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

[Barry Phease <barryp@xxxxxxxx>]

At 01:10 AM 1/07/01, Mark Boon wrote:

> Is the game where you try to put as many stones as possible equivalent to
> the "two-stone group tax" game, or is there a counter example for that as
> well?
Stone-counting (ie  rules with a group tax) is equivalent to no-pass go 
where a move consists of playing a legal stone (ie no suicide) or passing 
back a prisoner.  Of course we can shorten this game by placing the 
prisoners into the opponent's territory and then just counting the empty 
spaces to see who sill have to pass first. :)

It seems that arguing about rules any more is pointless.  Chinese rules 
using some sort of optional arbitration phase makes the process easy to 
automate and could be made to work with sophisticated and simple 
programs.  Japanese rules are more difficult.

Any other justifications for one or the other seem to boil down to What you 
learned to start with.
I will say that I have never heard of anybody who started out using the 
Chinese rules changing to saying that the Japanese rules are better. 
:)  (Of course Robert and I both started out using Japanese rules).
Barry Phease

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