Chinese Rules

Chinese rules have these features:

• Used in: China
• Setup:
  • Handicap: The official Chinese rules make no mention of handicaps. Some interpretations of Chinese rules, such as the implementation on KGS, allow free placement of handicap stones.
  • Historical variant: Starting Stones were still being used in the early 20th century
• Play:
  • Repetition: Chinese Superko
    • In theory, there is a positional superko rule.
    • In practice, the referee can void games with complex ko.
  • Suicide: Forbidden
  • Illegal move: Treated as a pass
• Scoring and counting:
  • Scoring method: Area scoring
  • Komi: 7.5
  • Points in seki: Count as territory ^[1]
  • Therefore:
    • Cost of moving in one's territory: 0 points
    • Cost of moving in opponent's territory: 0 points
    • Benefit of moving in unclaimed territory: 1 point.
  • Counting method: Chinese counting
    • (Only the points of one player are counted to determine the result.)
  • Historical variant: Stone Scoring used to be used
• Dispute resolution:
  • Life and death settled by: Game resumption for online play. Adjudicated by tournament moderator for over the board play.

Sources

Chinese rules for Go are defined by the Chinese Weiqi Association, mainland China:

• In English:
  • Chinese 2002 rules
  • Chinese 1988 rules from The Go Players Almanac.
• In Chinese:
  • Chinese 2002 rules from CCC Yenching University, Hong Kong
  • Chinese Rules 2001 edition, published 2007-04-07 as adopted by the China Weiqi Association

Discussion

SAS: Can someone please explain the bit about voiding games with complex ko? Section 6 of the Chinese rules clearly states that repetition of position is not allowed. Therefore the part of Section 20 which states that the referee may declare a draw or a replay if neither side will yield in a triple ko (or quadruple ko, etc.) is irrelevant - the no-repetition rule ensures that one side or the other must yield.

SAS: Having looked at this a bit more, it seems that there is a difference between the rules as they are written and as they are actually applied. I’ve modified the above to take account of this.

RobertJasiek: The positional superko is pretence and the referee’s ko rules are applied in practice. The latter can be explained by a moderately complex modification of the Japanese 2003 Rules.

bbbbbbbbba: I believe the positional superko rule is mainly used to resolve moonshine life.

Notes

[1] There is no rule precluding eyes in seki from counting as territory. Such a rule is a feature of other rulesets, such as the Japanese and Korean rules.