RE: computer-go: Engineering (was: Most simple Go rules)

[Barry Phease <barryp@xxxxxxxx>]

At 01:55 AM 30/06/01, Mark Boon wrote:

> > Yes, but they are still in the same class of rulesets that all
> > destroy the final position.
>
> Not the way Chinese counting destroys them.

Destroys is destroys!  If you carefully replayed all your games and 
recounted them you would probably find that a significant percentage of 
them were actually counted incorrectly.  After a wrong number of prisoners 
is placed on the board, or a stone moved from territory to dame it is not 
possible to get an accurate count without replaying the game.

> > > - The Tromp/Taylor rules will have similar counting problems as
> > the Chinese
> > > ones.
> >
> > Inhowfar?! Tromp-Taylor do not even specify any counting method!
> > Any problems would come from assigning a bad rather than a good
> > counting method to them.
> >
>
> You'd have not much choice but to have a messy and destructive counting
> method as in Chinese rules.

In NZ we just count the game without rearranging.  This is very practical 
and even my 5 year old son can do it accurately (although he needs a paper 
and pen).  We do remove dead stones by agreement first, and only if there 
is no agreement do we continue play until everything is completely 
resolved.  If you have never tried it then you cannot say that it doesn't 
work.  We have and it does.  It also does not take any longer than Japanese 
(or Chinese style) rearrangements.

Barry Phease

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