[pbmserv] Go scoring

[Randall Bart <barticus@att.net>]

'Twas 15:17 +1200 on Wednesday 6/2/2004 when Bill Taylor wrote:
> This is part of the ongoing world-wide dispute between proponents of "area"
> rules - Chinese, Taiwanese, Kiwis, & all abstract gamers and computer types;
> and the Japanese and (by default) the rest of the world, and lovers of
> tradition who don't mind the absurdities inherent in the "territory" rules.
>
> You may guess which I support.

I think of the Chinese scoring as territory only, while the Japanese 
scoring is territory minus stones used.  I agree that the Japanese system 
is more complex to explain to both humans and machines.  I recall teaching 
a friend to play, and telling her that some stones were dead.  She wanted 
her opponent to prove it.    We didn't have a good grounding in the formal 
explanation of how to resolve these situations, and even though her 
opponent and I agreed on a mathematically correct method for resolving it, 
it seemed to her that we were making up rules on the fly (which we were).

However, there is a beautiful subtlety to the Japanese scoring system, and 
a pettiness to the end play in the Chinese system which makes me prefer the 
Japanese system.  You are right that in most cases the two differ by only 
one point.
--
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