Joelnelsonb wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong: under Japanese rules, you don't count live stones as points. This means that all that's necessary for a successful invasion into your opponents territory is that you don't place more stones than your opponent has to place in order to kill you. If I place ten stones in your territory and they all die, you've just gained ten points. However, if you use eleven stones to kill my group than you lost a point. Right?
Hello Joel. I'm a beginner too. I have been wondering about that too, and in my research I found that Japanese rules are
not an unambiguous description of the game of Go. They are ambigous and lead to nosense if interpreted in a straightforward way. As for what I have found, Japanese rules are only an informal description of the game of Go and describe some
heuristic guidelines rather than actual rules, as you might find in the much more polished
Tromp-Taylor rules. See
http://www.weddslist.com/j1989/index.html#8 and
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/j1989c.html.
Now, answering your question, see
http://www.weddslist.com/j1989/index.html#10.
Dead stones need not be captured, they're removed when playes agree than they're dead, but it's not clear what happens when the playes disagree on the alive status of stones. Note that in logic rulesets like the Tromp-Tylor and the AGA one, the life status of stones is not definied in the rules but rather it's definition and consequence is left to the players (This makes sense to me, in principle, life status needs not be defined in the rules, and the rules are axioms. It's a good practice to keep axioms as simple as possible and
derive results from them). Under those rulesets, disputes over the life status of groups are solved by continuation of the game. The agreement phase (Strictly speaking there's no agreement phase on the Tromp-Taylor rules, but it's an option mentioned in the notes) is just a shortcut to arrive faster at the inevitable result of continuing the game; this is not true under the Japanese rules, because, as you noted, demonstrating that a group is dead by capturing it costs points under territory scoring. Note that the definition of
dead stones under the Japanese ruleset appeals to a notion of “enabling”, whose definition/realization isn't addressed.
The Japanese ruleset also contains
ambigous provisions which may call for the game to end in “no result” and
“both players lose”.
I see no reason for mankind to continue using Japanse rules. Please note that agreement phase is ideally a shortcut to arrive faster at the result of applying the dispute resolution means (Whether continue normal play, as in AGA rules, or use a different procedure); so if the means for dispute resolution isn't specified then there's strictly speaking no basis on which players may decide on the life status of groups; this is the case under the Japanese ruleset. Territory scoring allows players to capture the groups claimed to be dead, in the case of dispute. The Japanese ruleset requires either the players of the referee to be able to tell the life status of stones in any board position where the game ends, and the players may in principle chose to end the game at any point, so that puts upon someone the requirement to be able to solve arbitrary life and death problems (Strictly speaking, only those problems that can be reached by actual play under Japanese rules).
In practice, however, when a game is specified as being played under the Japanese rules conflicts rarely arise. Players are able to tell whether stones are alive or dead (According to a non-formally-defined common wisdom of life and death) at the end of the game, and they behave honestly in the agreement phase, disputes are rare. The case concerning your question is not likely to happen, as the player claiming that his lone stone in enemy territory is alive has nothing to gain. The referee (If a formal match) would refuse to accept his claim, and in informal matches, the other player would simply react the same as if his opponent did an illegal move and refused to take it back. Note that this result, in both cases, isn't based upon the rules, because they don't specify clearly what to do when this happens, but based on common sense and wisdom instead.
It's claimed sometimes that Japanese rules are sharper, because under territory the addition of black stones and territory, white stones and territory and seki points sum to the total board points (361 for size 19). If there are no points in seki, this means that the score difference (before adding komi) is odd, and so it varies in increments of 2, rather than increments of 1. I don't see this as something undesirable, but at any rate, Button Go (Awarding 0.5 extra point to the first one to pass) re-introduces this kind of “sharpness”; note that the actual value difference of passing first to passing second is 1 point (You get 0.5 extra points, and your opponent doesn't).
Regards.
Your game reminded me, though, of a chess tournament game some (ahem) 40 years ago in which my opponent sacrificed his last piece for my last pawn, leaving me with a knight and bishop against his bare king. If you know chess, you know this caused our game to last another 30 or so moves, thereby missing any lunch break before our next round. (This was back when 40 moves in 120 minutes was a common time control, and he used every available minute. 
)