Watching some baduk tv english videos lately ive seen the pros comment a lot of times that "so and so is complicating the situation" and it is always the player who is behind, when they are trying to do some attack to catch up. I guess by complicating the situation it makes the result less clear, which is what the person who is behind wnats, whereas the other pro oftentimes plays the simplest or clearest move they say, which is because they are ahead.

Thinking about this I realize I think we amateurs tend to cause big fights and such, making the game unclear, which we shouldnt do unless we are behind. What do you think about this?

And I think the phrase "Pros don't play the strongest move, but the best move to win" comes down to this simplifying the game idea, where there might be better moves but they are more risky and the simplest moves are enough.

As a pro looses the number of ways to win become narrower. Like watching the recent election in the US for example. As states fell to Obama, the paths to victory became narrower for Romney and more complicated, after loosing Ohio, he had to win Wisconsin Iowa and Virginia, which is a complicated scenario, however if Romney had won Ohio then the results would have been much less clear, since there were many ways to win. Applying this to go a complicated situation is not necessarily an unclear situation. For example there are many complicated life and death situations where the outcome is known. Also I feel the results of fights are pretty easy to read out, since the fights tend to have a sequence of forcing moves.

I don't really get the political analogy, wouldn't use it here.

From what you said I don't think you get what I mean, its not a simple L&D fight that they cause, but they do some kind of attack or invasion or they start a fight between say 3 groups and try to cause much chaos around the board in order to allow chances for territory to switch or trades/groups dieing.

Its not just one attack or something like that...

I might be able to give an example later when I get out of school.

Exactly it. Basically I think one thing we don't think about as non-pros is this kind of thing, whether you need to attack or not.

Im not saying we don't see who is ahead and etc, but they judge the position way more accurately and they don't play complicated moves unless they are losing, and if they are they do it very much so.

Very common to be heard is a korean pro say someone is "complicating the situation" or they are "going all out" before they resign, or comeback.

I'm not sure I see the difference between Shobu te and a well timed invasion. Invasions and territory reductions are pretty standard fare for strategy.

Shobute is essentially the game deciding move. Various invasions and territory reductions happen all the time but a shobute is a move which can be a game deciding conflict.

I think this is an excellent topic to bring up, but disagree that it is the hallmark of a pro.


Breakfast has an excellent way of talking about this I find, when discussing possibilities at a juncture in a review, he will give appraisals like:

"Yes, this was an active way for white"

"Because you are behind, you must choose a more active way. This was too passive."

"You are ahead so there was no need to play so actively here". ("It was too risky")


I am under the impression people generally do this themselves/already (and is the entire point of counting/positional judgement).

You do hear people brag about always choosing the toughest/most active path on principle (or just not counting), but that is not the best way to win.

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When you're ahead and want to settle things down, would it be a good idea to play all your forcing moves at once before fortifying your territory? This would solidify both your positions and your opponent's and make it harder for either of you to cause mischief (which would suit you but not them). Or is it a better idea to keep some threats in reserve?

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Poka King of the south east.

@TheBigH

Not really. If you have good sente then sure, but arbitrarily forcing where you can force may strengthen your opponent too much and actually become risky. Or at least, lose ko threats.

Also: I wanted to second the opinion that invasions are not necessarily dangerous, and a well timed invasion may be the most secure move.

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

OK, that makes sense, thanks.

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Poka King of the south east.

I was looking up some info on the Shusaku Fuseki one day, because I wanted to learn more about the Shusaku Diagonal. And Sensei's said that the purpose of that move (the diagonal) was to prevent White from over complicating the corner. It makes sense to me, In most things in life, the simplest way is often the best, and easiest way.

Maybe a problem for amateurs is trying to be clever? I know I have that problem. I'll make a move that I think at the time is so clever, and unique, and I'll sit back and say "Man, I'm like a little mini Fujisawa Hideyuki. Look how clever my move is!" And then later, my plan fails because it was too weird and I didn't read it out, and it wasn't the best move at all. It was a bad move. I tried to show off instead of win and i should have played what i knew would work and not be greedy.

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Lose 1,000 games? Challenge Accepted.

Back to the topic of shobute, I was watching commentary of the meijin match.



The professional commentator at move 110 predicted move 111 and said this in the commentary

"勝負手で切るよりなさそうです"

There doesn't seem to be a better move than cutting with a "shobute"

Yea that looks about right for a move that the pros said was "all in". Basically a move that was usually overplay, lead to confusion, or was uncertain like that.