-out is to refer to Primitive Rules, which nobody actually knows

Well, if they adopted the very old Chinese rules as we know them, the group tax would have applied to certain points of territory in seki. It is easier to tell a story of how the rule about not counting territory in seki arose from the group tax than to tell a story of how it arose de novo. No copout is necessary.

But yes, we do not know where or when territory scoring dropped the group tax, or how the special rule for seki arose.

[RobertJasiek]

Chen is the world's premier rules researcher

He is the world's premier researcher in the history of old go rules. I am the world's premier researcher in modern go rules theory.

[John Fairbairn]

I am the world's premier researcher in modern go rules theory.

If that's true, you can no doubt share insightful views on, say:

1. 世界の囲碁ルール (Go rules of the world) by O Meien， 2019，especially Chapter 7 on his suggestions for 純碁 or pure go。

2. 围棋规则演变史 (History of the evolution of go rules) by Chen Zuyuan, 2007, especially on the modern developments in the "Path to unification" (Chapter 6).

3. 囲碁ルールの研究 (Go rules research) by Sekiguchi Harutoshi, 2007. Comments on the perfectibility of rules (page 150) will do.

Finding logical flaws in rule sets is just pulling legs off spiders. Some researchers are concerned with symbiosis.

[RobertJasiek]

Language boundaries (I do not read Asian languages and many Asians, except in particular Chen and jaeup, ignore most English texts) persist. When texts or their core contents are (preferably accurately) translated, I will comment. Identification of flaws and suggestions of symbiosis belong to the important things and I have done both but also much more incl. many rule texts, commentaries and definitions of terms used in rules. E.g., I spent 13.5 years of research on defining ko in general.

[Uberdude]

https://youtu.be/Dn4SCyBmAOo?t=59

[Bill Spight]

I meant: stone scoring -> territory scoring with tax -> drop tax.

Yes, that's a common, and reasonable, assumption.

But consider the Capture Game with no passing. Assuming that the players have come down to the stage where they have to start filling in territory. (Assume no seki in that particulary game, for clarity.) Two points of territory is enough for a group to be alive. The first one to have to fill in the territory of a group, leaving it with one eye and in atari, will lose. Before that happens you can determine the winner by counting territory with a group tax. Thus, the no pass Capture Game can be scored by territory scoring with a group tax. That is true for any variety of no pass go where groups have territory that they can fill in, leaving them in atari.

The pass is a modern invention. Stopping play by agreement is how I learned the game. You don't need passes to end the game and then score it. And you don't need to make a leap from stone scoring to territory scoring to get territory scoring with a group tax.

[Bill Spight]

I am the world's premier researcher in modern go rules theory.

If that's true, you can no doubt share insightful views on, say:

1. 世界の囲碁ルール (Go rules of the world) by O Meien， 2019，especially Chapter 7 on his suggestions for 純碁 or pure go。

2. 围棋规则演变史 (History of the evolution of go rules) by Chen Zuyuan, 2007, especially on the modern developments in the "Path to unification" (Chapter 6).

3. 囲碁ルールの研究 (Go rules research) by Sekiguchi Harutoshi, 2007. Comments on the perfectibility of rules (page 150) will do.

Finding logical flaws in rule sets is just pulling legs off spiders. Some researchers are concerned with symbiosis.

Do any of these authors mention Button Go? It is a way of unifying area and territory scoring that has already been used in international competition (although not by that name).

[John Fairbairn]

Do any of these authors mention Button Go? It is a way of unifying area and territory scoring that has already been used in international competition (although not by that name).

I'm sorry but I'm not interested enough in rules to go and look again. I have seen it and/or other western ideas (??Maas, ??Lasker-Maas) mentioned in some places (magazines), though I can't remember your name (or Robert's) being mentioned. Chen knows about these things, of course, but I never bothered to ask him what he thought of them. I wouldn't have understood the significance of his answer anyway.

[RobertJasiek]

I forgot who first invented Button Go. Maybe Ikeda? Bill is the leading expert on buttons. Bernd Gramlich has contributed. During the International Go Rules Forum, Terry Benson and I were the driving force towards also considering a compromise ruleset so I suggested Ikeda Rules. During the forum, the Asian delegates did not agree. However, my presentation motivated the Chinese organisers of the 1st World Mind Sports Games to use similar button go rules, the WMSG Rules, for which I then wrote commentaries. Personally, I like the International Go Rules more, for which I was also the main motivator, because they avoid button complications.

[Bill Spight]

I forgot who first invented Button Go. Maybe Ikeda?

Barry Phease was the first, AFAIK. Ikeda didn't quite do so.

During the International Go Rules Forum, Terry Benson and I were the driving force towards also considering a compromise ruleset so I suggested Ikeda Rules. During the forum, the Asian delegates did not agree. However, my presentation motivated the Chinese organisers of the 1st World Mind Sports Games to use similar button go rules, the WMSG Rules, for which I then wrote commentaries. Personally, I like the International Go Rules more, for which I was also the main motivator, because they avoid button complications.

They are a form of button go without the name.

[jann]

Thus, the no pass Capture Game can be scored by territory scoring with a group tax. ... And you don't need to make a leap from stone scoring to territory scoring to get territory scoring with a group tax.

Such equivalences are not rare, but this does not necessarily mean it played any role in history. Has capture / no-pass (= obligatory move, not simple lack of passes) rules ever appeared in practice before recently?

I think the stone->territory leap had other, more important motivations, the (later) drop of tax may have been just a minor bonus.

The pass is a modern invention. Stopping play by agreement is how I learned the game.

How about the "virtual moves" of some ancient contexts?

[Bill Spight]

Thus, the no pass Capture Game can be scored by territory scoring with a group tax. ... And you don't need to make a leap from stone scoring to territory scoring to get territory scoring with a group tax.

Such equivalences are not rare, but this does not necessarily mean it played any role in history. Has capture / no-pass (= obligatory move, not simple lack of passes) rules ever appeared in practice before recently?

One of the curious (to us) aspects of the famous 10,000 year ko dispute between Segoe and Takahashi was that it was unclear to the Japanese professionals whether making a play was a right or an obligation. Games ended by agreement, and Takahashi did not agree to end the game. After all the dame had been filled, he did not continue to play, either. Japanese East-West politics was involved, as well, and his team captain was there saying there was a problem. The politics helps to explain the illogical ruling that White (Segoe) won but Black (Takahashi) did not lose. But the Japanese did not know whether a move was obligatory or not.

I think the stone->territory leap had other, more important motivations, the (later) drop of tax may have been just a minor bonus.

Where is the evidence of any stone-territory leap? The oldest scored game records we have have territory scoring, and the scores are in line with a group tax. Records of games played with stone scoring are more recent. (Not that there is direct evidence of a territory-stone scoring leap, either, but we do know that territory scoring died out in China but was preserved in Japan.)

What we do have is an ancient, incomplete description of weiqi that is older than the game records, which appears to describe stone scoring. However, the text is so incomplete and ambiguous that if we had never heard of stone scoring, we would not know that's what was being described. The player with more stones is the winner, it says, but maybe it was referring to prisoners. Quien sabe?

The pass is a modern invention. Stopping play by agreement is how I learned the game.

How about the "virtual moves" of some ancient contexts?

What virtual moves? I know of no text that talks of virtual moves.

Edit: As to such equivalences not being rare, it came as a shock to me.

[jann]

Has capture / no-pass (= obligatory move, not simple lack of passes) rules ever appeared in practice before recently?

... the illogical ruling that White (Segoe) won but Black (Takahashi) did not lose. But the Japanese did not know whether a move was obligatory or not.

These are what I meant by simple lack of passes, in these cases nobody claimed that to keep moving until no more legal moves exist (inside territory) would be obligatory.

What virtual moves? I know of no text that talks of virtual moves.

The sensei's page for stone scoring etc mention them, but it's unclear how much credibility is behind. I MAY have come across this one other source as well, but don't remember where.

But a last ko with no dame and no threats is something that likely came up somewhere in history, so one could at least expect a hint from some old sources?