Advice to count at the end of the fuseki is often given here. I've always been chary about that.

The problem is that counting usually relates to territory. Leaving aside the question of counting eggs before they're hatched, it seems to me that there are too many other elements that have to be assessed at that stage of the game in order to find a good way forward. After all, how many famous battles have been fought and won by a side that had a huge deficit of men or materiel yet its general had a better grasp of other factors?

I found the following example from a book by Shirae Haruhiko on two-space extenions useful in this regard.



Black had just played the triangled stone and Kajiwara Takeo, giving a commentary at the Nihon Ki-in (it was a Meijin title match) looked aghast, declared the game "owa" (finished: a Kajiwara-ism for owaru) and promptly lost interest. When he was told later that the game went on for 217 moves (said Shirae - the published version gives 214), Black winning by a whopping 8 points, Kajiwara just snorted that they'd wasted their time on 200 moves.

What if you count prospective territory in the usual way here?. I'd suggest counting the two black corner enclosures and his group on the left side, but ignore for the purposes of this count the square-marked stone on the lower side (apart from being a rather wide extension, Black has made one more move, so White's next move can be regarded as cancelling out that stone). Allowing for 5 points komi, I think you'll get a figure that suggests the balance of prospective territory is very close. But Kajiwara saw instantly that there was a huge imbalance.

Homework for tonight (after the World Cup, of course) is: what was he seeing beyond the usual (amateurish?) count?

A couple of clues. One is that the triangled stone was the tedomari in this fuseki, (i.e. the fuseki is finished), and Black got it. How? And what difference does it make? Second, according to the Kido commentary, the next move by White (which was not criticised per se - White's strategies are limited here, after all) led, after Black 29, to Black getting a solid and substantial territory.

Here is the full game. It is useful to try to visualise how it might go from the position above, and then to map these fuseki stones in the final position. But maybe more useful is to see how powerful a flimsy looking extension (the square) can be when it acts as a Venus fly-trap.

John, the 1st diagram is missing the white 2 space extension on the right side.
[admin] Fixed. -JB [/admin]

As for white's mistake to get into this position, my first feeling is the low e17 means that a further play on the top side is de-valued, whereas if he'd played high it would make that an interesting area so if (a very big if) the rest of the plays were the same white could have got tedomari with k17 or so.

If you cancel out comparable positions, W ul - B ur and B l - W ll, then it's Black's lower Side development against White's right side meagre 2 space extension. That's a huge difference.

I very much doubt that after 15 moves in a Meijin title match either side has made an error that an amateur can detect.

How about an amateur with the help of a 9p commentator and 9p opponent? I have Otake Hideo on my side trying to find and exploit white's mistakes. Finding mistakes in a complete game record (with commentary) is a very different proposition to finding the mistakes in a given position with no knowledge of the continuation. If the problem is black got tedomari, look for how white could have avoided that.

And if a 15k posted this opening in the Game Analysis forum what would we say?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 6 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 2 , 5 . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . . |
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . 3 . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

A 20k might not say anything

But generally you're right, if we know a mistake happend it might be possible even for a weaker player to find it.

Anyway, I got nothing better to do, so I'll take a shot:

But the game was played nearly 30 years ago. An amateur today would have access to 30 years worth of professional research that wasn't available back then. You would have a better case if this was from this year's Meijin match.

Nearly 40, How time flies! http://xkcd.com/1393/

What was the komi in that game? 0 as it says "ruleset: white wins jigo"? White's split of the right side, allowing two shimaris, has often been considered a mistake. That's not my original research, it is my parroting the collective wisdom of many pros over many years. I don't know if it would be considered a mistake with today's large komi (maybe playable if you really like a boring yose game like Ishida the calculator, seems consistent with his 3-3s (which I expect Takemiya would call mistakes , almost falling off the board I think he called them) but with no komi I would expect to be criticised for it by a stronger player for failing to be active enough to counteract black's first move advantage, and would comment to that effect when reviewing a game. Of course I'm not saying Ishida was unaware of this and he probably thought he could win with it and his strong yose, but Otake showed he was wrong. This game is quite probably part of the evidence that reinforces the opinion that white shouldn't allow two shimaris like that (though perhaps the fact white played double 3-3 means his corners are finished so black's sente after the split can't be used for an approach somewhat alleviates that criticism).

Well, for one thing, that research is hardly targeted at this fuseki. For another, and more importantly, pros abandon certain patterns without actual refutations. Just because a pattern has gone out of style does not mean that it is inferior.

For instance, the large knight's response to the small knight's approach to the 4-4 was typical for more than a millenium, but is hardly played today. That does not mean that it is a bad play. It offers the opponent more options than other plays, however. Go Seigen argued that the small knight's response was OK, and that move came into favor. Before komi, the kosumi in response to the 5-3 approach to the 3-4 stone was popular, but it fell out of favor as too slow in the komi era. Today, it has made a limited comeback. The mini-Chinese was popular 200 years ago, but fell out of favor for a long time. It, too, has made a comeback.

The parallel 3-3 by White, a feature of this game, has fallen out of favor, maybe for good. But it may come back, too.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Komi was 5 (effectively 5.5).

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

FWIW, my sense is that after move 15 Black had preserved the advantage of the move. That is not unusual. What is unusual is that both sides have three secure groups, so that the temperature is lower than usual at this stage of the game. That gives Black the edge, I think.

Then White's invasion left him with a somewhat weak group and his attempt to catch up on the top side left him with another. At that point, only Otake had real prospects.

As for Kajiwara, he was prone to overstatement.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Oh yes, so it says, how did I miss that? :facepalm:

I was equally confused and thought it was saying that White won by jigo (which conflicted with the story)