The Nihon Kiin homepage is reporting that Takao beat Kono Rin by resignation in the final of the Tengen challenger tournament. The first game will be played on October 24th.

It is hard not to think that perhaps Kono Rin is just getting tired. His schedule for last few weeks is shown below. Note that he and Takao will play again this week on Thursday in the Kisei League!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I would think two rest days is enough after a game of Go.

How many full-day games have you played? 10 hours of concentration to play a high-level game is quite a different experience to one hour of a point-and-click adventure game on KGS.

If it were on its own, two days would be enough for a two-day game, but the cumulative effect of the schedule means... This isn't just two two-day games, it's many + others.

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

+1. Also, unlike KGS, he probably has to travel a bit to these venues. He can't just play from his bedroom in his PJs, like on KGS...

So even though Asian TV cup and Agon are quick-play tournaments, I'd expect there's still a lot of moving around and waiting around.

I'm a fan of Takao Shinji (current Judan?) and wish him some good games in the Tengen finals.

A sobering thought.

I was just looking at an early Honinbo game (Kitani vs Iwamoto). Moves 51-61 occupied most of the second day (a three-day game, 13 hours each).

The moves that took the longest time were: Black 51 – forty four minutes; White 52 – fifty two minutes; Black 53 – twenty six minutes; White 54 – also twenty six minutes; Black 55 – forty seven minutes; White 56 – fifty two minutes; Black 61 – seventy eight minutes.

Each of those single moves occupied more time than a whole typical Mickey Mouse game nowadays, and for some of them you could squeeze in two or three MMs.

In those days the tournament calendar was the very opposite of crowded, but they still felt the players should rest for a full month between the Honinbo games.

Wow, long moves are one thing, but them being played subsequently is kinda cool, makes you wonder how much possible moves of their opponents professionals actually consider.


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OT: Where does Micky Mouse game come from? I can see that it means game with shorter time controls, but I fail to see the connection.

Just curious but what games are you considering here? Most blitz I've seen is Asia TV style 30s byoyomi with games lasting about 2 hours.

I have seen some 10s byoyomi games before but I haven't seen any lately.

oren: As you say there have even been tournaments at 10 seconds a move, but the normal setting for fast games is 10 minutes each and then byoyomi of 30 or 40 seconds. I assume, from observation, that many moves are played well within that limit, and that very many games end in a resignation, so the total time taken can be quite short.

My assessment of these games as well below par is actually based also on game length rather than time limits alone, although I'm certain there's a cause and effect. For example, all the published games of one recent Korean tournament ended in resignation and the total moves taken were: 160, 211, 202, 194, 215, 163, 130 and 166. Games with long time limits tend to go to a count, and there are many countable long games resigned just to avoid the tedium of a count. I infer that the fast games are ending much more quickly because of drastic mistakes brought on by lack of time. That alone makes them sub-par, but another element is that certain aspects of the game are neglected because of shorter time limits, e.g. counting ko threats. The short games might look exciting, but people like me very quickly get excitement fatigue and yearn for a richer diet than fast food.

paKO: Pros usually don't spend much time considering lots of moves. They can read deeply but that usually happens very fast. Most of their time is spent on "positional assessment". That is often rendered as "counting" but that really applies to amateurs. Pros do count, but that also happens quickly. What they appear to spend the bulk of their time on is what I call "advanced tewari". For example, in the game I mentioned, Kitani spent his longest time (over an hour) debating just two moves: a one-space jump in contact with an enemy stone and a one-space slide beside it. If he played the jump, he expected the opponent to hane and he would answer by extending down, that stone ending on the point which he could have reached in one play with the slide. He was therefore (he said) pondering whether to omit the jump and go straight for the slide. This is the tewari aspect. However, tewari is usually limited to local situations. Kitani was obviously considering the difference between the two positions more globally, which is why I say "advanced tewari". As to how many moves by the opponent he considered, he looked at the hane against the jump and a block against the slide, i.e. just two. In the end he played the jump and was a bit taken aback when his opponent didn't hane! Again, the opponent, Iwamoto, didn't analyse much. He just reasoned that the hane left a cut behind it, and in the course of this game where he had to catch up territorially by using centre thickness to make territory by attacking a weak group of Kitani's, he couldn't afford to leave a potential weak group of his own. In short, pros spend most of their time thinking strategically rather than tactically.

Hi John

I've been following the Gu-Lee ten game match as covered by GGG and An Younggil. His commentaries give me the idea that they very accurately reflect the thinking that went on in the players' heads. Indeed, there are not so many variations but they are deep. I assume what goes on in the players' heads there is a quick dismissal of less promising moves early in the tree. Occasionally there will be a countrintuitive move like an empty triangle that happens to be best or some brilliant move that was hard to come up with. I can't see how these players find such moves without considering many moves at a time.

Where I agree with you (not that I have any authority) is that pros don't really count but keep a mental record of small gains or losses they incurred, not by counting them but assessing them through experience. As such they know they're about 2 points ahead, without actually having counted those 2 points.

Thanks for your insights

Dieter

Pros often miss the counter-intuitive moves - maybe much more often than we do! I have a hunch that when they do find them, it's often out of desperation. Knowing they are behind they have to look for something special.



I wrote about this a little while back. I'd like to repeat that this is my own interpretation of what they do. Although I'm pretty sure of it, I don't recall seeing anything by a pro that confirms it directly.

One thing I can add, though, is a comment by Yasunaga in which he said that a pro can count easily things like local josekis (I think he meant tewari), fuseki trades, boundary plays, ko threats and so on, it was impossible to count the value of an attack in the middle game. However, he did go on to say that it was fairly typical for the balance of a game to change by 20-30 points in the space of 20-30 moves in such a situation, and what is interesting about that is that, to me, is that it is the only pro confirmation I have ever seen of Rob van Zeijst's QARTS heuristic, where he says a weak group should be counted as -20. It would seem that Yasunaga agrees but puts the damage even a little higher.

See Igo Hatsuyôron's problem #120.

Inoue Dosetsu Inseki was well aware of this, I would like to assume.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

So Kono Rin lost his Kisei League game against Takao on Thursday for his fourth loss in a row. Time to put this stretch to bed and prepare for game 2 in the Meijin-sen next week, right? Well no, actually he has to squeeze in a game on Monday against Imamura Yoshiaki in the Judan final preliminary. So once again he will square off against Iyama on 9/18 on 2 days rest.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21