BQM44

Question: How to count territory during the middle game?

HolIgor answers: You may care to look at the QARTS system. OngoingGame2 contains two attempts to count territory at the beginning of yose stage of the game. Look at any other material on the PositionalJudgment page.

I hope you know how to count the territory in the endgame. By twos.

ChihChan: After checking those websites, my concept of endgame moves is improved, but one of my problems is unsolved. Because I would like to know, how do you decide the boundary for those territory(the similar question I ask in the territory part) during the middle game? Not during the endgame-move stage. Because every territory may be attacked by the opponent's sente plays or be expanded in sente, the territory will become different. (This judgement is to make sure which one is leading during the middle game - maybe after 50 moves, 100 moves, or 150 moves - and decide the strategy for the rest of the game.) So, please help me for this problem, thanks.

Charles Matthews The standard idea is first to visualise how the boundary of a territory will stand later, after both Black and White have played sente sequences - and then count. So for example on the edge you must often count two fewer points in your territory, where your opponent has a standard hane-connect (hanetsugi).

This may sound a little complicated, but it is an easy habit to acquire (I find it easier to do this mentally than actually to count accurately). It is also very good for one's go. That is, by thinking about sente-move adjustments to territories one becomes better at planning where and how to make territory.