Re: computer-go: Spirit of the game

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 10:35:13 +0200
   From: Alberto Rezza <a.rezza@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

    >This is  the silliest  thing I ever  heard!!  You  are  defining "best
    >play" by  the rules themselves!

   It is true that Adrian is putting the cart before the horses.
   However, AFTER you choose the rules, it is also true that this
   implicitly defines best play. What's the problem?

    >   In the light of jap 'spirit of the game', here are the problems I see with
    >   TT scoring:
    >   1. require removal (capture) of dead stones.
    >   2. don't penalize for playing inside own territory.
    >
    >No,   these are   not   "problems."  Removing  dead   stones  is not a
    >"problem", it's a requirement.  If  it's not done explicitly it's done
    >in the minds of the  players, why is  this always overlooked?  You can
    >make a program still do this if it's so important  to you, the scoring
    >system is not relevant.   Chinese  rules are essentially Tromp  Taylor
    >rules with this mental shortcut allowed.

   Japanese rules, as everybody knows, require removal of dead stones at the
   end of the game without actually capturing them, for the obvious enough
   reason that otherwise any silly invasion inside your territory would
   steal points from you (you would fill 4 points for capturing one stone,
   and so on). Besides being necesary under Japanese rules, this is also
   logical for another reason:

   Whatever rule set you may be using, after both players have correctly read
   out a L&D situation in their mind, and know the eventual result, they will
   often abstain from playing it out, for instance in order to save the moves
   in the sequence for use as ko threats. This "read it out but don't play it"
   is very much part of the game, of "being able to play Go". So it should be
   considered part of the spirit of the game, if this expression has any meaning
   at all.

I regret my choice of words, and "spirit of the game" cannot really be
defined formally.  I  thinks  it's more  accurate to say  (informally)
that we probably should  NOT consider one  set  over another as  being
more in the "spirit of the game" as I tried to do.

I think   what  I was  trying   to say  is  that I    strongly believe
Tromp/Taylor  rules define  the  game  better mathematically.  To  me,
Japanese rules  is a kind of fuzzy  abstract (human?) way to interpret
the rules.

That's also why I feel that TT is far better for learning devices (and
beginners for that matter.)  Everything in  Jap can be simulated in TT
and is probably  better stated in   TT (if that's  actually necessary)
because it would be a more  honest view (mathematically again) of what
is really going on.

Don



   It is nice to be able to "read it out but not play it" at the end of the
   game too, and this, I guess, is why most players seem to prefer some kind
   of Japanese rules. But I suppose that, if you were so inclined, it would
   not be too difficult to modify Japanese rules in this way: at the end of a
   game, you play L&D situations out until the agreement between the players is
   confirmed beyond any doubt; then you SCORE the game as if these moves had not
   been played.

   Purists might "unplay" all the way to move 1 and solve the game of Go :)

   Alberto