In an independent region of the board there will normally be some gote and reverse sente plays (or sequences of play) that gain something. The most that any of these plays or sequences gains is the (local) temperature of that region. Once that play or sequence is played, normally the local temperature drops.

A play may raise the local temperature, initiating a sequence of plays that end in a lower temperature than the original temperature. If the number of plays in the sequence is even, the sequence is sente, as is the original play. If it is odd, the sequence is gote.

If a sequence of play returns to the original temperature, that sequence is ambiguous between sente and gote.

Even when regions of the board are not strictly independent, the concept of temperature may be useful. A few centuries ago it was common for a game to start with a 3-4 play, followed by a 5-3 approach, followed by a pincer. Over time, pros realized that the approach was not sente, and stopped making the pincer. Then they realized that the first play was not sente, either, and started playing more often in an open corner. The original 3-4 play lowers the local temperature in the corner.

An enclosure lowers the local temperature in the corner, but it may raise the temperature of the side that the enclosure faces. If the opponent then plays a wedge on the side, that lowers the temperature of the side.

Generally as a local position is played out, its local temperature drops. That fact may be useful in the opening in finding opportunities to play elsewhere.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

After bugging you, Bill, with question about this for years, I am fairly sure I understand what is meant.

* temperature (common usage) = miai value of largest play
* local temperature = miai value of largest play in local area
* ambient temperature = miai value of largest play outside the local area

Ambient temperature can be seen as a baseline to which temperature in the common use of the term returns after sequences are finished and below which it doesn't fall. Local temperature (while a sequence is played) corresponds to the peaks in temperature in the common use of the term. I believe these concepts can be useful at times.

But:

In practice, it is far from sure that I can distinguish the local area from the rest of the board or that there is only a single sequence in play at one point. Something as basic as responding to a first line hane with a first line hane elsewhere knocks the distinction out (and this is endgame play where the parts of the board are as independent of each other as it gets during a game).

For common usage I don't see any benefits of saying "settling the group cooled down this area and other parts of the board are hotter now" instead of "after settling the group playing elsewhere is larger" or "this move heated up this area over the ambient temperature and there is an even number of moves in the sequence" instead of "this sequence can be played in sente now". Basically people are rephrasing their insights in a metaphoric language, which works for them, but leaves a visible question mark in the faces of bystanders.

I was surprised when people on rec.games.go started talking about temperature. At the start it was only about global temperature, but spread to local temperature and raising it in sente, and so on. Whether they were using it metaphorically, I don't know. However, I did notice that some go concepts could be described in terms of temperature, as adopted by go players, not as a CGT term. That is why I wrote the SL Temperature page in the first place. Speaking for myself, I do not think of it as a metaphor, but as a concept.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

You can: choose a 'locale' (local set / region of intersections) of your choice! (Not randomly, but choose it as suitably as you can.) Next, for the given locale and the hypothesis that you have chosen it well, study what happens inside the locale and what happens outside the locale. If you cannot construct relevant sequences that are only inside, then you notice that you must have chosen your locale badly; alter it to fit it better! If, however, everything local and relevant happens within the locale, then you know to have chosen it well.

Within the suitably chosen locale, you get the local temperature. If you cannot identify it, then maybe because sequences are not local, that is, local = global. In many practical study applications, local <> global.



Why do you care? What matters is whether all relevant sequences / value calculations fit into the / a suitably chosen locale.



Temperature is not for "common usage" but is a concept for usage with some degree accuracy far above that of common usage.



The latter is a common usage conjecture. Expressing things by means of average move values or possibly temperatures has the potential of verifying or refuting such a conjecture.



As before.



Does it? Can they prove that something can be played "in sente"? If they can, fine. If they can't, then more accurate tools such as local move values or temperatures might have a greater chance of allowing a proof.



Sure. New (here: more accurate) concepts for them must be learnt before their question marks vanish.

I have made the experience though that CGT-like temperature talk is hopeless overkill in most practical cases. I prefer to speak of pragmatic compromise versions of more accurate concepts. Such that allow you to choose a locale and such that speak of average local move size instead of local temperature etc. Everybody can divide a difference of positional values by a difference of move numbers. Hardly anybody can apply formal CGT definitions during his games. Therefore I would not recommend the latter to bystanders when the former provides already more than enough accuracy.

I gave the example of answering a first line hane by a first line hane elsewhere - a common play and explained on beginner pages. If I have to include all places, where such a play is possible, in the locale, the distinction between locale and rest of the board becomes dubious. Or during a ko fight, do you really want to include everywhere a ko threat can be played in the locale? Will there be left enough of the board to merit talking about ambient temperature?



That is my point. I don't doubt that it can be a tool to theorize about positions, but it is hardly the most efficient way to express things.

I was toying around with some derived (and even more contrived) terms in private. I wanted a term for the difference in temperature that a sente move creates (how much it heats up the local area, and I was thinking about sth. like "heating value/Heizwert" ). The reasoning was that whether you can play sth. in sente at that point in the game depends much more on the size of the follow-up than whether it increases temperature over ambient temperature (it does, but that isn't enough). I was also thinking about preparation for a ko, where you play out some moves to increase the size of remaining threats or endgame techniques where seemingly pointless moves are played that turn a move into sente that would not have been otherwise. Later I realized that the whole "temperature" part of what I was thinking was embellishment, metaphoric and completely unnecessary.

1) Yes, but...

2) you can set two locales or

3) set a combined locale around all those first line hanes.



It depends on the chosen theoretical model. If your "model" is "read it out on the whole board", then locale is superfluous. If your model is the Unsettled Group Average method, then a locale is very useful.



It depends.



Surely there are models for which temperature is unnecessary.