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Breakdown of Go gameplay
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Author:  PeterPeter [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Breakdown of Go gameplay
What % of Go gameplay would you say can be attributed to the following skills:

1. Tactical reading ("I go there, he goes there, I go there, he goes there, I go there, then his group is clearly dead")

2. Knowledge ("Without having to predict any moves, I know that my J shape in the corner is alive")

3. Strategic judgment ("There are no immediate threats or opportunities. Where might be a good long-term place to have a stone?")
Author:  palapiku [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
1. 99%
2. 1%
3. 0%
Author:  Uberdude [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
% of what? Time spent in a game? Hard to say, and also the distinctions between them are blurry. For example I can imagine the end result of some common joseki instantly teleported onto the board so that I can think about judging the position, whereas a weaker player might have to do the "I go there, he goes there etc. reading to get there.

P.S. When you read do you actually say "I go there, he goes there" in your head? You may find this vocalisation slows down your reading.
Author:  TheBigH [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
I no longer read by going "I go here, she goes there, I go here, she goes there, uh oh". That's too slow. All I hear in my head now is the clack of virtual stones on the board so it's more like "click, click, click, click, uh oh".
Author:  Dusk Eagle [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
I don't know if anyone can be accurate enough in their introspection to answer that accurately. It's even harder to judge since I think a lot of the thoughts that go into my moves come in the first split second, and the rest is time spent figuring out things that don't come automatically to me.
Author:  jts [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
I think this is a bit hard to describe in terms of percentages.

But also, I think #3 is very biased towards a chess-ish conception of what strategy is. A good place to have a stone just is a place that creates (or parries) threats and opportunities. (And this often requires seeing the tactical ramifications of follow-up moves.) So I see why palapiku says 0%, but I think there are indeed differences between strategic and tactical skill in Go, which allows players with better strategy to slap around players with better local reading.
Author:  Dusk Eagle [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
For some reason I thought you originally asked "What percentage of time do you think about each?" The question you actually asked is slightly different.

I don't really know how to separate the first two, as it's really hard to separate what you "know" versus what you can just read easily. If we were to just divide it into the realm of strategy versus tactics, then I would have to say tactics are more important (SmoothOper might disagree with me ;)). I say this because it's really easy to find incredibly strong players who play games that lack even basic good strategy, but who excel at tactics (just log on to Tygem), but it's really hard to find anyone strong who you could say understands strategy very well but lacks tactical ability. I know a few people like that, but they're SDK at most.
Author:  Solomon [ Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
PeterPeter wrote:
What % of Go gameplay would you say can be attributed to the following skills:

1. Tactical reading ("I go there, he goes there, I go there, he goes there, I go there, then his group is clearly dead")

2. Knowledge ("Without having to predict any moves, I know that my J shape in the corner is alive")

3. Strategic judgment ("There are no immediate threats or opportunities. Where might be a good long-term place to have a stone?")


1. 10%
2. 20%
3. 15%
4. 5% pleasure
5. 50% pain
6. 100% reason to remember the name
Author:  PeterPeter [ Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
I think a strategic move is one that is at least 4 points away from any other stone. At that distance, the variations are too numerous or fuzzy to read accurately.
Author:  Uberdude [ Wed Feb 20, 2013 3:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Breakdown of Go gameplay
PeterPeter wrote:
I think a strategic move is one that is at least 4 points away from any other stone. At that distance, the variations are too numerous or fuzzy to read accurately.


That's not what I'd call strategic judgement. You might not be able to read them, but stronger players can. Global reading is certainly more open-ended than local reading, and can be skipped in favour of experience, intuition etc. when short of time, but it's certainly doable, and is necessary to play the strongest moves.

Maybe if you read my extensive Malkovich comments you could decide for yourself how my thoughts are distributed between those categories.
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