Dieter: KSS commentary discussion (2014-06-18 12:13) [#10168]

Bill: A couple of notes: First, in the 1996 rules Ing quietly gives up the idea that life and death are decided by play, in favor of a 2-breath rule for some kos, as explained in the Janice Kim discussion of the rules. Second, Ing adopts proximity scoring, but for some reason Sidney Yuan translates the scoring rule as area scoring, which the Ing rules used before.

RobertJasiek: The KSS commentary was written for Ing 1991 Rules. Why can you say that it is written for the 1996 Rules? Where trying to explain disturbing kos, the KSS commentary contains simple mistakes. This makes it overall doubtful as a commentary for that purpose. How should the part be translated that you identify as proximity scoring?

Bill: I think that it was written for the 1996 rules, because they were the rules in effect when it was written. I suppose that Janice Kim had played under the 1996 rules professionally, but maybe not. Why write a commentary for obsolete rules? However, all that I claimed is that the commentary explains the 2-breath rule. The commentary seems correct for the 1996 rules, but maybe not correct for the 1991 rules, as you point out. The 1991 rules still proclaimed that life and death were ultimately decided by play. Perhaps Ing finally realized that play was insufficient to decide the question of disturbing vs. fighting ko. As we both know, there are kos such that, if you say that they are fighting kos, you can play them consistently with that claim, but if you say that they are disturbing kos, you can play them consistently with that claim. Play does not decide the question.

RobertJasiek: When discussing the KSS commentary in 1996 (or maybe a bit later) on rec.games.go, it was clear that it referred to the Ing 1991 Rules and that nobody had been aware of the 1996 Rules at that time. - A balance of two internal breaths, as suggested in KSS, is a bad comment since the Ing 1996 booklet shows the Infamous Ko and "explains" that there is also a balance of the external breaths.

Bill: Was Janice Kim unaware of the '96 rules? Really?

RobertJasiek: Maybe not later, but surely when KSS was originally written. When did the first 1996 booklets reach the USA? Before 2005?