The history of go rules

[RobertJasiek]

daal, you paint a one-sided picture and forget about my offended feelings. And no, I do not return the opposing direction, especially not in public. But do not blame me just because of your knowledge of only a small part and my decision not to make all public.

[daal]

My apologies for my poor judgment to discuss this in public.

[flygo2626]

hi，i think one of the most important things is not only the translation,but the information realed by this paragraph:
"The latter half of the sentence is understandable, though: the player with more stones is the winner. The key to interpreting the whole sentence is the word "overflowing". C&IP and GTAM both mention and explain this word. GTAM says: “Overflowing means filled to capacity”, and C&IP says: ”Complete, with no overflowing”. Obviously, “overflowing” is an ancient go term. It means that stones have been placed everywhere they can on the board, and the next one will overflow, so that the game is over. “Two [or both] overflowing” means that both Black and White are "complete, with no overflowing". Therefore, the meaning of the sentence is: “Both sides place stones on the board until there is no place left to play, then stop, and the player with more stones is the winner.” This is stones scoring. In fact this rule was in use in China until the beginning of the last century. The only difference between it and the area scoring used today is that, for each string of living stones, there had to remain two eye points which had to be deducted when counting. If the basic eye points were completely filled, then the string of stones would die. The term "overflowing" in contrast to "complete" emphasises that the two eye points cannot be filled.

"


it means that the acient go game has different object for playing go (from modern go game --after 19th century),or different judging standard about who win.
it means that the object of the acient go game is more live stones on the board ,not the more points(territory
?) surrounding on the board .

Surrounding more open points(territory
) on the board is just the methoed for more stones can be put on the board ,not the object!
so in China,for thousands years at the end of the game ,they only count live stones and the open points(road) on the board where can be put on stones ,the two eyes of each live stones part (stones block together with territory) are not scored.

in moderm go game ,all the game rules' object is larger land?grond?(territory?i don't kown how to say it).so you must define what is the field?grond?(territory).so therer are 3 more rules (Chinese rule ,Jpanese rule ,Korea rule ,American rule and so on),infact ,they are
parallel logically.Essentially Speaking, one can't persuade another ,their difference is just the artificial diffinition .
the ancient go game's object can derivation a simple and stuipid rule system , which have no divergence logically,and is self-consistent logically .it needn't deffine other concept artificially,just like what territory is ,are eyes ,public liberty territories?
Japanese friends misunderstood the go game during Tang Dynasty (ac618-917) intuitively,because of the scoring(counting?) roads method for judging who win.The method is similar to the japanese rule ,but it does not computer the two eyes of each part .it only computer stones and points can be put on stones,two eyes must be open(empty) for live,so you can't put stones on them.

[flygo2626]

bye the way ,the "stop 停"，chen 's translation has problem,because the "stop 停"in ancient chinese has another mean :average,average.the road means where you can go (put stones on ,no eyes)

[emeraldemon]

Ahh, an argument between JF and RJ. Brings back such memories...

[Javaness2]

I sometimes wonder if I could ask the BGA to redact every copy of the British Go Journal they placed online with an article I penguined in it. Everything I submitted was done on the understanding that it would be to their own limited audience and confined to the printed journal. Then they all went online ...

[prokofiev]

There are no examples of sekis in the very ancient games that survive so we can't know (except, tentatively, by inference from Japanese rules, as Chen has done). From memory, the earliest sekis in old Chinese games are from the Qianlong era, i.e. relatively recent. Group tax applied then and the effect of the seki was interesting, but (to me) only for about 10 seconds, so I've forgotten what the effect was.

In "Jia Xuan's game" in the second GoGoD link we're discussing there's a seki. It seems from that that groups in seki did not have the group tax applied. Chen refers to there being two black groups and three white groups (which you can see are the numbers not including the groups in seki) and, after applying group tax for these, gets agreement with the source.

[Bill Spight]

There are no examples of sekis in the very ancient games that survive so we can't know (except, tentatively, by inference from Japanese rules, as Chen has done). From memory, the earliest sekis in old Chinese games are from the Qianlong era, i.e. relatively recent. Group tax applied then and the effect of the seki was interesting, but (to me) only for about 10 seconds, so I've forgotten what the effect was.

In "Jia Xuan's game" in the second GoGoD link we're discussing there's a seki. It seems from that that groups in seki did not have the group tax applied. Chen refers to there being two black groups and three white groups (which you can see are the numbers not including the groups in seki) and, after applying group tax for these, gets agreement with the source.

The seki is eyeless. If you talk about eyes needed for life not counting, no points would be "taxed". But the group tax in stone scoring did apply to seki. Even though the Black stones in the seki make up two strings that cannot be connected, Black is considered to have only one group in seki. Since each player has one group in the seki, the group tax cancels out. That's a strange way to do it, but it works.

[mumps]

I sometimes wonder if I could ask the BGA to redact every copy of the British Go Journal they placed online with an article I penguined in it. Everything I submitted was done on the understanding that it would be to their own limited audience and confined to the printed journal. Then they all went online ...

You could try...

Jon

[prokofiev]

The seki is eyeless. If you talk about eyes needed for life not counting, no points would be "taxed". But the group tax in stone scoring did apply to seki. Even though the Black stones in the seki make up two strings that cannot be connected, Black is considered to have only one group in seki. Since each player has one group in the seki, the group tax cancels out. That's a strange way to do it, but it works.

I agree it makes sense not to tax seki groups from a stone counting perspective, just as it makes sense not to count eyes in seki (Chen mentions this later, though without giving an explicit game example).

You mention cancelling group taxes, though. There's none of that here. Chen get agreement of the final black and white scores (not just their difference) with the source by taxing black for two groups and white for three (the numbers of non-seki groups).

[hyperpape]

I sometimes wonder if I could ask the BGA to redact every copy of the British Go Journal they placed online with an article I penguined in it. Everything I submitted was done on the understanding that it would be to their own limited audience and confined to the printed journal. Then they all went online ...

I know you're being facetious, but I'd be surprised if allowing them to publish didn't implicitly grant them rights to republish in different forums.

[Bill Spight]

The seki is eyeless. If you talk about eyes needed for life not counting, no points would be "taxed". But the group tax in stone scoring did apply to seki. Even though the Black stones in the seki make up two strings that cannot be connected, Black is considered to have only one group in seki. Since each player has one group in the seki, the group tax cancels out. That's a strange way to do it, but it works.

I agree it makes sense not to tax seki groups from a stone counting perspective, just as it makes sense not to count eyes in seki (Chen mentions this later, though without giving an explicit game example).

You mention cancelling group taxes, though. There's none of that here. Chen get agreement of the final black and white scores (not just their difference) with the source by taxing black for two groups and white for three (the numbers of non-seki groups).

What I was talking about was the use of the group tax as we know it under modern stone scoring. Ancient scoring, as indicated by the Dunhuang scroll, made no explicit mention of a group tax. The players actually, or in effect, play until neither side is willing to make a play (both filled to capacity). With an independently live group, that means playing on until there are two one-point eyes. With a seki, it means playing on until each group has zero or one eye, depending upon circumstances. (I think that J. F. should not have used the English "string", since a living group may consist of two strings, even after "filling to capacity".) Chen did not apply the group tax to the seki, and I agree. But modern stone scorers in the early 20th century would have, with the same result.

Now in practice, humans would quickly see that they did not actually have to play the game out to capacity, they could count territory as equivalent to stones as long as they remembered not to count the eyes necessary for life. Therein, I think, lies the origin of the group tax. Applying it to seki was a later refinement, if we can call it that.

[Javaness2]

It is a bit facetious, yes Still a more realistic case was when I wrote an article for website A which then turned up in e-journal B. I felt that was naughty!
Almost the same thing happened to some reports I wrote...

I sometimes wonder if I could ask the BGA to redact every copy of the British Go Journal they placed online with an article I penguined in it. Everything I submitted was done on the understanding that it would be to their own limited audience and confined to the printed journal. Then they all went online ...

I know you're being facetious, but I'd be surprised if allowing them to publish didn't implicitly grant them rights to republish in different forums.

[TMark]

[quote="Javaness2"]It is a bit facetious, yes Still a more realistic case was when I wrote an article for website A which then turned up in e-journal B. I felt that was naughty!
Almost the same thing happened to some reports I wrote...

What, they get cited by the Ig Nobel committee as also-rans?

Best wishes.

[Javaness2]

Ig-nobody :p When something gets additionally published elsewhere, as the author, it is quite distasteful to me. Still, it's hard to care much over the work.