Life In 19x19

I eeked out a win today while keeping 6 groups alive...

Congratulations with the win. Quite spectacularly, the win was obtained in the endgame, while White's fewer number of groups should have given him more sente moves against yours.

The reason why you created many small groups is that you

1. tend to invade enemy sphere's of influence (in this game, but it looks like an instinct): 21, 71, 109.
Instead, you can consider building on a bigger scale than the opponent and allow them to have something too, but smaller.

2. you force your enemy to connect against raw peeps of yours: 151, 155.
Instead, leave cuts for later exploitation and strengthen your positions in a more indirect way.

3. try to save every little thing of yours, which leads to one scramble for life after another: 135.
Instead, consider sacrificing stones that are close to enemy strength, and use the momentum to create something bigger at the other side. You did this very well at 97: sacrifice 1 stone for bigger life with the group

4. you are good at defence: your defensive shapes, like tiger mouth connections or one space jumps are well grounded! This may give you more confidence at small scale fighting in enemy influence than big scale building your own and attacking when they come in.

Other than that:

- stay away from your own strong stones and resist adding stones to already bulky groups: 27, 41
- at 158: it's the endgame, which you win gloriously; I made comments of smaller importance there

@ Knotwilg: Thank you for taking the time to think about my game and to share your insights. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your review (probably because you threw in some compliments ) It seems obvious when you point it out, but I wasn't aware that I was playing jealously. The frameworks you show in the variations of 21, 25 and 71 do look good when I see them on the board. What I was seeing in my head looked different (horror fantasies of monster sized territory on the left, and my positions on the right being torn to pieces). Thanks for the reality check!

I have another question, not related to my play. Apparently in the old days, score was counted using a group tax. In stone scoring, this effectively meant you got points for everything (stones and territory) except for the points needed in each group to make two eyes. By my counting, I would have lost soundly 168 to 175. To say it seems unfair is rather subjective, but it does seem to make for quite a different game... When and why was this tax abandoned?

You might like this commentary on an ancient game with group tax: forum/viewtopic.php?p=213010#p213010, Chen Zude talks about connecting on the outside instead of burrowing into corners being an effect.

daal wrote:When and why was this tax abandoned?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that group tax was in use in China in the late 18th century.
But during older times (one thousand years ago), it seems that territory scoring was used in China.

I don't know the historic reason why group tax was abandoned, but I can understand the practical reason.

The logic behind group tax is the rule "the player who can play the most stones without being captured is the winner".
Playing like this, the game looses any interest as soon as the boundary of territories are closed. All that you can do next is filling your own territory until you can't play any more stone without loosing the whole group. In practice, if you play the "most stones" game, you fill the board once, twice, and then, the next game, you just realize that you can stop playing like we do now, and just tell "it's over, let's count the score as if everything was filled".

It is during this moment that it becomes tempting to leave out the group tax completely : you are counting all the empty space left as your points, except two remaining intersections. As far as strategy is concerned, you can prove that all the empty intersections that are left inside your boundaries are yours : you can play a stone on any of them that can't be captured, and your opponent can't play any stone on any of them without being captured. Every intersection in your territory does belong to you.

So even playing under pure stone scoring, without having ever heard of any other rule, it is natural to think "area" in our head. We play to maximize area, then, after the game stops, we count area, and only at the end we substract the group tax.
Why the group tax, by the way ? Oh yes, I remember, the two games that we played 30 years ago when we filled all the board, is that so ? Well, I suggest counting stones + territory from now on, agreed ?
Ok, new rule accepted !

Pio2001 wrote:

daal wrote:When and why was this tax abandoned?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that group tax was in use in China in the late 18th century.
But during older times (one thousand years ago), it seems that territory scoring was used in China.

The group tax via stone scoring lasted in China into the 20th century.

As for ancient go, the oldest known description of the game says that the player with the most stones is the winner. Some historians think that they have found evidence of a group tax in the obscure text, but, IMO, if they did not already know about the group tax they would not have found it in the text. However, the oldest known game records that are scored used territory scoring with a group tax. The group tax is a feature of ancient go, not of area or territory scoring per se.

Bill Spight wrote: Some historians think that they have found evidence of a group tax in the obscure text, but, IMO, if they did not already know about the group tax they would not have found it in the text.

I guess you don't find this kind of humorous gem on Reddit.

As for group tax, it is pretty obvious to me that it's a necessary feature of Go as it must have been discovered and not a later addition. The idea of covering a board with stones is more intuitive than that of "surrounding empty space" or even "make living groups". The concept of two eyes results from the one basic rule. The fact that these eyers remain uncovered follows from the gamesmanship not to smother your own forces. There's your "group tax".

From the often ill cited 2nd law of thermodynamics follows that man is lazy, therefore finds futility in filling the board in a predictable fashion. The concept of area is born, later territory and within such a bigger area of uncovered points, the "two eyes" no longer appear to the human eye. There goes your group tax.

From the often ill cited 2nd law of thermodynamics follows that man is lazy, therefore finds futility in filling the board in a predictable fashion.

"The zither makes men melancholy; go makes men idle." - Chen Jiru in the Ming dynasty.

As for ancient go, the oldest known description of the game says that the player with the most stones is the winner. Some historians think that they have found evidence of a group tax in the obscure text, but, IMO, if they did not already know about the group tax they would not have found it in the text. However, the oldest known game records that are scored used territory scoring with a group tax.

Which description do you have in mind, Bill? I'm out of touch with this topic now, but I'm not sure there is anyone claiming to have found early evidence of group tax. Indeed we don't know for certain if the earliest games did use group tax because it is never mentioned. It is an assumption - one that works, admittedly (except possibly for the Immortals relay game) - but it is possible to challenge it. For example, the 6th-century Dunhuang Classic (which some would say is the oldest known description; some might say Ma Rong's Rhaposdy, depending on how you distinguish "reference" from "description") tells us: "Don’t wastefully redouble fortifications for already living groups. Don’t strive to save already dead pieces. Don’t cut two living pieces; don’t link two dead pieces. There is no benefit in linking, and cutting loses sente." But if group tax applied, then there is benefit in cutting live groups and linking, and quite a big one. (And the oldest Chinese term for group tax calls it a cutting tax.)

Uncertainty remains not just over how ancient games were counted in general (stones versus area), but over group tax, whether an equal number of moves was enforced and whether 17x17 or 19x19 boards were used, who played first, etc. If assumptions about group tax are allowed, then it seems sensible to allow an assumption that perhaps more than one rule set was in force at various times. We know this applied in chess even down to modern times - indeed it applies in go today. It's probably the norm.

Knotwilg wrote:

Bill Spight wrote: Some historians think that they have found evidence of a group tax in the obscure text, but, IMO, if they did not already know about the group tax they would not have found it in the text.

I guess you don't find this kind of humorous gem on Reddit.

As for group tax, it is pretty obvious to me that it's a necessary feature of Go as it must have been discovered and not a later addition. The idea of covering a board with stones is more intuitive than that of "surrounding empty space" or even "make living groups". The concept of two eyes results from the one basic rule. The fact that these eyers remain uncovered follows from the gamesmanship not to smother your own forces. There's your "group tax".

From the often ill cited 2nd law of thermodynamics follows that man is lazy, therefore finds futility in filling the board in a predictable fashion. The concept of area is born, later territory and within such a bigger area of uncovered points, the "two eyes" no longer appear to the human eye. There goes your group tax.

Emphasis mine.

About the group tax being a natural feature of the game and about which came first, area scoring or territory scoring, I find it interesting that two of the methods used to teach absolute beginners, stone scoring for area scoring and the no pass version of the Capture Game for territory scoring, both have a group tax.

John Fairbairn wrote:

As for ancient go, the oldest known description of the game says that the player with the most stones is the winner. Some historians think that they have found evidence of a group tax in the obscure text, but, IMO, if they did not already know about the group tax they would not have found it in the text. However, the oldest known game records that are scored used territory scoring with a group tax.

Which description do you have in mind, Bill? I'm out of touch with this topic now, but I'm not sure there is anyone claiming to have found early evidence of group tax.

In The History of Go Rules (2011) Chen Zuyuan offers the following interpretation of the "two overflowing" sentence in the Dunhuang Classic:

Chen Zuyuan wrote: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" emphasizes that the two eye points cannot be filled.

(Emphasis mine.)

Indeed we don't know for certain if the earliest games did use group tax because it is never mentioned. It is an assumption - one that works, admittedly (except possibly for the Immortals relay game)

First, the game record of the Immortals relay game is plainly corrupted, as Chen points out. I may write about that some time. I think that the scores are correct. Second, I think that both Chen and I define the group tax, not as rule saying to make a preliminary count and then to subtract something from it, but as not counting empty points necessary for the life of one's own stones. Despite the lack of reference to a "group tax", the known scores of ancient go games do not count those points. (As John knows, I am not talking about net scores, such as "White wins by 1 pt.", but about the scores of each player, such as, "After filling White has 5 pts.")

Edit: OC, there may have been different rules by which those points were not counted, but they were not, and the "cutting tax" is known to have existed, at a later date.

- but it is possible to challenge it. For example, the 6th-century Dunhuang Classic (which some would say is the oldest known description; some might say Ma Rong's Rhaposdy, depending on how you distinguish "reference" from "description") tells us: "Don’t wastefully redouble fortifications for already living groups. Don’t strive to save already dead pieces. Don’t cut two living pieces; don’t link two dead pieces. There is no benefit in linking, and cutting loses sente." But if group tax applied, then there is benefit in cutting live groups and linking, and quite a big one. (And the oldest Chinese term for group tax calls it a cutting tax.)

Very interesting, John. And in the same text where Chen finds evidence for a group tax. However, the benefits of linking or cutting already immortal groups occurs only late in the game. And before that, we all know that there are cases where cutting living groups will allow you to threaten them and reduce their territory, group tax or no. The above advice is, like so much advice in go, rules of thumb.

If assumptions about group tax are allowed, then it seems sensible to allow an assumption that perhaps more than one rule set was in force at various times. We know this applied in chess even down to modern times - indeed it applies in go today. It's probably the norm.

That sounds right to me.

Bill,

Thanks. The part of your text I had trouble with was

As for ancient go, the oldest known description of the game says that the player with the most stones is the winner.

I am not aware of any ancient text that says that, and since you have explained where this notion came from, I think we should amend that to "As for ancient go, the oldest known book on the game has been used to claim that the player with the most stones is the winner."

The Dunhuang Classic text is utterly minimal and the relevant text doesn't mention stones or counting. Following a sentence which says 两生勿断，俱死莫连 the relevant text is 连而无益，断即输先. As you can see, not much to go on. In fact to get to this point involves assumptions about the readings of characters which do not exist in ordinary Chinese (and obviously not in Unicode). 益 is one of those "modernised" characters. They are topped up by further assumptions about the meaning.

The meaning of 益 is enigmatic, not just because of the dearth of context here but because it appears elsewhere in what may be different senses. For example, preceding the usage here there is the sentence 弱者须侵，侵而有益 where a possible reading is that the player who is behind must invade, and if he invades the fighting will spill over.

Chen was very passionate about discovering his meaning of 益 (I discussed it face to face) and I don't know ancient Chinese well enough even to hint that he is wrong, nor do I even suspect it, but I think I know enough to keep options open. You see, one thing that strikes me forcibly about the Dunhuang text in general is that so little of the vocabulary is what we are familiar with from Chinese of just a very few centuries later. Clearly the game itself was something like the one we are familiar with now, but the terminology and maybe the counting could well have still been in flux in the 6th century. The Dunhuang text even uses the "Japanese" character 碁 for the game, so apart from flux, and given that the texts appears to be from the extreme North of China, there may have been significantly different versions of the game.

John Fairbairn wrote:Bill,

Thanks. The part of your text I had trouble with was

As for ancient go, the oldest known description of the game says that the player with the most stones is the winner.

I am not aware of any ancient text that says that, and since you have explained where this notion came from, I think we should amend that to "As for ancient go, the oldest known book on the game has been used to claim that the player with the most stones is the winner."

The Dunhuang Classic text is utterly minimal and the relevant text doesn't mention stones or counting. Following a sentence which says 两生勿断，俱死莫连 the relevant text is 连而无益，断即输先. As you can see, not much to go on. In fact to get to this point involves assumptions about the readings of characters which do not exist in ordinary Chinese (and obviously not in Unicode). 益 is one of those "modernised" characters. They are topped up by further assumptions about the meaning.

The meaning of 益 is enigmatic, not just because of the dearth of context here but because it appears elsewhere in what may be different senses. For example, preceding the usage here there is the sentence 弱者须侵，侵而有益 where a possible reading is that the player who is behind must invade, and if he invades the fighting will spill over.

Chen was very passionate about discovering his meaning of 益 (I discussed it face to face) and I don't know ancient Chinese well enough even to hint that he is wrong, nor do I even suspect it, but I think I know enough to keep options open. You see, one thing that strikes me forcibly about the Dunhuang text in general is that so little of the vocabulary is what we are familiar with from Chinese of just a very few centuries later. Clearly the game itself was something like the one we are familiar with now, but the terminology and maybe the counting could well have still been in flux in the 6th century. The Dunhuang text even uses the "Japanese" character 碁 for the game, so apart from flux, and given that the texts appears to be from the extreme North of China, there may have been significantly different versions of the game.

Thanks, John. In his 2011 paper, and elsewhere, I suppose, Chen bases his claim on this clause: 子多為勝 . Given the reading of 子 as stones, it certainly seems plausible that the player with more stones was the winner.