Video of Joseph Wilk's talk about Go

[tj86430]

I'm interested in the background of the talk - can Peter tell us what the event was, or why Joseph was presenting the talk?

The event can be deduced from the URL: http://devslovebacon.com/

BACON is a conference on things developers love. Thirty-one tasty sessions on topics including rocketry, Go, infinity, data visualisation, and continuous deployment.

[Boidhre]

I'm interested in the background of the talk - can Peter tell us what the event was, or why Joseph was presenting the talk?

I hazard to guess that:

He was picked because he's a senior developer of a well known project. Knowing stuff about black and white pebbles would be of secondary concern.

[PaperTiger]

I'll admit i didn't watch the talk (since several here said to save the time), but for new comers (and relative to other games) ending the game is quite challenging regardless of ruleset. Go ends only when players agree the game is over...that's a little crazy when you think about it. Imagine if in chess your opponent kept making moves well after checkmate, or in backgammon if you kept rolling even though all of your opponents pieces were off of the board, simply because you didn't agree you had lost yet.

It's particularly challenging in the Japanese (territory) rules, because you *have* to agree that certain stones are dead, because it costs points to remove them. Imagine in chess if you declared checkmate in 3, and refused to show the moves. Also, please spare me the demonstration board that it can be theoretically played out on, that nobody ever uses, and that doesn't cover cases like stones that originally weren't under dispute dying.

In area scoring rules it is a no-brainer, just keep on playing until it is obvious even for the beginner.

This has been hashed out numerous times in rec.games.go, on this forum, and elsewhere. I think this post from shapenaji does a marvelous job of explaining why territory rules are so hard for beginners, and area scoring rules not:

Out here in Eugene, we just had the Oregon Asian Celebration. I think I've done more teaching in the last 2 days than I've done in the last year.

I noticed the following:

1) Teaching territory scoring was useless except in the case of the die-hards (The people who were REALLY interested in the game anyway, and who would wade through any number of obstacles to get there). Every time I tried to introduce it to a more casual player, you'd see the wheels in their head start spinning really fast, and then stall. I'd have to work harder then to get them through it, and it took precious time from teaching more people.

2) Teaching area scoring resulted in near-immediate games of go. The definition of territory was simple, and I'd just say "See this, this is territory, if anyone gets inside, you have the backup from these surrounding stones to go in there and finish them off"

I never had to explain "Oh, well you shouldn't play in there, because you make your territory smaller, you should just know those can be killed"

Instead, I got to say "You shouldn't play in there, those guys can't escape, you can kill them later if you want to, Go out! Explore! Be Bold!"

3) The counting step did require some additional assistance, but at least they GOT to the counting step. They satisfied themselves to the idea that there was nothing left to be gained and were willing to pass. That's less obvious in territory scoring.

[jts]

The game still ends by agreement under area scoring. Even under stone scoring, the game ends by agreement. Beginners are capable of making ridiculous mistakes about when to agree to end the game that have nothing to do with the difference between territory and area, so claiming that the answer is obvious under one rule set but not the others is hyperbole.

[PaperTiger]

The game still ends by agreement under area scoring.

Technically, in area scoring you can continue playing until there are no more legal moves left. This would be akin to checkmate in chess. In practice, even beginners understand the concept of two eyes and the space required for it, and both players will pass when they are confident the game is truly over.

Beginners are capable of making ridiculous mistakes about when to agree to end the game that have nothing to do with the difference between territory and area, so claiming that the answer is obvious under one rule set but not the others is hyperbole.

Its not hyperbole, but you don't see it that way because you are ignoring the evidence and trying to lump together issues that are vaguely similar but immensely different in practice. That beginners can make mistakes isn't the problem, it's that they are massively confused as to the logic of ending the game. In area scoring, "When in doubt, play it out." Under Japanese rules, they are told they don't have to play -- even worse, they are told if they do play to remove doubt, they lose points. That's when "the wheels in their head start spinning really fast, and then stall", as shapenaji so aptly put it. This logical difficulty has been documented countless times.

The end result is that two beginners who have just learned the rules will be in a state of confusion as to the rules and how to legally end a game. They will not be in a position to play other beginners without somebody holding their hand. They won't be able to teach the rules to other beginners. What should be a game with simple rules that takes a lifetime to master has been ruined by foisting advanced rules that assume knowledge of basic play onto beginners.

[PeterHB]

I'm interested in the background of the talk - can Peter tell us what the event was, or why Joseph was presenting the talk?

Er, no, Java. It was just something I happened to come across, and thought it would stimulate discussion.

I just find the different approaches to trying to explain what Go is & why to bother playing it is interesting. It appears to be a simple easy thing to knock together a presentation on the subject, but when you actually do it, you find it isn't so easy. You find yourself making compromises you don't want to make. Being concise, accurate, informative & interesting is difficult.