A question about Go

[jetfire]

I recently started getting into the Japanese board game of Go (I just got my board yesterday), and I've learned about all of the basics of the game. However, for the life of me, I cannot learn how to calculate the scores at the end of the game (by territories and captured stones). I've read the small booklet that came with my set, and the translation of the instructions to English is just terrible, and I've been to numerous websites that have explained how to calculate the scores at the end, and they have pretty much made no sense.

What I can't understand, is where on the board that you're supposed to line up all of your black and white pieces at the end, how you can tell who's territory was who's after lining it up, and how you take the captured stones into account at the end of the game. So in a nutshell, I don't know squat about scorekeeping, so I would really appreciate it if any fellow Go players could try explaining it, or linking me to some well written tutorials. Thanks.

[C0MPL3X]

- You calculate the score by taking account of two factors: territory and captured stones. At the end of the game, you and your opponent will have bunch of territories (negative space defined by your stones), and you simply count the number of stones you can put inside that space in order to count the number of territory you have left.
As for captured stones, well, you can count them yourself lying on the floor.

-As for the 'lining up', I think you're talking about the process where you move around the stones in the board to make the counting of territory easier. It's not very easy to explain in words I guess, you just...'re-arrange' the stones so that the end result is, you're looking at bunch of negative spaces in squares/rectangles/some other polynomial, rather than bunch of dots everywhere. And say you have captured enemy stones left in your possession. Use them to fill up their territory to decrease their size. He will do the same to your territory. So at the end, the one with the biggest territory wins. (god was the translation as horribl as mine? x_X)

I would link you korena tutorials if we didn't enjoy so much writing in korean, and I guess you have access to english tutorials so...

[Yodatsubato]

Jetfire, are you finding difficulty in identifying which parts are your territory and which parts are your opponent's territory? Or are you unsure of how to tally the score once these territories have been defined?

By the way, if you're playing Go, you have to play it in true ancient Chinese style: On a dedicated operating system (http://www.hikarunix.org/).

[jetfire]

Jetfire, are you finding difficulty in identifying which parts are your territory and which parts are your opponent's territory? Or are you unsure of how to tally the score once these territories have been defined?

By the way, if you're playing Go, you have to play it in true ancient Chinese style: On a dedicated operating system (http://www.hikarunix.org/).

I'm not really having a problem telling who's territory is who's. If Black completely surrounds a space, it's black territory, and vice versa for white. And if it's a combination of both, it's neutral. What I don't understand, is how the players separate the black territory from the white territory (moving and lining up all of their pieces in bunches according to their colour), while still being able to know how much territory they've captured. In my frame of mind, it seems like these people are moving the pieces around the board, but how are they moving/defining the territories? I hope I'm making some sense out of my explanation. Basically, I'm describing Complex's second point. I pretty much understood Complex's description of filling up neutral territory with extra pieces, but when black and white territory isn't as neatly spread around the board, I just don't know how and where to move it around to make the territories easier to count.

Oh, and I'm starting to play Go on IGS (International Go Server) if that's what you mean.

[Yodatsubato]

If you're having trouble understanding scoring, I wouldn't recommend that you move pieces around at all. Just ignore piece movement, and the scores will come out to be the same.

Count what's your territory, and subtract from that what your opponent captured. Count what's your opponent's territory, and subtract from that what you captured. If your gross territory is greater than your opponent's gross territory, you've won. That's all there is to it.

When people move pieces around the board, they're just trying to find an easier way out (in regards to counting the score). But it would probably be easier to count the score straight-out. That works better sometimes.