Chinese counting example

    Keywords: EndGame, Rules

Here is an example, step by step, of Chinese Counting. This will use the half counting method, where only Black's stones are counted.

This Example Game has just ended with two passes.

[Diagram]

End of the Game

1: Note the territories

The players agree that:

  • White has two live groups, top left and bottom edge.
  • Black has two live groups, bottom left and right side.
  • White has two dead stones on the right
  • Black has three dead stones on the top left
  • There are no non-scoring points. (Dame, or Seki)



Robert Jasiek: Note that the players' agreement is not part of the counting. It is part of a game phase before counting. Chinese Counting does not require rules that refer to life or death. Only some special examples like the Chinese 1988 Rules suggest such an agreement.

Other area scoring rulesets can speak of "stones that are not removed" and "stones that are removed", i.e. they do not speak about life and death.

[Diagram]

Dead stones removed

2: Remove the dead stones.

The diagram shows circles where the dead stones were removed.

Robert Jasiek: The removal of stones is not part of the counting. It is part of a game phase before counting. That earlier game phase can be called "removal of stones" and is part of the game phases that determine the winner. The players do not count the stones that are removed before counting. They only count stones after the removal of those stones that are removed before counting.

[Diagram]

Empty areas arranged

3: Arrange Black's empty area

Black's empty areas are made to be multiples of ten. On the right, four stones are taken away (and put in Black's bowl) to make the empty area total twenty points. In the lower left, which is too small to make an empty area of ten points, the three empty points are filled in with stones from Black's bowl.

The added and removed stones are marked with circles. Notice that it wasn't important to keep the borders of Black's territory strictly black, so long as you don't confuse who's area with who's.

Black remembers that there were twenty points in the empty areas.

[Diagram]

Counting the stones

4: Count the Black stones

The black stones can now be counted by grouping them into groups of ten. At this point the white stones can be removed from the board, or simply slid to one side of the board.

Black has twenty-four stones on the board.


5: Determine the winner

Add the number of stones, 24, to the number of empty points, 20, to get Black's score: 44.

This game was played on a 9x9 board. So there are a total of 81 points on the board. There were no non-scoring points. The 'half count' is (81 - 0) / 2 = 40.5. Since Black had more than 40.5 points, Black wins.

Black had 3.5 points more than the 'half count' of 40.5. So Black wins by twice this, or 7 points.

John F. Chinese counting used by Chinese players in Chinese magazines uses Chinese ways of reporting the winner: Black wins by 3.5, not 7, unless you specifically say you are mutilating the Chinese system for a western environment.

Planar: Unless you are trying to cultivate ambiguity, you should refer to this as 3.5 zi?, not 3.5 points.

rubilia: I prefer to count the black area points row-by-row. (To make this easier, prisoners can be taken off before). Thatīs very fast and fully examinable, since no stones are moved at all. But anyway, de gustibus non disputandum.

Planar: It's not a question of taste so much as a question of terminology. What you describe is New Zealand counting, not Chinese counting.


This is a copy of the living page "Chinese counting example" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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