jurek: Yeah, I would assume it's pretty easy to swap in those images...I'd really like a larger board AND pieces.

headius: It's worth mentioning that I had to settle for a seki because I was greedy and tried to allow your black group to grow before attempting capture. Suddenly it was too big, you cut off my group, and I had to just close the door and write it off.

Marfitalu: One of the games you and I played had an ugly seki (my fault for not stablizing a group early enough:

http://brainking.com/en/ArchivedGame?g=1678903

In this case, it's actually one move away from being seki, which is still seki. If either the white group at K3 or the black group at K4 place a stone on their shared liberties, no further stones can be placed by either color.Since all surrounding groups are stable (or very likely to be) this would be seki.

hexkid: I'd be all over a user-selectable komi, so long as the standard rated games used correct komi to begin with.

tbart: That's why I try to avoid playing white on 13x13 or 9x9 on BK right now; they're heavily weighted toward black. We need komi fixed!

Salkkuman: I would vote for 6.5 for all sizes. For those who think komi should be larger or smaller for 13x13 or 9x9, consider this:

Yes, there are typically fewer points in 9x9 or 13x13...
...but the first move is also that much more important.

I believe most sources agree these two factors balance out so that komi should be the same on small boards.

In actuality, I would prefer a configurable komi, so we could specify it at game start, but I don't know how that would work with the current rating system. Fancier go sites are able to make games rated all the time, regardless of settings tweaks, but BK is limited in that regard. Perhaps only rated for default settings (komi 6.5, no handi)?

Has there been any word on getting komi fixed? With a too-low komi (drastically low in 13x13 and 9x9 sizes) white is at a distinct disadvantage.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

FYI, I posted this to features (not knowing this board was established) but those of you who think 5.5 is too low for Komi are correct. The standard now in Japan is 6.5, and in China, Korea, and the US (AGA as of 2005), the standard is 7.5. Komi is also usually the same for 13x13 and 9x9, not smaller (since on a small board, the first move is even more important, but the scores are lower). Hopefully this will get remedied pretty quick, and hopefully we'll be able to choose komi for those who think 7.5 is too large :) It would also be nice to have handicapped games count toward your rating (weighted appropriately) since strong players will be very difficult to topple.