A Beginner's Introduction to GOA Beginner's Introduction to GORule 5: If the last move of each player was a pass, the game ends and scoring begins. First, the players must agree on which stones on the board are dead. (Disagreements are very rare, but a rule to settle disputes will be given later.) The dead stones are considered to be captured, and are removed from the board. Each player gets one point for every opponent's stone that was captured, and one point for every empty point of territory. A group of connected empty points is territory if it is surrounded by stones of only that player's colour. The player with the higher score wins.
At the end of the game, each player gets one point for every empty point
that is surrounded by his or her stones. For example, in Figure 14 White
has 6 points of territory (marked with W's) and Black has 5 points of territory
(marked with B's). There are also 3 neutral points (marked with N's) that
do not count as points for either player.
Neutral points are called dame (dah-may) in Japanese, and this word is
often used in English, too. Dame points should be filled in by the players
before counting score, as shown in Figure 15, to make sure that they are
not counted as territory by accident.
Most of the time, there will also be a few dead stones on the board at the end of the game, as shown in Figure 16 below.
Definition: Your stones are dead if you cannot stop your opponent from capturing them, even if you make the next move.
The two white stones marked with X's in Figure 16 are dead. Black can
play A to put them into atari, and then B to capture them, and there is
nothing that White can do. The marked black stones are dead, too, since
White can play C and G to capture them.
The rest of the stones in Figure 16 are alive.
Definition: Your stones are alive if there is no way for your opponent to capture them, even if your opponent makes the next move.
The big string of black stones has an eye at F, and so White would have
to play both A and B to put them into atari before playing F. But White
can't do that because of the suicide rule. Black can't play any of the points
C, D, E, or G (by the suicide rule) and so none of the white stones can
be captured either. At the end of a game, every stone on the board will
be either dead or alive. The dead stones are removed and added to the stones
that were captured during the game. In Figure 16, the two dead black stones
will be removed, and so will the two dead white ones. This will make the
board look like Figure 15. White has 2 black captives and 6 points of territory
for a total of 8 points. Black has 2 white captives and 5 points of territory
for a total of 7 points. White wins this game by 1 point.
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