Knowing who is winning requires calculating the value of each endgame position and understanding the best order to play into them. Professional players can do this 100 moves from the end of the game and typically be within a point or 2 of the final score.
I'm AGA 3 Dan, and I'm happy if I can get a count accurate to within 5 points. So if the game is a 1 or 2 point game all I can say is that it's really close and I don't know who is winning. In the middle game it is much harder, since it's difficult to give a point count to thickness. Often one player is ahead on secure territory, but the other has stronger groups and an attack. It's very hard to estimate how many points an attack will actually give. David > > Even though I've been assured that even good players don't really know > who is winning in close games (which I don't entirely believe), it > seems to me that it should be possible to at least calculate where you > stand by looking at the board and basing this on what you know for > sure. > > - Don > > > On Tue, 2008-09-16 at 18:56 +0200, Robert Jasiek wrote: > > David Fotland wrote: > > > Japanese rules' [...] the actual counting [...] The position is > > preserved > > > > Japanese counting destroys the position by > > - removal of dead stones > > - filling in of (most) prisoners > > - rearrangements of stones > > - rearrangements of borders > > - border stone colour changes > > > > After the removal of dead stones, these counting methods do NOT > > destroy the position: > > - point by point counting > > - point by point half counting > > - some algorithmic virtual counting like flood-filling > > _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
