Life In 19x19

Hello everyone:

I have a doubt about the counting process that comes after the end of a game (using Japanese rules). After filling the prisoners and dead stones in the territory of the opponent, the usual thing to do is to rearrange the territories to facilitate counting. My doubt is about some specific cases of this process. Here it is. Suppose that there is one or more zones of the goban in seki. Is necessary to perform any special action in these zones (like filling some stones or something), or are they only ignored (because they don't add points of territory for either Black or White)?

Thank you very much for your help.

The practice I learned was the each player filled in the opponent's territory with captured and dead stones, and rearranged it for easy counting. Since seki was nobody's territory, we just left it alone.

If you are playing by rules that count territory in seki, it's probably easier and clearer just to leave them at is, since there is not a lot of territory there, anyway, as a rule.

Real world Japanese style rules do not score territory in sekis. If "dead" stones can be removed from sekis, you best do so in alternation before passing, but also then the remaining sekis are not scored - only the prisoners originating from them by filling them in elsewhere.

Most go server Japanese style rules score territory in sekis automatically. If "dead" stones can be removed from sekis, you best do so in alternation before passing.

Thank you RobertJasiek and Bill Spight!

Bill Spight wrote:...Since seki was nobody's territory, we just left it alone...

However, at the OP's level, it is prudent to assume that the opponent might not recognize it as seki. At least twice over the past decades I have interrupted a well-intentioned beginner who was picking up my stones in the seki, honestly believing them to be his prisoners.

The more memorable of the two did not even know what seki was, and since my group did not have two eyes, he simply concluded that they were dead.

Thank you Joaz Banbeck!