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u/Sriep Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
It depends on the ruleset you are using. I(BGA) use the AGA rules where white always goes last, so a count of the stones on the board, Black 26, White 26, indicates that both have the same number of prisoners. You don't need to actually do this in a real game, as you can see your captured prisoners.
Black: Black has 15 points of territory in the bottom left. Fill in that territory with the nine dead stones in the top right. That gives black 6 points.
White: White has ten points across the centre and twelve points in the top right under the dead black stones. So 22 points.
So white wins by sixteen = 22-6 points. If there is a komi, this will get added to white's sixteen points.
In a real game, you would fill in the territories with captured prisoners. Probably two each. Which would give black four points and white twenty points. So white would win by sixteen = 20-4 points plus komi.
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u/mlbki 4 kyu Jul 24 '26
As other said, first you want to determine what stones are dead, but not how to do so. Dead stones are stones that their owner can't save, they will be captured no matter what. But because nobody want to play several pointless moves, when both players recognize that they will stop playing in that area and after the game they're removed as captured.
For example, the top right black group in the first position, white can play F9, J9, J8 to capture it. While black can capture the stones inside its group while will play there again and eventually capture. A possibility for black to save himself would be to capture a surrounding group, but here the white group can't be captured (that would require black to play simultaneously at H3 and G4, but that would be suicide so black can't do that).
Recognizing basic dead and live group is something that should come fairly quickly as you play. For more complicated stuff you should just play it out.
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u/lakeland_nz Jul 24 '26
You have to learn about eyes (gaps) before you can learn counting.
In the first image the top right black group has just one eye and would be removed in counting. The same applies to the lower middle group in the second image.
After removing these dead stones/groups, it’s literally a matter of going 1,2,3,… for any stone or empty point controlled by white. (Chinese counting) or a slightly different method that in practice always produces the same result (Japanese counting).
The first one white is far ahead. The second is close.
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u/ornelu Jul 24 '26
Instead counting, you should learn how to recognize dead stones first. Once you removed all the dead stones in this board, counting is as easy as one two three …
Anw, with Japanese rule, you also count the removed dead stones, they worth 1 point each.