Peter Drake wrote:
I'm inclined to agree, but it bothers me to have to explain life and
death before scoring. Life and death therefore become part of the
rules rather than an emergent consequences of the rules . I want to
be able to give a tiny set of rules and then let players loose to
discover things on their own.
(I guess now that the thread is marked OT, I can feel less guilty about
continuing it ...)
I agree. I typically "explain" life and death to beginners at the very
beginning, in this way:
1) I place single stones on the board; one in the middle, on on the
edge, and one in the corner. "Taking as many moves as you like, capture
my stones." Often I'll do this before explaining anything at all other
than a basic overview of the game. If they use more than the required
number of stones (e.g. two for the corner stone) to capture, I'll explain.
2) I place groups of stones on the board, again in the middle, edge, and
corner. Each group has exactly one eye. "Again, taking as many moves as
you like, capture my stones." I let them put stones on the board to
capture, making sure that they place the one in the eye last (and again
explaining further if there is any confusion).
3) Finally, I place groups of stones on the board, middle, edge, and
corner, giving each group two eyes. "Taking as many moves as you like,
capture my stones." Typically, after they've surrounded the outside,
they realize they can't capture my stones no matter how many moves they
make in a row.
This both quickly shows a number of important Go concepts (including
life and death), as well as shows that the idea of life and death is an
emergent consequence of the rules, not a rule itself. It also helps
explain why certain shapes (such as groups with shared eyes, or false
eyes) are alive or dead, without having to come up with complicated
explanations of what the definition of an "eye" is.
In fact, I started teaching Go this way when an interested beginner
asked me how you know whether a group of stones is alive. At first, I
started to talk about two eyes, but then I thought of all the edge cases
involved (such as four lines of stones along the edges of the board,
with the corners empty ... can you really say those stones have "two
eyes"?). Then I thought about Benson's algorithm, but realized that was
way overkill for talking to a beginner. Then I realized the simplest
explanation--given as many moves in row as you want, can you capture the
stones? If not, the stones are unconditionally alive.
Of course, there are other groups we call "alive" that are not
*unconditionally* alive, but that's merely a shortcut in terminology
that means, "No matter what our opponent plays, we can respond to make
the group unconditionally alive." But this concept can still, in my
opinion, be more clearly taught when the concept of unconditionally
alive is well-understood.
And, of course, once a beginner understands life and death in this
manner, playing out disputed groups is the most natural way to determine
the life-or-death status of a group. (And, I submit, the best way no
matter what ruleset you're using.)
~ Ross
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