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Fwiffo: Online, when playing with Japanese rules, most players rarely fill in dame (with the exception of points that force the opponent to fill in part of their own territory) at the end because it's not worth any points. My understanding is that dame points are worth points when using area scoring (such as in Chinese rules), and should be filled. I've noticed people sometimes neglect to do this when playing my robot (which is set for Chinese scoring for technical reasons) and lose points as they pass while the robot fills.
In a system with pass stones (such as AGA rules) it is still necessary to fill dame, correct? Doubly so?
As a side note - I can see the appeal of territory scoring in casual online games both for penalizing useless plays inside established territory and obviating the need to fill dame.
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Neil: This is a loaded question. By using the japanese term dame, you're pre-judging the filling of the points between territory as "worthless." (This isn't really an answer, but rather more of an observation hoping to spark a discussion)
Fwiffo: Ok, I'll clarify my question thusly: for the purposes of this query, dame is defined as the neutral points typically left unfilled by most players when playing online using Japanese rules because they have no value when using territory scoring.
Bill: The idea of pass stones in the AGA rules derives from an article I wrote for the American Go Journal in the '70s about Chinese rules. In the article I call them bookkeeping stones. Their purpose was to allow the use of territory counting with the Chinese rules, since most American go players were used to that style of counting. (I was not the first to have that idea, though.)
So, yes, you typically need to fill the Japanese dame under AGA rules.
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