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In this "Go Free" Android app, I'm trying to make sense of the information it presents, in an effort to better understand the game.

In the screenshot below:

enter image description here

I'd be grateful for any assistance understanding these points:

  1. Marked with α, how is the (assumingly) score/territory value, B: -13.5, calculated? (and why is it called B anyway?). I mean, I, as the black player, have 9 black squares (territories?), while the white has 13 squares + one circle (obviously denotes a value of half...), so shouldn't it be 9 - 13.5, meaning -4.5 ?
  2. Marked with β, why does this black stone have white dot? What does it mean?
  3. When there are closed areas, I understand that the enclosed zones are called "territories", but in this screenshot there are still no surrounded areas, so why this app marks certain spots with territory squares (black & white squares)?

1 Answer 1

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  1. The score is B: because you're playing black, and it's showing your score.

  2. The black stone with the white circle on it is probably being scored as a dead stone right now - it's inside White's "territory".

  3. Many apps do this if you try to score in the middle of the game - they estimate which parts of the board each player will end up with, and show a score based on that. These estimates are usually not very accurate.

White gets some extra points called komi, because moving second is a disadvantage. It looks like this game is probably giving White 7.5 komi. I'll add this up using Chinese scoring, so you get one point for each point of territory you have surrounded, and each stone that is alive. Black has nine points of territory and two living stones, for a total of 11. White has 14 points of territory (the one under the "dead" black stone counts too) and three living stones, giving 17. Once we add in 7.5 komi, black is behind by 13.5.

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  • Thanks! And howcome it counts unsurrounded areas as territories? Isn't it supposed to take only closed areas?
    – Tar
    May 2, 2017 at 19:07
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    It's just a rough estimate of how both sides are doing. Go isn't scored until the end of the game; if your app offers anything earlier than that, the question is what players will find most useful, and the answer is not the "actual" score differential because for much of the game that would be 0 (or -7.5 if you count komi). May 2, 2017 at 19:33

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