This Devil's Advocate intentionally takes the wrong side of some arguments. Can you spot the flaws in reasoning?
When you buy go books or read go strategy on the internet, make sure to check they're for the rules that you will be playing. Trying to apply area scoring strategy to in a game that uses territory scoring can lead to grave mistakes!
For example, the page Add a second stone and sacrifice both advises giving away a second prisoner:
Attempts to enlighten the Devil's Advocate:
Vincent: The idea behind this proverb is to maintain aji. It has nothing to do with prisoners.
Fwiffo: I'm reminded of a riddle involving three sailors and a bellhop. Territory and area scoring (excluding a few exceptional circumstances like certain seki) produce the same result. costs black just one point with either set of rules. In territory scoring, it costs a point in the form of a prisoner, and in area scoring it's one point by virtue of having one less live stone on the board at the end of the game. Of course, the extra forcing moves that
creates are presumably worth well more than that one point.