Life In 19x19

emeraldemon wrote:

tj86430 wrote: In club games, there is always someone more knowledgeable who can be asked for help. In private games; well, basically you are right. OTOH: how much private games do people play - are the difficult situations encountered? And finally, is it that big a deal if a rare situation in a private game is judged against the official rules, as long as the players are happy?

This is why I wrote the post I did earlier. Some people may not have stronger players around to explain to them. Yes, for most people most of the time, territory scoring is perfectly fine. But if something like AGA scoring makes it easier for beginners to understand the game, why not use it? What downside does it have?

Pass stones, which many players find confusing, might be considered a slight downside. Pass stones are not really logical in and of themselves, but rather are a mechanism to achieve a certain goal, i.e. to be able to use territory counting techniques with area scoring. That means that you may have introduced a small annoyance that people have to deal with every single game, while solving some problems that crop up in less than 1% of games.

That does not mean I dislike AGA rules. I think it is fine to teach beginners AGA rules, as long as those are the rules they are most likely to encounter in their everyday life. If I started teaching beginners AGA rules here in the Netherlands, where Japanese rules are used, I'd be doing them a disservice, because they would run into confusion and misunderstanding as soon as they visited any club or tournament here.

The number one main goal of teaching beginners is not to enable them to solve every possible problem by themselves. It is to get them to enjoy the game and to hopefully have them join the community of go players.

My suggestion is to use the scoring method that the people you play with use.

If you play with another beginner, there is an advantage to using area scoring. You do not have to worry after the dame have been filled about playing inside your own territory, since at that point you will not lose points by doing so. That means that, if there is any question about the life or death or stones, it may be resolved through play.

I think it's good to learn both so you can be prepared for games with as wide a variety of players as possible. Although online I typically use what the servers call Japanese rules I play with AGA (theoretically an area rule set) in tournaments and quite frequently have to use Chinese counting because there are lot of Chinese kids who only know that. (BTW, if you play bots on KGS, be careful to check the rules because some of them are configured to use Chinese rules, which are easier for programmers to code.)

Although I would like to see area rulesets become more popular because they are more logical, I think this begins with tolerance first before broader acceptance is possible. It is not uncommon to run across players who have a visceral reaction to any ruleset that isn't the one they learned first. Although there is no need for everyone to become a rules expert, I think a little awareness is a good thing.

The fact that you are even asking the question with an open mind means you're on the right track.