From: jzg1795@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jialin Zhong )
Subject: Re: Chinese counting
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 18:53:46 GMT

barryp@otago.ac.nz writes:

>In article <Bz7t8M.4C1@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, dabrowsa@cheyenne.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew Dabrowski) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec13.200123.396@otago.ac.nz> barryp@otago.ac.nz writes:
>>>In article <lii07nINNbmb@news.bbn.com>, kcrews@bbn.com (Keith Crews) writes:
>>>> 
>>>
>>>Koreans use Japanese rules now but had their own variant prior to the
>>>beginning of this century.  the Korean variant was interesting but the
>>>result sometimes differed a lot from either Japanese or Chinese counting.
>>>
>> Could you tell us what the Korean rules were?

>Briefly in counting after the game has finished they used to remove any stones
>that weren't necessary for defining territories.  It was not permissable to
>leave stones in atari but any other threats were ok.  The territories were
>then counted much as with japanese rules.  This affected the score obviously,
>but also had some implications for end-game play.  You could afford to play an
>unnecessary fixing move as it wouldn't cost you anything.  Kos sometimes became
>more interesting as the value could be arbitrarily large

># . # O . . .
># # O . . . .  In this position if black (#) connects the ko he could
># # O O . . .  later remove four of the 5 stones on the first line
># O O . . . .  increasing his territory by that much.
># # O . . . .  
>                                                    
>They also had a different arrangement for starting the game.

>> 
>> I've always regretted that the ending has so many vagaries about it.
>> Of course in prctice problems seldom arise, but the rules for ending
>> and counting seem to be out of line with the rest of the rules, which
>> are amazingly simple.  I know no-one is really interested, but my modest
>> proposal for logical counting rules is: just count the stones on the board;
>> ignore the spaces, ignore issues of life and death and seki.  Then normally
>> your score will be the same as under Chinese rules but minus 2 for each
>> independent group; thus you get a 2 point reward for connecting groups.
>> 
>> Understand, I'm a mathematician, this is the sort of thing I worry about.
>> 
>> Andrew Dabrowski	Indiana U	Bloomington
>> 
>> 
>These rules were actually used in China for some time.  I expect that people
>found them a bit cumbersome and so looked for short cuts to speed up the
>counting. 

>The Japanese counting system has the disadvantage that the long winded method
>changes the result but the Chinese system doesn't.  If one chooses Chinese
>counting then you can agree the game is finished but if you can't agree on 
>life/death then you just play on until all everything is absolutely clear.

>It is not clear whether counting just stones is more elegant than counting
>stones plus empty surrounded points.

>Barry Phease


I remember I was told that they counted stones for each side plus half stone
for each group. Because of the way of counting, fight was implicitly 
encouraged. If you looked at the ancient Chinese games, there were usually
quite a few groups separated for each side. I guess Mr. Masaki (not zhuge
masaki) will be in big disavantage for his style.

Jialin

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