Talk:Go (game)/Archive 1

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Aren't most Go boards not perfect squares? can we add that to the part where we talk about the dimensions? -- mincus


 * Done. -- Bignose

I have a question regardingReading the article, I found something strange in the section "nature of the game". It says


 * "(...) a total of about 9.3×10^{567} games. Allowing captures gives as many as 10^{7.49×10}48 possible games"

Shouldn't that be "10^{7.49}x10^{48}", i.e. 10^{55.49}? Or maybe something else? Looks like a typo. Someone who understands this better than I do should fix it.

I'm going to be spending my summer in southern Minnesota. Is there any Go activity in that part of the country?


 * Have a look at http://senseis.xmp.net/?TwinCitiesGoClub - you could try asking some of the players mentioned there. Charles Matthews

Also, where should I go/what should I read in order to become a decent Go player?


 * Do you have a level? To get to club level (10 kyu) some problems, general tactics, and overall ideas about the opening and middle game. The most effective method is to record a game and get comments from a stronger player. Charles Matthews

Thanks.

Empyrix 01:09, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

A traditional Go board is 15 to 20 centimeters thick?! Is that right? -- Glueball


 * Yes, it's about right. For an example, see the picture from a Japanese title match on this page. Of course, amateur clubs and tournaments usually use much thinner boards (more like 15 mm) without legs. --Zundark 10:50 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Please note that the simple rules do *not* make suicide illegal. That's an extra rule, omitting it does not change the character of the game because suicide is usually a blunder. The purpose of the simple rules is to have the minimum rules that people need in order to play what we call "Go". I've based these on the work by Robert Jasiek at. -- Bignose

Why did some delete EVERYTHING I wrote about Pente and Go-Moku? Wikipedia does not function by an anoymous person's unilateral censorship. (Worse, the person who did the censoring is igonorant. Pente certainly is a Go variation.) I never would have imagined that a person could have something against a Go variation, and would violate Wikipedia protocol to delete all mention of it! In wikipedia, we discuss such things in the talk section before deleting entire sections! The deleted material WILL definately be restored. But now others are going to brought into this as well. What happens next? Deletion of mention of mancala and chess variations? The mind boggles at who would do such a thing, and why. RK
 * Slow down a bit. It wasn't an anonymous edit; the revision history says it was AxelBoldt who made the change. He moved your material to Pente, with some additions. --Stephen Gilbert

The entire section titled "Other board games commonly compared with Go" seems highly irrelevent. I don't know anyone who confuses _any_ of these games with Go at all; they have nothing to do with each other at all. Are there really people who think that ALL board games are basically the same? What is the purpose of this section? And how can a rational person claim that a Go-variation like Pente or Go-Moku is just as distantly related to Go as Chess (which obviously has zero relationship to Go). It seems as if someone has a personal grudge against the games of Pente and Go-Moku! We have a case of snobbery on hand. RK


 * The section is not about games which are "confused with Go", but about games which are "compared with Go". As such it is relevant. Go-Moku is not a variant of Go; the only similarity is that it is played with the same equipment. It does not deserve mentioning in the second paragraph of an article about Go. --AxelBoldt


 * As the article states, people first experiencing Go will naturally try to compare it with other games they may be familiar with. These comparisons are not about which game is "better", or about confusing the game with others, but about drawing on common experience to learn something new.  People often find it difficult to approach Go unless they can see where it fits in the game pantheon; though such effort may be futile, it is still information people frequently want to know.  -- Bignose

Though the word spelled the same, it is a Japanese word which pronounced differently in Japanese. The 'o' sound in Japanese sounds like the O in 'Octopus'. Since the English verb 'go' is too common, people tends to pronounce the name of the games as an English word. Same problem with other words like Toyota where the O is pronounced as Oh in the western world; Karaoke is also pronounced differently from the Japanese original.


 * This is true. Are you presenting this as a problem with the article, a suggestion for inclusion in the article, an interesting point for discussion, or something else?  I'm not sure what you wanted to provoke with this comment.  If you feel the article needs modification in some way, please feel free to do so.  -- Bignose

I have a question regarding the Ko rule: is it not allowed to recreate the previous board position, or is it not allowed to recreate any previous board position? -- AxelBoldt


 * The ko rule is expressed differently in different rulesets. Japanese rules effectively says "can't recapture the stone immediately", and then has extra rules tacked on to cover things like triple kos.  Other rulesets use "superko", which disallows recreating any previous board position.  I don't know whether we should be getting into obscure rules differences here.  -- Bignose

Also, regarding the 9x9 boards: what happens if strong players play 9x9? Is it always a draw, or does black always win? How do computers fare against human players on a 9x9 board? -- AxelBoldt


 * 9x9 boards are quite challenging even to professionals; however, the game is much shorter and tends to be almost entirely tactical instead of strategic.


 * Computers tend to fare poorly once brute-force searching of the game tree is ineffective, which is the case well below the 9x9 board size. They also need a good position-evaluation algorithm to decide which moves to explore, which is proving very difficult to discover.  -- Bignose

IIRC, I once saw two 9x9 games played by a strong professional against himself. Both had black winning by 4 points. I doubt that there is enough subtlety in the game for white to win more than 1% of the time between human experts. Computers are a completely different story. They are still so weak even at 9x9 boards that a superior computer (say, go4++) can win from either side. Top humans can still annihilate top computers even on small boards. -- Karl Juhnke

''Professionals play 9x9 go with komi, just as they do for the full board. So white wins about as often as black. There's relatively little pulished about 9x9 theory, but the occasional professional commentary on a professional game shows that there's a good deal of shared knowledge about it.''' Matthew Woodcraft

Right, it is typical to play both 9x9 and 19x19 with a 5.5 komi. But it isn't clear to me that 5.5 is fair, or that a fair number is the same for different size boards. It is quite plausible that a fair komi for 9x9 is 4.5 while a fair komi for 19x19 is 6.5. -- Karl Juhnke


 * The distinction between each rank is, by definition, one handicap stone. In other words, the difference in rank between two players is theoretically equal to the number of handicap stones required for a balanced game between the players

I am not sure that the second sentence follows from the first; in fact I think it it quite surprising that there be a transitivity as follows: A and B are balanced with 1 handicap stone, B and C are balanced with 1 handicap stone, therefore A and C are balanced with two handicap stones. Is it actually true? -- AxelBoldt


 * The scale is surprisingly close to being like a linear and additive one, over spreads of up to ten ranks. That is, you get games where it isn't obvious who will win. To get 50% wins is harder; but not so bad as 33%-67%, which is like one rank difference. So, say it can be no worse than 40-60 either way. Charles Matthews 18:08, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * The terms "by definition" and "theoretically" are sprinkled liberally throughout the discussion on ranks; it is a model to allow players to quickly gauge relative strength and to allow a structure to be given to a pool of players. In fact, once players reach a certain level (somewhere in the mid-kyus) their rank is a very good indicator of who they can expect to play an even game against, and how many stones are required against players about their own level.


 * Your suggestion, that one's strength will need to be measured individually against each player, was the way the Japanese professional players decided handicaps in the Edo period (top-level players would have individual handicap ratings against each other, and a record of games against each player was required to be kept to know when the handicap should change against that player).


 * However, those were leisurely times, when players were sponsored by the school and would often take a week or more to play a single game, and the status of each professional player against the others was closely watched by the Imperial court, so attention to such minor detail was rewarded. These days, in a pool of thousands of players, swiftness of ranking is more valuable, and the theoretical assumption (that a difference of X ranks requires X handicap stones to compensate) is quite close to the reality of how playing pools evolve, and hence "good enough".  -- Bignose

Also, is there any formalized way to proceed to the next rank, or do you rank yourself? --AxelBoldt


 * Naturally there are formalised ways, but those ways are formalised differently in each country depending on the rules of the professional (and amateur) Go associations. I don't think it's appropriate to delve into detail in this entry, since it would be unbalanced without coverage of all the different associations, and terribly dull with such coverage.


 * In a small pool of players without a guiding Association or other such body, one can easily fall back on the ranking system to provide a guide to relative ranks. Since two players at the correct handicap should be "even", they should each statistically win half the games.  Once one player is winning consistently at that handicap, he probably needs to go up a rank; a rule of thumb commonly employed is "three wins in a row at the same handicap against the same player" is sufficient to promote the winner by one stone.


 * Yes, this ignores the fact that players will tend to improve over time regardless of wins or losses. No, there is no method commonly employed for demoting players.  Yes, this does lead to ranking levels that drift over time.  The ranking system only attempts to measure a current pool of players against itself; it has no relevance to a different pool of players (hence the drift experienced between amateur and professional ranks, or rankings in different countries), nor to the same pool of players at some point in the distant past (today's 9 dans are likely much stronger than the Meijins of long ago).  -- Bignose


 * In my club, I tell you! In Europe there is an Elo-style ranking based on tournament results; on a server there is usually an algorithm. Charles Matthews 18:04, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This article is getting better and better. I have one request: could we have an introductory article about Go Strategy and Tactics, akin to Chess strategy and tactics, aimed at beginners who just want to know a couple of rules of thumb? -- AxelBoldt


 * I've started a Go strategy and tactics page. -- Bignose

Also, the article says the rules of Go are simple, but judging from the official rule set at the Go wiki, it seems to me that when it comes to counting and judging dead and alive groups, they are actually much more complicated than e.g. the Chess rules, and in fact they don't even seem to be completely finalized. There is a big catalog of positions that have been "judged" by some organization, and these judgements are technically part of the rule set. -- AxelBoldt


 * That big catalogue of positions and precedents (which is periodically added to, and still cannot cover every possible board position) is part of the Japanese ruleset only; other rulesets resolve the status of groups simply by continuing play in the case of a dispute until both players agree on the status (which neatly encompasses all possible board positions). I hope I've answered this sufficiently in the article, without compromising my desire to see the explanation be comprehensive yet simple.  I really don't feel we should emphasise the differences in rulesets to a degree more than necessary.  -- Bignose

Imran, you're fairly new, so you didn't know, but when you create a disambiguation page, you need to fix all of the links to the ambiguous article to point to the correct unambiguous article.
 * I know, I was correcting the links when my internet connection decided to break and I wasn't able to reconnect for a while. --Imran

Also, if it looks like almost all of the links are for a particular one of the meanings of the term, then it might be better to use a disambiguation block rather than a disambiguation page; see Set for an example of this. More information is at Disambiguation. &mdash; Toby 14:47 Jul 26, 2002 (PDT)

PS: Why were the CJK characters deleted? Were they wrong? &mdash; Toby

I spot-checked a couple of them with the Unicode database, and they were good, so I'm putting them back. --LDC

Go (pronounced somewhere between English /gaw/ and /go/)


 * Is this really correct? This seems to be describing the pronunciation of the Japanese word go. The English word go for the same thing is pronounced with a regular "long o" (phonemically /o/, phonetically [@U] or [oU] depending on dialect) according to the American Heritage Dictionary, and I have yet to find a counterexample. --Brion VIBBER 15:27 Jul 26, 2002 (PDT)

I would tend to agree, but it may be one of those cases where afficianados of the game might go out of their way to pronounce it in the Japanese way. I like AHD a lot, but dictionaries aren't always the last word on such things, since they are made for a general audience and often leave out domain-specific nits. --LDC


 * I don't think I've noticed anyone pronouncing it the Japanese way in the UK. There are lots of Japanese terms used in go, but the pronunciations are generally anglicised. --Zundark 01:28 Jul 27, 2002 (PDT)

I removed this paragraph:


 * The highly competitive qualifications for professional players have the side-effect that the two pools of players do not mix in a way that affects rankings; thus, the rankings for professional and amateur players have diverged to the point where amateurs at a given rank are much weaker than the equivalent professional rank.

This is wrong, as (in Japan, at least) the amateur ranks were always on a different scale from the professional ranks. --Zundark 10:04 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

David, the usage group is more common than the perhaps more technically correct string. If you wish to introduce string as the preferred usage, please preface the first use of it by saying who prefers it and why. Otherwise, it will confuse many readers. --Ed Poor

"Stones occupying adjacent points constitute a solidly connected group." British Go Association

''Ed, David is right. group is more common, but it's used to mean a different thing - as David said, a loosely-connected collection of stones. The BGA page you point to is using solidly-connected-group as a set phrase. It would be best for the rule exposition not to use group on its own to describe solidly-connected stones, as this will confuse people when they see it used in the more common sense later.'' --Matthew Woodcraft

The following text was added to a page I-go; I've made that a redirect here, but maybe some of it is worth incorporating into the main article. --Matthew Woodcraft

Go is unique among games, it originated in China for more than 3000 years.

Introduction to the game of Go can be found here: 

external link :

http://leaohp1.epfl.ch/~warkent/go/golinks.html

http://www.flygo.net/

http://go.fm365.com/

software about Go game may be found here : 

computer go, is relative to computer AI, Computational Intelligence in Games netrul net

external links :

http://www.reiss.demon.co.uk/webgo/compgo.htm

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo.html

http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/go/ladder.html

http://www.markus-enzenberger.de/compgo_biblio.html

Above, Karl Juhnke implies that a fair komi for 19x19 may be 6.5, and for 9x9 4.5. However, I believe that this is backward. The first move has a far larger effect on a small board than on a large (some people believe, for example, that if black plays the first move on the center point on a 9x9 board, the game is won by at least half a point, assuming fair komi and that both players are 'perfect'). In fact, some computer go software uses the standard 5.5 for 19x19 and 6.5 for 9x9 (while other software gives one a choice of various komis for a single board size).

It would be interesting to see some mathematical methods for determining komi. These might result by using the mathematical ruleset on boards, inductively, from 2x2 up to whatever upper limit is practical. The resulting function of komi with board size can then perhaps be extrapolated up to 13x13 and 19x19. David 20:18 Oct 12, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, the first move has larger effect on smaller board sizes, but also 1 point of komi has a larger effect. So it is not at all clear in what way the komi should change by board size. As far as I know, the standard komi is 5.5 for 19x19, 8.5 for 13x13 and 6.5 for 9x9. For 19x19 this is generally considered to be too small, and more and more it is changed to 6.5 or 7.5, I don't think there is any such agreement about the other two sizes. Andre Engels 15:28 Oct 13, 2002 (UTC)

Simple rules * these are confusing Axel, visually and otherwise, and nobody, i mean nobody whose a native english speaker refers to groups as 'strings'. Maybe quoting some awful book. Ref: Senseis lib -Stevertigo

But those rules aren't talking about groups when they say 'string'; they're talking about collections of solidly-connected stones. I agree that it would be useful to clarify that the term 'string' is being introduced only to explain the rules, and isn't a term in everyday use otherwise. Matthew Woodcraft

Both string and group are in widespread current use. The confusion of these terms is real, widespread, and runs deep. To my knowledge there are no authoritative definitions. Allowing the ambiguity can indeed be useful in teaching beginners. However, at some point they need to learn about the sequence of types of connections: solid is strongest, next comes 'bamboo' and diagonal, then single skip, then knight's move, then double skip, then double (or long) knight's move. It is usually convenient to refer to solid connections as forming a string, and the others as forming groups, but only with respect to a particular local situation being described. (The notion of groups, of course, becomes very tenuous when used in connection with loose enclosures or moyos, where the 'connections' are sector lines, not links. Sector lines do not usually survive past the middle game.) David 23:05 Oct 14, 2002 (UTC)

LOL ''"..ambiguity can indeed be useful in teaching beginners.." classic. like the profound, "Tacky, yet refined".- Hooters ... sure its somewhat semantic, and certainly, my common use is not absolutely the word, but look - Ive played often enough and long enough, and Ive never heard of a group refered to as a string. is this an English vs American thing, as i detect from other spellings on the page. I think it ought to be groups frankly, because thats what we generally, use, unless... Im getting the impression that without naming names some here have once upon a book been smitten.... '' -Sv


 * I don't think it's English vs American (the spellings you see probably came from Bignose, who is from Australia). Anyway, I'm in England, and I don't hear the word string at all. group (to me) means a loosely-connected collection of stones seen as a whole. There isn't a word (here) which unambiguously means a solidly-connected collection of stones. So, for the sake of clarity, what is group used for where you are? A solidly-connected collection of stones, a loosely-connected collection of stones, or both? Matthew Woodcraft

For lots of information about strings, groups, and sector lines, see "EZ Go--Oriental Strategy in a Nutshell", by Bruce and Sue Wilcox, available through most online Go bookstores. Don't be put off by the title; this is one of the best Go books ever written. David 21:10 Oct 15, 2002 (UTC)


 * Whatever the merits of this book, it is certainly the case that the terminology it uses is not the common terminology in other English language go books. Matthew Woodcraft

yeah, and as such the ambiguity is confusing and meriting a change. I didnt change back the edits i made, because im fairly understanding of the democratic process, but axel stikes me as a bit too quick and or polar in his estimations, and the thing is still not clear. new people reading those basic rules will likely simply run off and take up mah jong


 * I don't think the current page has a problem of ambiguity. The only problem I see is that it introduces the term string for a specialised purpose in explaining the rules, and doesn't make it clear that this isn't a particularly common usage. Matthew Woodcraft


 * So what would be your alternative? Using group instead only increases the problem, since it is being used generally in another meaning. Andre Engels 10:13 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)


 * group is worse, yes. chain is no better or worse than string, from where I stand. Writing strongly connected group as a set phrase is a possibility. Or maybe just add a footnote saying that the term string has been introduced to explain the rules, and isn't a common usage. Matthew Woodcraft

I suggest creating a new word just here for the wikipedia. Stroup. Thats the ticket. If three more people use stroup, thatll still be two more than the number who use string. -Stevertigo Btw: this may be a splendid example of oversimplification, since using string as a solution to the so-called 'problem' of amiguity in the use of the word group is only more ambiguous. "String? Whats a string? Ive never heard it called that before, who told you that?" As introductory material for someone new to the game, btw, the rules belong on a separate page entirely, simplified or not. And samarkand has one of the best (most simple, clear)introductions ive seen, so I added a link to the bottom there. -sv


 * I don't think we should worry about people saying "What's a string", as it's defined where it first appears in the article. Personally, I think the rules belong on the main page. Matthew Woodcraft


 * To get things over another angle: I think I have heared the word "chain" being used here. I am certain about its Dutch equivalent 'ketting', but I think the English word is being used as well. Andre Engels 15:48 Oct 17, 2002 (UTC)

Hmm. we could use go common terminology instead. Forget the Dutch, no offense, and call it a 'group. group refers to a single stone, a pair or string of stones adjacently positioned, or an area of similarly colored stones that emit gamma radiation.- Sv

I restored "string", since "group" is used in a different sense in English. Also cleaned up the rules a bit. AxelBoldt 02:54 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

Since Sensei's Library is a go-dedicated Wikipedia, why don't we just provide links, or synchronize with Sensei's Library? I don't see the point of duplicating the effort here, especially when Sensei's Library has a much better treatment of Go.


 * Not just links because Wikipedia wants to be the sum of all useful knowledge. :-) As for synchronisation, I see from http://senseis.xmp.net/?SLCopyright that it uses the Open Content License, which is incompatible with our GFDL, apparently. Evercat 23:20 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)


 * Bignose: Additionally, as a wiki, Sensei's Library is prone to frequent and arbitrary change. It's safe enough to post a link to the main site as an external resource, but to depend on any particular content staying where it is, or staying in its current form, is doomed (SL owes no stability to those linking to it).

here's some explanation of go played on different boards. http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/gv/boards.htm different go boards may be any of regular tilings. (or non-regular tilings) yesterday i played with a friend of go on a hexagonal board (honeycomb), very intriquing. Perhaps not as complex in stratedgy as go, but quite fun to play.. are there more extensive info on go with different boards? in particular the mathematical analysis.

another site analizing some variations http://www.abstractgamesmagazine.com/go_variants.html http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/20031227_goboard.html

Xah P0lyglut 11:40, 2004 Jan 6 (UTC)

Hey! Someone added the "Philosophy" section from Sensei's Library wiki. Wow. I was proud of that one (minus the typos). -&#25140;&#30505sv 05:52, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stevertigo, I don't agree with your changes to the rules. I think the core rules are really the Chinese (stones + territory = score) rules, with Japanese rules doing everything possible to come to the same result. I think the Chinese rules are more fundamental, especially since Japanese rules need special cases to deal with bent-4 in the corner, etc. So I think we should define the score as stones plus territory. I think we should avoid saying that the player who "surrounds" the most points wins, as that again implies territory scoring (and also we would need to mention scoring prisoners if we opted for territory scoring).

(for me, I've always thought that the most elegant scoring system simply said that the player with the most stones on the board wins - that's equivalent to old Chinese rules with a 2 point "eye tax" for each group. But nobody uses that ruleset any more. :-) Evercat 14:45, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedia articles are hardly the place for the (eternal) arguments about the most suitable rule set. The 'group tax' rules probably aren't played anywhere in the world, seriously. The 'Japanese' rules are used in Korea also, the current hotbed of go development, and in almost all of the IGF countries, numerically speaking. The Chinese rules are widely used, too; but most readers of WP in the English version are most likely to encounter others who play by the Japanese rules. (Playing online is different.)

Charles Matthews 14:54, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I know the group tax rules aren't used, I said so. :-) I'm not suggesting we mention this whole debate in the article itself. Actually, my concern was partly that the wording was a bit vague; it looked like a hybrid between Chinese and Japanese... I'm going to make it use Chinese for now, but if there's agreement that it should be Japanese we can change it - the main point is to clearly describe one of them. :-) Evercat 14:58, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hm. I agree with both of you - the debate is rather silly, and yes there was a hybridized integration of the two, involved. But my writing was concerned only with description for a beginner - not to allude to the peripheral abstract concept of scoring systems, of which most players in the world use Japanese scoring! Never mind just the English reader, Nihon-scoring has been the world standard ever since people realized how much easier it is to count a game in Js rather than Cs! So, yes, I think the argument is silly, and perhaps Evercat your 1.forgetting to be uberclear and ubersimplistic (in this context), or under some impression of Chinese scoring (which deserves its own article, perhaps) is a prerequisite for play. For writing go programs, certainly - but thats a separate section. -&#25140;&#30505sv 23:42, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * No, I think Chinese rules are easier to explain. Explaining Japanese rules means explaining removal of dead groups at the end without playing it out, which means explaining life, eyes, etc... Evercat 00:45, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I dont believe that this game is "complete-knowledge deterministic" because of the 3 ko situation which can simply result in a cancellation of the game and thus it wouldnt be possible to determine the optimal course of play.


 * Unless you use superko rules. Salsa Shark 02:12, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Or unless one treats triple ko as a draw (which is often done in amateur go anyway) - the 'no-result' effect can be thought of as a comment external to the rules, on how this is handled in pro tournaments. Charles Matthews 08:35, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Would you like to try and make a draft (covering the different versions) here so that we can put them in the detailed rules page? Im about 3k kgs :-) Ive scanned some links about go rules and am currently overwhelmed.

I have removed this recent edit:


 * - This is wrong, a player does not get any score for a stone placed on the board, score is based on the number of free territories under a players control plus the number of hostile stones that the player has captured. In other words, a player looses one point for each extra stone he places on his own territory.

Everyone, the main go article is the wrong place to express opinions about the go rules. In fact I'd hope that all discussion of the precise content of rules sets could be confined to Talk:Go rules. And according to general WP policy, topics such as superko that are close to 'research' should not be favoured over the rules that people actually play with.

Charles Matthews 11:01, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the comment was by someone who was only familiar with Japanese rules. Anyway, I said above that, although I do prefer Chinese-style counting, my main reason for using it here is that it's easier to describe, due to not having to explain dead (but not taken-off-the-board) stones... there have been no comments on that thought - do people agree/disagree? Cheers, Evercat 13:45, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Since you ask, I agree entirely. Matthew Woodcraft

I encourage people to take a look at wikisophia - and this and putting these together. -&#25140;&#30505sv

Ugh. Stevertigo - I'm not entirely happy with this rewrite of the rules towards Japanese style, for the reasons I give above. As the article now stands, it is in fact unclear that a player does not have to actually play to remove dead enemy stones from his territory, but can simply take them off at the end. I'm pretty sure this is the number one confusion for new players - why can't I play one stone in his territory to force him to reduce it by 4 to capture it? But it only matters under Japanese rules. Another problem is the section on life and death:


 * Each group of stones must have at least two permanent liberties in order to remain alive. Groups that fall short of this requirement, as the game develops, are called "dead". Until the end of the game, the status of apparently dead stones may fluctuate.

For one thing, it's not made clear why any of this matters. Some sort of link between being dead and being made into prisoners at the end needs to be made (but I'll fix that). Second, life and death is usually taken to be a consequence of the rules, rather than a rule itself - only under Japanese rules is there a need to explicitly define dead groups, because we can't play things out.

Third, what's a "permanent" liberty? I think you mean one that the opponent can't fill - ie an eye or a liberty in seki. I can't think of a concise way to phrase this. Again, it's only an issue because we're describing Japanese rules.

Finally, I don't think it's reasonable to attempt to condense Japanese rules into a couple of hundred words. Japanese rules are infamous for their complexity in how they handle special situations like bent-four-in-the-corner or other oddities like the three-points-without-capturing position. Why are we trying to describe a complex ruleset when there are much simpler ones that remove the need for all these special rulings, due to the fact that playing things out does not affect the score? Evercat 11:36, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Number one confusion is assumption about connections across a cross-cut, number two about capturing when playing into a captured position. 'Dead' stones, by the way, are an essential concept. They may not need to be mentioned in some rule sets, but the idea is basic. Charles Matthews 12:01, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not claiming that I know a perfect way to describe go rules in this article. I think that is difficult, given the norms of an encyclopedia article; one normally wouldn't require such an article to give complete instructions. Somewhere, yes, there should be a place where there is a procedural breakdown of the end-of-game stuff by definite phases. Charles Matthews 12:50, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

It is a common misconception that Japanese rules don't let you play things out. The rules from '89 explicitly say when and how life and death of groups are to be played out and decided. And if you actually read the japanese rules you'll find they don't have any complex way of handling bent-four-in-the-corner. If the l&d status of a group is in contest then you cannot recapture a ko unless you have passed. This simple rule solves all those complex issues. Rakshasa 13:32, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please reward credit accordingly.
Talking about intelligent property, I am sick to death coming across English vocabularies that borrowed from the so-called "Japanese terms" which are Chinese originated.

Why Chinese isn&#8217;t getting the credit? This is disturbing.

Go is from &#8220;Wei-Qi&#8221;.

Bonsai is from &#8220;Pen-Zai&#8221;.

Zen is from &#8220;Ch&#8217;an&#8221;.

Gyoza is from &#8220;Jiao-Zi&#8221;.

Tofu is a direct copycat from the Chinese &#8220;Dou-Fu&#8221;.

Kanji literally means Han Chinese characters. Culturally deprived Westerners are too lazy to know that.

Only to name a few&#8230;

It&#8217;s true that in general the Japanese had developed some of the Chinese cultures it &#8220;borrowed&#8221; in the past 2 thousand years into a minimal degree of variation or uniqueness, yet I really think it is time the authorities of the English linguistic professionals start doing the decent thing by going back to the roots to honor the origins, when choosing a new English vocabulary from foreign cultures to describe a general cultural item.

For instance, in the case of this particular Chinese board game, use the original Chinese term &#8220;Wei-Qi&#8221; instead.

Another example is Tofu. The Spanish have their own version of pizza, but in all English dictionaries it is still called P-I-Z-Z-A &#8211; which is an Italian word! Pizza is of course Italian. Therefore Dou-Fu should be the one included in the English language.


 * I understand the point being made; and in fact have written a conference paper on the translation of go terms. However it would be against Wikipedia policy to make changes from the technical terms that are in everyday use in English. Charles Matthews 21:05, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * To the anonymous complainer: Unfortunately no languages is politically correct in the sense you as asking, and cannot be. For instance "pizza" seems related to the Greek "pita", I won't be surprised if it came from that; so everybody who call it "pizza" may well end up in hell for having denied the Greek their due credit.  Think of the many Chinese words for imported concepts -- would you be willing to convince the Chinese to say "electricity" instead of "dian4"? (BTW, just curious - what is the Chinese word for "pizza"?) All the best, Jorge Stolfi 04:56, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

&#27604; &#33832; &#39292;  b&#464; sà b&#464;ng (obviously phonetic) &#34180; &#39292;, bó b&#464;ng (thin round flat cake, pastry) as in &#22235; &#23395; &#20160; &#38182;  &#34180;  &#39292;  (4 seasons) Tommie 23:03, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think you're confusing words with concepts. The game of Go may have originated in China as &#8220;Wei-Qi&#8221;, but the English word "Go" comes from the Japanese word &#22258;&#30849; (igo).

The English word bonsai is from the Japanese word &#30406;&#26685; (bonsai). &#8220;Pen-Zai&#8221; and bonsai are not really the same except that they're both trees grown in small trays or pots.

The English word Zen is from the Japanese word &#31109; (zen). Same goes for Gyoza (&#12462;&#12519;&#12454;&#12470;) and tofu (&#35910;&#33104;).

Kanji may literally mean characters from Han China, but that's not exactly what they are. The word kanji (from the Japanese word kanji) when used in English refers to Chinese characters used in Japanese.

Exploding Boy 05:56, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

To Jorge Stolfi:

1.	I am not interested in arguing etymologically ambiguous &#8220;seem-to-be&#8221; terms. That darn oven-baked round bread with topping is an Italian invention, end of story. Anyone have problem with pizza no being called pita? No. Period.

2.	I am sorry professor, but your eletricity analogy is such a bad example. I am talking about more than two languages, of the inventor, 1st borrower and 2nd borrower. Make sense?

3.	Chinese never think eletricity was their invention anyway, even with the daily usage of &#8220;&#30005;dian4&#8221;. With all those silly inappropriate choice of foreign terms in the English language, many people are misled. This shall be stopped.

4.	Chinese call pizza &#8220;&#27604;&#33832;&#8221;, which is a direct transliteration of pizza. Or some people simply use &#8220;&#24847;&#22823;&#21033;&#33030;&#39292;&#8221;&#65292;which means Italian crispy pastry. Happy?

To &#8220;Exploding Boy&#8221;:

I bet your brain is a bit exploded, really, what is your point? You basically recited what I said.

You do not even realize that &#30406;&#26685; is a Chinese word &#8220;Pen-Zai&#8221;, do you? In the case of Pen-Zai, both the term Bonsai and its concept are Chinese originated, of Pen-Zai {&#30406;&#26685;} of course. Go and pick up a book about Pen-Zai or bonsai and read more ok?!!

&#22260;&#26827; is a very mind-consuming board game, perhaps you should take a little break, before the &#8220;Exploding Boy&#8221;becomes an &#8220;Exploded Boy&#8221;.


 * Woah, settle down whatever your name is (please sign your posts using 4 tildes (~), ok?). I know all about pen-zai (also called pen-jing if I'm not mistaken) and bonzai, etc.  My point, if you had troubled to try to grasp it, was that the English words we use to refer to these things come from the Japanese words, not the Chinese words.  Thus, it's perfectly acceptable and correct to say "bonsai, from the Japanese word &#30406;&#26685; (bonsai), meaning ...".  And you can drop the attitude.  Exploding Boy 13:01, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

Guys - we can use Wikipedia to combat ignorance, and stay within the usual terminology. The Nihon Ki-in has been working for 50 years to spread go in the West; it's no surprise that some Japanese terms are used (and that some of us feel some basic respect towards our teachers). Those who have studied go more deeply understand more about the complete history. Charles Matthews 16:11, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)