I don't want to beat this one to death - but a side effect I noticed of
positional superko is that having a move available can make the
difference between the life or death of a group on the other side of the
board - not connected in any logical way except that they happen to be
on the same board!
It's these kinds of situations that make me view it as a slightly
different game that the pure game of GO. I know this is a matter of
opinion, but I feel that it breaks the elegance of the game just a tiny
little bit. There is a sense, at least in my mind, that GO played with
positional superko is a "variant" of the game.
On the wonderful Tromp/Taylor site where the rules are described, I
feel that there was undo emphasis on being able to concisely state the
rules in English. One gets the impression that someone must have said,
"hey, we can state the rules with a few less words if we embrace
positional superko." I feel that took slight priority over the actual
elegance of the rules. Of course what is "elegant" cannot be
precisely defined and is a subjective matter.
Because either variation is valid - it must be considered a matter of
opinion. I guess I prefer the version that leads to the most
consistent and predictable behavior.
However, I really don't want to come across as bashing Tromp/Taylor
rules which includes PSK because if it wasn't for my discovery of these
rules, I probably wouldn't be doing computer GO today.
- Don
On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 09:41 -0400, Don Dailey wrote:
> When someone mentioned a position where a pass-alive group should be
> sacrificed - I wondered if it was also due to PSK issues.
>
> I want to clarify something I said about PSK. I don't think the rule is
> "wrong" in any sense - after all you can make up any rules you want as
> long as they are internally consistent. I just believe it's a rather
> arbitrary rule which has been accepted primarily because it rarely turns
> out to make a difference in most situations.
>
> For instance, I could add a rule to chess which says "it's illegal to
> move a bishop to g2 on the 8th move." It would be a rather silly and
> arbitrary rule and wouldn't be consistent with the spirit of the game,
> and it would introduce a small bias against white for no good reason -
> but it would be a valid rule and the game could still be played
> reasonably. However it would be an ugly wart on the game. (Chess has
> a lot of funny rules in it anyway which have been added over the years
> to improve the game.)
>
> - Don
>
>
> On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 11:56 +0200, Erik van der Werf wrote:
> > On 10/23/06, Tom Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > At 01:54 23/10/2006, you wrote:
> > >
> > > >There was a posting on this list with an example of a (contrived?)
> > > >situation where sacrificing a pass-alive group is appropriate, in
> > order to
> > > >win a ko that is more valuable. Is even #1 "100% admissible"?
> > > >
> > > >Weston
> > >
> > >
> > > I must have missed this, and find it surprising. Can anyone
> > remember the
> > > example?
> > >
> >
> > I probably posted that; it is a superko anomaly.
> >
> >
> > . O O # # # O O .
> > O . O # . # O O #
> > O O # . # O O # .
> > # # # # # O O # #
> > O O O O # # O O .
> > . . O # # # # O O
> > O O # # O O O # O
> > O . O # O . O # #
> > O . O # O O . # .
> >
> > 9x9 board, superko, area scoring, 6 komi for White
> > It does not matter who plays first.
> >
> >
> > Assuming that the players agree that white's upper left group is dead
> > the position can be scored as it stands (jigo).
> >
> > Solution at http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/~vanderwerf/pubdown/stelling3.sgf
> >
> > Erik
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > computer-go mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
>
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