Mef wrote:flygo2626 wrote:what is the group tax you talk about?
maybe ,i have a misunderstand
In some rulesets (though it not very common in modern play), players are charged a 2 point penalty for each group they have on the end of the board. This thread has discussing (amongst other things) the history of this rule and how it may have originated in a similar scoring method, stone counting, where players earn a point for each stone they have on the board at the end of the game (since you cannot fill eyes of a living group, you cannot get points for those two stones). In practice, the idea of filling the whole board up with stones at the end of the game may seem a bit tedious for the players, so instead they count the area they could have filled up and you get something similar to territory scoring. The group tax is introduced to keep the difference in territory count the same as the difference stone count.
Thank you.It looks like I understood it right .
In Chinese Ancient Time,the method to keep the difference in territory count the same as the difference stone count ,is called "还棋头"（HuanQiTou），if allow me to name it by English,I will call it “return(or repay) stone” . The method is introduced in the #52 post by my poor English,I hope English-speakers could undstand what I said.
In my personal opinion ,I don't like the name "group tax",it dosen't express exactly。
Tell you the trurh ,many go term in English are deviate seriously from their original meaning in Chinese ,that has made many misunderstanding about the go game ,many unnecessary difficulties for starters .
It looks lke "group tax" needs counting 2 points for each group .How dose "还棋头"（HuanQiTou work?
For example under the Chiniese rule changed a little:
Change the object in Chinese go rule to "stones more win", delet some unnecessary concept deffined extra about territory, when it appears seki(both alive ),divide the shared liberties equally by two sides,
and then count ,at last do the "还棋头HuanQiTou" (I call it return or repay stone ) I wrote in #52 post .the last score is right for win or losing ,it's unnecessary to deduct 2 points(eyes or shared liberties) for each group extra in the counting,you only count the groups each side has , it's enough.
,we can apply it "还棋头HuanQiTou' under Japanese rule (after some changes )too.
Of couse ,you can immediately count except eyes(and shared liberties) ,not to use the "还棋头HuanQiTou' or "the group tax" .
In ancient ,there is a clear concept "road" differernt from territory,which is where you can place stone on it,of couse it dosen't includes the eyes and shared liberties.
The stone on the board just likes a person,it must has air(you can think it as air ,power,energy and something for living .it's translated to liberty) to breath to live,so it generates "living stone" and "dead stone" naturally 。other terms also have interesting meaning in Chinese ,which are easy to understand.
I hope that perfect translations will come soon.
I really hope what I wrote could help friends to undertand the rules in ancient and in the mordern,the difference between them ,some go concepts' original meaning in Chinese
