It's not just the scoring part, the goal of the game is somewhat elusive. Surround more than the opponent, how do I even get started? Chess, despite having way more complicated rules, has an immediately obvious goal: capture the king.
The way I teach both the rules and basic strategy of go is to start with the smallest possible board 1x1 and work our way up.
on a 1x1 board, it's impossible to place any stones because it has no liberties. Great now the player knows about liberties.
Then we move to a 2x2 board, where it is possible to place a stone and capture the opponent's stone. Great now we know about captures and ko.
Then we move to 3x3, where we find ourselves able to create our first live shapes, and get to score the board. Now we know when the game ends and how to score it!
Then we move on to 5x5, where we play our first 'real' game, now knowing all the rules.
In my experience, ko is confusing and shouldn't be explained until the players encounter it in their game, play it for a while, and say "wait this is stupid", which is a good time to explain "actually you're not the first to encounter this situation, and there's a rule to handle it!"
In sensible rule sets, yes.
For technically-minded people, forbidding of board state repetition is easy to understand. For children and less technically-minded people, ime they often won't understand what it means and will worry they'll repeat the board state accidentally and it takes a whole lot of explaining and examples. Everything very much depends on who you're teaching.
I think there are other reasons not to teach go than this one.
Mind elaborating? I'm very interested in this topic!
I made a rather large survey mostly among the European go players as to why they play go, learning why one shouldn't play/learn/teach go (pick any) would be even more exciting!
Source: former professional-aspiring player
I never had aspirations to become a professional player, which probably explains the difference between our experiences. I've met many hikaru-no-go-powered "professional-aspiring" players, most of whom didn't even achieve dan level. It seems a recipe for disappointment and bitterness.
And it always amazes me how one little anime was able to promote go all around the world. I dont think that I know anyone who saw hikaru no go and then not started to learn go (myself included)
[Edit: I guess the answer to my question is contained in your "dont think that I know anyone who saw hikaru no go and then not started to learn go"... though I wonder why people haven't just stopped watching!]
I dont want to teach it to my daughter.
Why didn't you?
> Its just a time-sink with infinite competition.
So why did you play? And why were you aspiring to be a professional?
A mediocre programmer works 1/5th and making 5x than a p90 pro player.
I played seriously because I learned the game when i was very poor with no prospects, and then it latches on to your brain and you cant quit, like an addiction. I think I studied 8 hours a day while I was in highschool - during class, before and after school, weekends, vacations. Probably did 2~3 college degrees of time between 16-20 y-old, but the competition is simply brutal. You face kids that have 10,000 games before they turn 7.
Again, the great danger of teaching go to kids is not that they dont care about it, its what happens if they do.