SueQ: The computer will not mark all dead stones for you; you should do your best to mark them on your own, and once both players agree the game is done.

The reason it's done this way even on the fanciest Go servers is that it's often very difficult for the computer to tell whether stones are dead or not. There are various rules that can be followed, but the complexity of the problem exceeds most Go software even today. However, people are generally very good at finding dead stones (compared to computers) and so there's that last bit of manual work required to correctly score the game.

Am I the only one that would like to have the board be much larger? Even the 19x19 board is smaller than a typical chess board, and I've got a ton of room for it to grow.

headius: headius: Another good suggestion in my opinion. I'm thinking of making a list with all the suggestions offered to improve Go.

SueQ: Also you will learn to understand the status of a group much faster: when you understand the two-eyes concept you just have to practise a bit.

SueQ: Fwiffo is right...it will take a little while to understand the eyes concept and life and death of groups, but you'll feel it happening. Go is a beautiful game and a lifelong pursuit, but you can see yourself making progress from the first day.

jurek: the K13 group.

ah! i see the outcome :) nice
is it always true then when there is an even empty spaces within a group, then the group is not dead ? if it would have been an odd number of spaces i think the group would be dead ?
(i didnt try it out yet though :))

jurek: the M6 question
nice!! thats a good thing to remember ... capturing would make it worse indeed :)

thanks for your answers!
i am slowly learning :)

first choice : stay close to your opponent to prevent him from claiming too much territory

other option : create your own territory away from him

i think its a bad thing to start with a piece on the border as it can be captured easily (force it into the corner) ... but what about a piece 1 position away from the corner, is that a good start ?

is it better to try to claim territory or to focus on capturing your opponents stones ?

Hrqls: To surround territory is better: you can get more points with less stones.

In the beginning: claim a empty corner on the 3th or 4th line. Moves on the 1st and 2nd line are nearly always bad untill the endgame.

When attacking a stone you are one move behind, so that's a dangerous strategy.

And: opponents are allowed to have territory also, but not more than you have

Hrqls:
is it always true then when there is an even empty spaces within a group, then the group is not dead ? if it would have been an odd number of spaces i think the group would be dead ?

No and no. A group needs two eyes to live: having two eyes prevents the opponent to capture the group since he's not allowed to fill in both eyes at once.
Whether the group can make two eyes or not depends on the internal shape of the group and on whose turn it is. Some shapes with 4 empty intersections are alive, some with 6 empty intersections are dead (when it is the opponent's turn).
For exact shapes see the tutorial, since it is difficult to explain by words only. The tutorial is a couple of interactive lessons.
www.goproblems.com is also a good excercise even for trained players.

Mirjam: thanks .. i hoped to have found a shortcut to a complicated problem ;)

i was halfway the tutorial when i had leave yesterday .. will continue it this evening or tomorrow :)

more questions will come .. be sure of that ;)

Sensei´s Library is a very nice site (wiki-style) with lots of information for beginners and advanced players.

Have a look at False Eye for an example that looks like it has two eyes, but (as it doesn't) can be killed.

One question: As far as I know it should not make a difference if both players agree that a game is over and count stones or if both keep on playing.

Am I right, that the passing rule is making a difference here, as in otb games there is no "passing" and a player would be forced to play a stone which will be automatically dead or diminuish his own territory if he refuses to accept that a game has ended or that a certain group of his stones is dead, while on Brainking he could just pass?

I hope I made myself clear, seem to have some difficulties with the english language today

gringo: You are correct; if you and your opponent can't agree, you can continue to play it out. Of course, this should generally just clarify what you were disagreeing about, and usually won't change the outcome of the game. You could go on playing like this into impossible circumstances until the board is full of places you can't move, but it's considered bad form not to pass when the game can make no real progress or resign when it's obvious you're going to lose. The general idea is that you pass once you know there's nothing more you or your opponent can do to gain territory (or when you are so far ahead that the game should end now). Your opponent can still keep playing, but if you've calculated things out, it won't do any good.

headius: Thank you. Ok, I am also refering to a permanent disagreement between the players about dead stones. What does happen then? Message to Fencer? Consider this situation: I pass, my opponent passes, I mark dead stones, he disagrees. Now the program gives the oportunity to prove the situation and it's my turn. But when I now put a stone it will diminuish my points or am I wrong? Maybe I am also just exaggerating and this one point is not important, don't know. Anyway. Thanks for the answer.

gringo: generally that doesn't happen, since most everyone here will learn quickly what stones are dead; but if you ran into that situation, the best plan would be to just go on killing those groups you think are dead. Yes, you'll be playing in your own territory, but he'll have to make a move too which will either give you a point (moving in your territory) or take one away from him (moving in his own territory. It would be foolish to carry on this way, but eventually his dead groups will be really dead and the game will be so slanted he'll have no choice but to resign.

If even then he refuses to submit, you can play until there's no dead groups and a bunch of one-square openings left on the board. At that point, nobody can move, there are no contested groups, and the game will be over.

I suppose there could be a case where someone refuses to accept defeat EVER, but I hope they'll be very rare. Perhaps that's a good question...in the off change that someone never accepts the result, how shall the game end? I know of no rules to govern that situation, since generally it would be so distasteful that it does not happen.

suppose i have a small territory of 9 spaces (3x3) totally surrounded by own pieces

this will count as 9 points

now i move a piece of myself inside this territory, so there are 8 empty spaces plus the piece i just played ... does the territory only give me 8 points now ?

Hrqls: Yes. "Points" are captured enemy stones + empty territory surrounded by your stones. (the stones themselves are not counted)

jurek: ah! thanks, thats a very important thing to remember :)

Hrqls: Additional point:
So playing in your own territory costs you a point. Sometimes you can make your opponent playing in his own territory by threathening to cut some of his stones of of killing his group.

Mirjam: nice :)
but opponents stones in my territory still count as a point dont they ?
(as long as those stones are dead, when they are alive they dont count i guess :))

Hrqls: you could say they count as TWO points: one point for the stones, and another for the territory under the stone.
When they are alive it is no longer your territory :)

Fwiffo: ah thats even better ... i thought you could count the dead stones, but not the territory underneath them ... :)

there seems to be a problem when trying to score a game with less than complete borders. Case-in-point:

http://brainking.com/en/ShowGame?g=1580516

onigoroshi: Should't you finish game before end!?

Salkkuman: why? my opponent shouldn't be able to make any live groups, and we both passed. Now we should score...

yes, but he resigned... so you just win and the score is irrelevant

onigoroshi: Yes, you are correct. If this game were scored after the consecutive passings (move 37), the score would be:
white: 7 territory + 5 captured black stones (B2 & C2 are dead)
black: 6 territory + 0 captured white stones
So white would win 11.5 to 1

mangue: (s)he didn't resign at the point I'm refering to.. see move 37. We were forced to keep playing...

jurek: no, white has all the territory *except* for black's 5 points. It's a much larger win than 11.5 to 1. Make sense?

onigoroshi: No, that's wrong. How does white have that territory? White would need stones at G8 or G9, J7 or J8, and L1 to completely section of the territory. As it stands, there are holes in white's borders. To count as "territory", you have to be able to connect all of your stones (the edges of the board count as stones for either player) in a complete loop.

jurek: Maybe this will clearify:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?Dame

the point being, that these stones shouldn't have to be explictly played to score. Many Go server client operate this way, for example the KGS client. In this case, dame points are marked and not scored.

onigoroshi: Dame refers to areas that are neither person's territory. If dame were to be marked correctly (which maybe it should be here), then all of the upper portion of the board would be in dame.
If you look at your dame link:
White's upper-left territory is bounded by the stones D9-D8-C7-D6-E6-D5-C4-C3-B2-A2.
White's lower-right territory is bounded by the stones H1-H2-H3-G4-G5-H5-I5-J5.
Black's lower territory is bounded by the stones B1-C2-D3-E4-F4-G3-G2-G1.
Black's upper territory is bounded by the stones E9-E8-D7-E7-F7-G6-H6-I6.
The circled points are neither white's nor black's territory and considered dame.
The point marked 'a' is a potential capture by white if white plays A1 first, so black must fill this in if white plays A1, or take the A1 before white does.

jurek, onigoroshi: The large territory would almost certainly go to white, and should be counted as white's territory. There are places along the border that should probably be reinforced, but they are all miai (http://senseis.xmp.net/?Miai) and would only make a difference of a couple points.

However, my guess why it's counted is that BrainKing's logic doesn't try to guess ANY dead groups, and so the black stones in white's large territory prevent it from marking that as territory. Also, since the game was resigned, there's no need to count them; if you both had passed, however, and marked those black stones as dead, I assume BK would then correctly count the upper territory as being white's.

All white's stones will live; only black's large group will live. Since there's practically no chance of an invasion of white's large territory being successful, it should be scored for white. If, for example, the white group at J8 only had one liberty left with black to move, things would be drastically different.

At any rate, there's no question it would be white's territory. It is not dame, because it is territory: "In the endgame, empty points on the board which are not part of either player's territory and have no prospects of becoming territory." The points inbetween white's border and black's living group are dame, however.

headius: correction to this; I have finished a couple games now, and BK does try to mark dead stones. I would guess that the game in question wasn't counted up simply because it ended in a resignation.

can anyone help me out..tell me how comes if black has a few x's on one move then a few moves later black had lots of x's. i took them all..now we are playing again we are playing go 9x9..as i dont have a clue how it works..thanks

night owl: As a beginner you indeed should start on 9x9. It is more easy to handle.
the x's you are talking about are probably the marking of dead groups. When both players pass, the dead groups should be marked. Brainking helps a little with the marking. When one player disagrees (which should be expected as Brainking very roughly counts) he/she can offer a better proposal as to which groups are dead. This causes very different markings.
I hope you understand, else invite me for a teaching game 9x9.

thanks fwiffo..i did a lot of passing.i know there is alot of diff way's to play it i played a few years ago still did not understand it then..if i took all my plays stones how did we start the same game again it is in the tournament games...not really...ok i will do that..and thanks again.

Hm I tried to give furbster 2 handicap stones in a teaching game, but surprisingly he got 3. It is usual to regard the placement of the handicap stones as blacks first move. Maybe it was noticed before on this board or in the Go fellowship. Have to look it up.

Marfitalu: Yes probably. It is incorrect though:
0 handicap should be black starts the game, white has komi
1 handicap should be black starts the game with no komi for white
2 handicap should be black starts the game with two stones, no komi for white
etc.
I'll put it on my list :)

Fwiffo: I think this is probably what you meant, but to clarify...when handicap stones are placed, every source I know of says white plays first. I think the exception is perhaps the handicap of "1" where black still plays first but white gets no komi.

If BK is allowing black to play first after placing handicap stones, that is certainly not correct.

marfitalu & headius: Thank you both.

There was something going on sometime about if players disagree about the dead stones. How it should be done if one player have blocked other and there cannot be any conversation?

of course I could have done that against you salkkuman, but this is not fair and Fencer could rule such case (ex: http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=1593749 )

Are there any GO players here who also play HEX? This is the game invented by two men independently- one of them was John Nash a part of his work in game theory at Princeton. I'm curious if there are many players in the USA. I tend to think of this game as a avariation on GO- certainly seems to have been inspired by GO.

I dont know the rules of HEX. Can you send me the rules? (or link)
friker(at)centrum.sk

Friker: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec670/Cardboard/Board/H/hexgo.html - first hit on google

Salkkuman: But that isn't the Hex game invented by Nash.
Here is an example of a game I played (and lost) at LittleGolem http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=396096&nmove=66

estanto: ty, so the game idea is to connect one side to an other

Salkkuman: Yes, it's a very simple idea (but nevertheless hard to play).
And it has nothing to do with Go.

it is similar to line of action for the strategy, but there are probably more draws in hex