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Ancient Chinese Rules And Philosophy
    Keywords: Rules, Culture & History

In ancient Chinese philosophy, black is Yin and white is Yang.

Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang are unity in opposition. If you put down a stone first, then your opponent puts down a stone. Pass is prohibited. The number of moves is even. This is an important principle.

Under Japanese rules, however, you are allowed to pass. This does not comply with ancient Chinese philosophy.

Qi

In ancient Chinese rules, the basic two liberties (Qi) of a group (needed to make life) are not real territory.

Keep in mind that, using these rules, empty intersections and stones are counted as territory, otherwise the example below makes no sense -MortenPahle
"territory" is not a correct word? because of my poor English. Please amend it. -zhanghu
No, 'territory' is fine, but most people (?) are used to thinking of only 'empty intersections' as territory :-) -Morten
the "ancient" Chinese rules which I am talking about are those used in the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty and even more early.
In these rules,territory do not include stones. Japanese rules are similar to the "ancient" Chinese rules, but the "ancient" Chinese rules include group tax.
In rules of Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, territory includes empty intersections and stones.Ming Qing rules are similar to modern Chinese rules, but Ming Qing Area rules include "one intersection" group tax.
Ming Qing Area rules developed from Tang Song rules.- zhanghu

More accurately, if a group has no Qi, it will be removed from the Board (die), and if a "one eye" or "no eye" group has some liberties(Qi),and your opponent has not Killed ALL Liberties of the "one eye group" or "no eye group" by some moves, the group is still living on the board, despite it has only one eye or has not any eye!


[Diagram]
Diag.: Example

White (marked) has not died,she is living on the board.


[Diagram]
Diag.: B1=1,W2=#,B3=1,then b4 remove white group

after some moves,white will die.


[Diagram]
Diag.: Result

A Chinese weiqi proverb:"there are Qi,a group is living on the board, there are no Qi,a group is removed from the board." Generally,if a group is living on the board _forever_,it musted be made two eyes. In some special cases,a group which has only one liberty still can live on the board _forever_.

(-> ... if your opponent has not removed your "one eye group" by two moves ... or maybe I don't understand this --Dieter <-)

Example

Why are the basic two liberties of a group not real territory in ancient Chinese rules? For example:
in a 0 komi game

  • black has 1 group and has m+n+4 points of territory
  • white has 2 groups, one group has m+2 points, another group has n+2 points of territory.

In Japanese rules it is a tie game. But in ancient Chinese rules, black will win the game. This is because, if black wants to continue the game, white can not reject. Again the important principle here is: Yin and Yang are unity in opposition, therefor you can not abandon (pass). So, after black has put down more than m+n+1 stones, white can not put down any stones on the board, because she cannot fill in the two basic liberties (Qi) of her groups!

When you don't have any liberties to fill in, a virtual move is needed. A virtual is a legal move. These virtual moves are not put down on the Board, they are captured by the opponent directly. Please notice the difference between "virtual move" and "pass". After two virtual moves in a bout, the game is over. The player who has captured the more stones wins the game.

Because of the above reason, when we count the territory, we can not count the basic two liberties of a group into someone's territory. So, cutting your opponent's stones into two groups has two points value. This is why the group tax is reasonable.

But in Japanese rules, cutting doesn't have any value, unless a group of your opponent will die. This again is not in line with ancient Chinese philosophy.

If in a game, black and white have the same amount of territory(not including basic two liberties of a group), and Black occupies the last dame on the board, then the next move, white has to put down stone in his or his opponent's territory. In ancient China, the above example results in a tie. That is fair.

Ancient Chinese people like a tie game. Yin and Yang are in a congruency situation. The last dame which black occupies on the board, must be shared with black and white.

I don't see this... If white puts down a stone in her own territory, she will lose by 1 point, no? If she puts down a stone in black's terriry (and black responds and white cannot pass afterwards) she will, eventually, still lose by 1 point, no? - MortenPahle
19x19=361,but the number of moves is even. black will occupy the last dame,it is unfair. So,the dame is shared,
in Tang Song Dynasty territory rules, it is a tie game.
It is a special case,isn't it?
But in Chinese Ming Qing Dynasty stone counting rules.
black wins the game.I don't think this is reasonable. -zhanghu
Ahh. Yes, I see. Yet another reason why Gobans should be (odd number) square :-) -Morten

The ancient Chinese weiqi rules embody the essence of WeiQi.

get a sgf file here: [ext] http://extend.hk.hi.cn/~playgo/rule/pj.sgf

--Zhang Hu



I think this a very interesting topic. I have been so free to add a few spelling corrections, and I also added some hints for better comprehension. The latter are marked with (-> hint for better comprehension <-). I leave it to Zhang Hu to WikiMasterEdit this topic.

--DieterVerhofstadt

Mmm. A couple of weeks later, Zhang Hu still hasn't. I removed the marks, but leave the content master editing to others. Remove my remarks when doing soĻ
--Dieter



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