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Chinese Counting Example
   

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]
Diag.: 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)

[Diagram]
Diag.: Dead stones removed

2: Remove the dead stones.

The diagram shows circles where the dead stones were removed.


[Diagram]
Diag.: 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 boarders 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]
Diag.: 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.



This is a copy of the living page "Chinese Counting Example" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.