Amateurs often wonder how much difference it makes when a pro plays a teaching game as opposed to really trying. A Japanese amateur put this to the test, with a rather astonishing result.

I have just been adding to the GoGoD database a game missing from Kitani's collected games, and feeling idle decided to read the background.

A strong amateur had already played Kitani on 5 stones in 1938. His grade was 1-dan, which in those days meant a top amateur, and it seems he could play other pros on 4 stones (Kitani, at 8-dan, was no ordinary pro, of course).

After the war, when Kitani was embroiled in a match with Fujisawa Kuranosuke, Fujisawa passed on a request from this amateur to play Kitani on 9 stones, with the proviso that Kitani would play full out and with time limits of ten hours each.

Kitani accepted and won. That is remarkable enough, but the nature of his play makes it much more remarkable. He did not try any rip-offs and did not kill any groups. In fact he surrendered a large group of his own to get a squeeze. Only 151 moves are known, stopping at a point when the amateur let a ko occur, but by then is clear that in terms of territory the game was already fairly even (though in Black's favour), so the usual mantra that a pro wins in handicap games by clawing back most of the handicap in the endgame clearly did not apply here.

Another remarkable fact is that Kitani made nothing of this game. It was one of over 500 in his own handwriting only discovered when he died in 1975.

The background also revealed an anecdote about Kitani's famous stubbornness. During the war, having to feed a large family and pupils in Hiratsuka, which meant creating and tending a kitchen garden, he heard that there were many wild goats around Lake Yamanaka. So he walked there, some 50 kilometres, got one (or some, it's not clear), and tugged it all the way back home. The goat naturally wanted to stop and chew grass at every opportunity, so it was a long, long journey. But Kitani won again!

He doesn't sound like a strong amateur. 9 stones should level the random kgs 1 dan with Lee Sedol.

Do you have a link to the game?

_________________
My go YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DragonfistGaming
My website: http://learnbaduk.com/

Thanks, John, I _love_ reading such background stories.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

KGS is generally EGF+1. An 8 dan kgs player is 7 dan egf and a 9 dan kgs player is pro strength. EGF 6 dan players are usually 7 dan or 6 dan on KGS, for instance Cornel. Also, 9 stone handicap makes up for like 11 rank difference, not 9.

_________________
My go YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DragonfistGaming
My website: http://learnbaduk.com/

Not really, unless that "EGF 3k" is a French sandbagger. I know EGF 1ds who are KGS 1d too. And I'm EGF 4d and KGS 3d at blitz (I don't have a solid ranked serious account any more, but would be 4d I suppose). Though I do agree Lee Sedol is more than 9 stones above KGS 1d, but more likely 11 or so rather than 15 (based on him vs Andy Liu KGS 9d being about 3 stones).

But anyway, I would like to see the game too but maybe we'd need to wait for the next GoGoD. I wonder if he was weaker than me (not a strong amateur) so can I identify his mistakes (of course Kitani's moves can help me do that); I think Lee Sedol would struggle to give me 9 stones in a slow game. My guess is he played passively, too respectful of Kitani sensei, but then again John said he captured something and got squeezed so maybe he did have some aggression.

Like I said 9 stone hc is more than 9 ranks difference. It's closer to 11. I think a kgs 2 dan like me would have a slight advantage with 9 stones.

_________________
My go YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DragonfistGaming
My website: http://learnbaduk.com/

I would have bet on Kitani for this one. 10 hours is a marathon of all-out psychological war. It is unlikely the amateur was prepared for that aspect.

OTOH, there is a more fun theory...

You may wish to recall that Yasunaga Hajime had a 4-dan pro diploma and was a pupil of Honinbo Shusai. He was no slouch at go, and was famous in his middle days for making mincemeat of young pros when giving lots of stones. But, taking stones, he confessed he met his match in handicap play in Go Seigen, who beat him down to 4 stones.

I think it's useful to allow for the possibility that certain pros have a transcendental quality where number logic about grades goes out of the window. This probably applies more so to the older generations of pros who had to play lots of handicap games for patrons. No doubt they learnt many embarrassing but useful facts about the anatomy of amateur go. Yi Se-tol probably has this quality, but perhaps lacks as much experience of playing amateurs as the likes of Kitani.

However, some amateurs can hold their own. Historically, there is the case of Shinomiya Yonezo. Some rate him the strongest ever amateur, and he was famed as the strongest player of weak amateurs in Japan around 1800. He was reputed to have won a fortune of 3,000 ryo (of the order of $1 million today) but dissipated it all on fast living. He was regarded as professional 5d in strength, with the ability to see far ahead in fights, though with bad style.

His daimyo took him to Edo in 1820 to challenge the Honinbo family. As the request came from such a high source Honinbo Genjo had to accept it. Having heard from a pupil who knew Yonezo in Kyoto about his crude but strong fighting, he chose Honinbo Jowa to play him. Jowa overwhelmed him, and when Yonezo applied for a 3d diploma he was rejected as too weak. Angered at loss of face before his lord, he challenged Jowa to a match at 2 stones. Jowa won 6-4-1 and Yonezo (then about 50, though on the other hand Jowa was not yet at his peak) was given his 3d diploma and allowed to call himself a Honinbo pupil. He even beat the aged Genjo on 3 stones. He was given 4d in 1824.

He was proud of his self-taught status and took the style Isshou Kenmuan (All my life without a desk [to study on] - there's a great server handle you can filch!) late in life to signal this, but he also admitted that he had not believed anyone could give him two stones.

I heard a Chinese pro say that handicap stones are not that good a measure of strength difference because if white is a pro it is often possible to negate black's influence. He prefers reverse komi, because there is no erasing that.

You are ignoring amateur rank inflation. Also, there has been a narrowing of pro ranks. At one time a 9 dan could give 4 - 5 stones to a (pro) shodan. Now it's more like 2 stones, but you don't see serious pro-pro handicap games anymore. And sometimes pro shodans beat pro 9 dans even! In part this narrowing is the result of 9 dans getting relatively weaker, but it is more like pro shodans getting stronger.

And you may be underestimating Lee Sedol.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.