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Torazu Sanmoku/ Discussion
Sub-page of TorazuSanmoku
Bill: I think that Shuwa got it right. By the Like seki, this is an impasse. Each player would prefer to play second. But it is worth something to Black, by comparison with seki. Because it is an impasse, I think that it is unreasonable to force Black to play during regular play. It should be settled either by hypothetical play or by actual play in an encore. Since Black stands to gain by making a play (by comparison with seki), I think that it is reasonable to expect him to play first. But because Black plays one move more than White in the process, he should be given credit for that play, just as if he were required to make four plays to capture a single stone during an encore or hypothetical play. That justifies the ruling of 3 points without capturing.
Bill: What I am really objecting to is the determination of 0 points if left until after the suspension of play (as the current setup is). It is an impasse, yes. But it plainly favors Black. Hypothetical play after suspension, along with the new definitions of life, death, and seki, makes this a seki if left after suspension of play. So there is no avoiding hypothetical play, here, under the current rules. And while the new definitions are not exactly special rules, since they apply uniformly, they do change the nature of the game. There is a cleverness and arbitrariness to them.
Bill: I agree with the idea of playing out impasses. But they should be played out under the same conditions as playing out the capture of dead stones. (Which is also a kind of impasse.)
Charles It's the difference between justice and equity, perhaps. It is perfectly just to ask players to play under a rule set that treats this as seki if left on the board at the end. There is an argument, that Bill makes, that equity might be better served by a ruling. Well, it is not clear this is a big practical issue.
Charles You can't discuss equity within a fixed set of rules. For example, stalemate within chess is a draw - no question. One can (on other grounds) say this rule is 'wrong'; it is a hang-over from traditional ways of playing chess (such as the long-abandoned 'bare king' rule). So, this is not a formalistic question, which sees the rule set first and foremost. It happens, in this case, that the Shuwa ruling chimes with a CGT analysis (which is the main reason why Bill takes the line he does, I guess).
Bill: To respond to Charles, it is not a clear practical issue. as you say. Practically, it makes hardly any difference, as such positions are quite rare. It is, in a way, a happy accident that Shuwa's ruling agrees with the CGT analysis. It is too bad that we do not have a record of Shuwa's thinking on this. It would have helped with writing the rules later, I think. As for myself, this is the kind of thinking I was using long before I had heard of CGT. I mean, compensating Black for the extra play when he plays first, not the difference game analysis. (Not that I was able to fully analyse this position. The ruling remained a puzzle to me.) Dave, I think that the reason it is an impasse has little to do with the rules, except that it is not an impasse under area scoring. In this way it is more like dead stones inside territory, which is an impasse under territory scoring, but not area scoring, than like seki, which is an impasse under both kinds of scoring. I suppose that Shuwa treated it like taking dead stones, which can be resolved through play if credit is given for any net plays required for their capture. It is also possible that he treated it as a kind of snapback, and judged it by the result when White plays first. (The value of a snapback is preserved when the snapback option is played. If it is played the other way, credit must be given for the extra stone played to preserve the value.) My objection to the current rules about torazu sanmoku has to do with the definition of life and death.
If this position is left at the end of the game, the Black stones are dead because White may capture them playing first, and that's that. But the White stones are alive, even though Black, playing first, may capture them, because that capture enables White to play a new live stone (at That ruling is of little practical import, but it shows that the enabling rule for life is not really derived from the meaning of life. Its main value is to induce one player or other to finish certain situations before the end of the game.
I thought there is still an effective play here at the marked empty point. If Black captures four stones, there is another play at the marked White stone. I actually understood the Japanese rules to say that if this position remains unplayed at the end of the game both players lose! :-)
White has four points
I thought this was the type of position where the marked White stone was alive without further play because if Black captures, White can play another stone to recapture and that new stone will not be subject to recapture. Bill: The effective play rule is somewhat peculiar. The reasoning is that, if the players find an effective play such that whoever requests resumption of the game would lose, and therefore the players cannot reach agreement about life and death (emphasis mine), then both lose. But the rules governing life and death at the end of the game may be quite clear about such a position, anyway. In fact, the official commentary includes hot examples that might have effective plays (such as this one), but tells us how to decide life and death for them, anyway. So just when the effective play rule would kick in is unclear. Are the players allowed to ignore the rules about how to determine life and death? Anyway, one player or other might be ahead enough that the rule would not apply to this position, anyway. In that case, White would score 5 points locally. (Unless Black requested resumption, in which case White should take Black's stones.) But my point still stands. If this position remains at the end of the game, the White stones are alive by the enabling rule and the Black stones are dead. The rules for determining life and death are pragmatic rather than principled. If they lead to absurd results, such as anti-sekis or sekis where both sides have two eyes, too bad. This is a copy of the living page "Torazu Sanmoku/ Discussion" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |