Sunjang Baduk

Introduction

Sunjang Baduk is the name given to the ancient Korean form of Go. It became vitually extinct as Korea entered the 1950s. An online tournament was played in 2007 with these rules; these notes will help if one is ever run again.

It was played on KGS and KGS does not support the traditional form of scoring in this game (see Sensei's Library for more info), so we play using (KGS) Japanese scoring. In all games, White has a komi of 6 points in even games and 0 points in handicapped games. The maximum known handicap is 8 stones. Only at the tournament director's discretion may the handicap rules be bent to come to the assistance of those who cannot find opponents.

The tournament is open to everyone, you do not have to be a BGA member to play in the tournament. If you wish to play in the tournament you should have a solid KGS grade. Playing with an inaccurate rank is unfair to others, playing on an unranked account is not permissible.

This is the starting position for Sunjang Baduk. The first move for Black is prescribed as tengen, not playing tengen on the first move will be interpreted as resignation. For a one stone handicap game Black gets to play the first and second moves of the game. The second move can be played wherever Black wishes, the first move must be tengen, as before. White receives 0 komi.

For the handicaps 2 stones to 8 stones, the tengen stone becomes White. The Black handicap stones should be placed on the 7th line, as appropriate, on the positions marked A to H. White has the first move and 0 komi. For 2 stone handicap use G and C For 3 stone handicap use C, G and E For 4 stone handicap use A, C, G and E For 5 stone handicap use A, C, G, E and D For 6 stone handicap use A, H, G and C, D, E For 7 stone handicap use A, H, G and C, D, E, and B For 8 stone handicap use all letters

As an example, this is a possible starting position for a 4 stone game. White has the first move here, as well as 0.5 komi.

Methodology for placing the initial stones.

Recommended method

The simplest approach to reaching your initial starting position involves using either a ranked or a free type game. Here judicious use of the Pass or Undo buttons will allow you to set the initial stones.

Expert method

One can also use the teaching game. For a teaching game some skill in using the CGoban3 client is required, and the mute option must be used in the game. If the mute option is not used Kibitzers comments will be viewable by you. Pressing ctrl-m means only the players can talk. Pressing ctrl-t and setting the stones in edit mode allows the initial position to be set up by the teacher (white). The teacher can then opt to resume the game.

Tournament Rules

The tournament will run for roughly a fortnight. Please Register on the event's website, which you must use to record your game results.

The following describe the conventions that will apply to your games.

• All games should be played in the British Room.
• Games conditions should be (KGS) Japanese Rules, with 20 minutes maintime, Canadian overtime 6 minutes for 25 stones.
• At the start of the game both players should type Sunjang Baduk Tournament to indicate that they are playing a tournament game. The referees will ignore all adjudication requests for games where the players have not typed this.
• Undo is at your own discretion.
• Handicap is calculated according to your current KGS rank. We are using Handicap-1, so you should take 1 stone off whatever handicap KGS suggests. For even games please Nigiri.
• Competitors are allowed to play a maximum of 19 games.
• As usual players will be ranked according to their Tournament Score. This is formulated by t = (w - sqrt(w)) / n where
  t is the tournament score
  n is the number of games
  w is the number of wins
  

Prizes will probably be lessons from Guo Juan's audiogolessons website, we invisage prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, and the best under 10kyu player