Quotation reference:

viewtopic.php?p=150200#p150200



The words (‘the safe and sound move’ or ‘safe and simple’) used by you to describe honte may mean to you what you want them to mean, but are very ambiguous in their meaning when read by somebody not presuming your interpretation wish.

This is what we want:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B shall be honte
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | O . O , X . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . O X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

This is what we do not want:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B shall not be honte
$$ +-------------+
$$ | . X O 1 O . |
$$ | X X X X O O |
$$ | . X . . O . |
$$ | X X X X O O |
$$ +-------------+[/go]

The words 'safe and sound' or 'safe and simple' allow both kinds of moves. Now, you retreat to meta-discussion and saying that this was not what you meant. I prefer to clarify what we mean, because honte is a concept for everybody and everybody shall have equal chances to understand it well.

My words "[...] postpones the necessity for yet another local move until much later by eliminating aji and creating thick shape." identify that the second example above is not honte, because the move does not create thick shape. It does not create thick shape, because the black group already had thick shape; rather the move "adds" more thick shape to the group. Now, one can object that 'postpones', 'necessity', 'local', 'much', 'later', 'eliminating', 'aji' (when citing its informal definition), 'creating' and 'thick shape' (when citing) are all ambiguous. Indeed, they are. However, instead of retreating to "but this is not precisely enough what I meant", I encourage everybody to contribute to finding a solution for a better description of honte.

We are on the right track. 'safe', 'sound', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape' all play a role and all can be found in the literature, e.g., when professional writer A says "This is honte.", B says "This is honte; it becomes safe.", C says "This is honte; afterwards, Black can tenuki several times.", D says "This is honte; the shape becomes thick." etc. The statement A is the most frequent, but a study of the shapes called honte reveals that always all the mentioned properties apply. They are just not always all listed in informal texts. For the sake of teaching to ourselves and everybody what exactly is and what is not honte, we need to remove the remaining ambiguity and provide a general explanation, so that in every example we can always distinguish what is from what is not a honte.

For this purpose, I have an idea: honte improves the m-connected and the n-alive degrees of the group. Detailed values demand study, but it must be something like the following: the connection degree was at most 0-connected and becomes at least 1-connected; the alive degree was at most 0-alive and becomes at least 1-alive; preferably, the degrees become great.

This explains and removes the ambiguity from 'safe', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape'. Partially it does so for 'sound'.

However, there is more to honte. It must be distinguished from inside defense of only life or only endgame. We must also express that honte increases future potential, i.e., increases the outside influence. Since influence has been defined by me in terms of degrees of connection, life and territory, it can, in principle, be assessed unambiguously, if we set thresholds for the changes of values.

Furthermore, honte must be studied inhowfar it can be distinguished from more ordinary influence-/thickness-improving moves. Maybe it turns out that every such move with the aforementioned properties is a honte. Until, this is clarified, more study is needed.

I know, there are those preferring to do without values of degrees of connection and life. This is the smallest problem, because a modest degree of ambiguity can be reintroduced easily by informal descriptions along the lines "establishes a safe connection, establishes safe life, greatly increases outside influence".

Then we know what 'safe', 'sound' and 'simple' actually are: very good connection, very good life, great outside influence. Informally, a honte is a move creating these features for a group not having had them before the move.

This also means that honte is not an unsound move of reinforcing an already strong group.

Actually, no. There is no danger to Black in the second diagram, therefore safe does not apply.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill, "safe" does not apply, only if you presume that "creating a safe state" is meant for the move. This is part of what I try to clarify: we are also interested in the changes of degrees of safety. A group that already is *-connected and *-alive cannot be made more connected or more alive.

Robert, your definition of honte does not match the professional examples (I'm thinking #4 in particular here) in John's thread. This makes me suspect that the actual application of the term is broader, and possibly more ambiguous than you are trying to allow it to be.

I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here and suggest that this is partly due to you wanting to force the term into a tight pigeonhole where it doesn't quite fit

topazg, Black's second move in Example 4 of
viewtopic.php?p=150001#p150001

alters the connection- and life-degrees of the string, to which the played stone is added as a string-connection, as follows (I am guessing, careful verification would be needed):

- The degree of m-connection between a) the string and b) the upper black group OR the lower/center black group improves to 1. This is so, because, if White plays two successive moves to cut the string from the upper black group (Black makes 1 pass in between), Black can still play on to achieve a string- or direct connection to his lower/center group.
- The degree of n-alive improves to 1, because, with White's same attack, Black can still defend the string's life.

The move also improves the outside influence for several intersections in the neighbourhood in Black's favour, where Black can (play and) connect a stone more easily, he can (play and) live with a stone more easily, White can (play and) connect less easily, White can (play and) establish life less easily and Black's t-territory is improved.

Thus, Example 4 fits very well my drafted idea of a definition.

If all you have is a hammer...

The professional discussion and John's point rather illustrates that it was the move's impact on Black's group in the centre bottom that made the move honte, and that this is only apparent indirectly and some time later. If this is the case, the improved situation of the top group is real yet irrelevant. I'm not at all convinced this has anything to do with connectivity between the two groups, as they are still well and truly disconnected. I think a focus on that is rather missing the point.

Of course, without a professional on hand to comment, it's hard to be sure, but John's insight into professional thinking is I suspect the strongest of the three of us by some margin, purely down to background, experience and time spent on these sorts of works.

EDIT: Actually, I think the focus on the status trings is perhaps misdirected. A lot of professional play relies on when to treat strings as expendable and to seek adequate compensation for their sacrifice. I wonder even if a move that engineers a situation in which the opponent loses some of this flexibility could equally contribute in some way to a definition of honte.

This would be the hammer's view, because the stone's impact on its own string, on the upper black group and on the changes of influence would be overlooked.



No, because degree of connection can be determined already now.



You confuse visual appearance with tactical connection status. Let me also repeat that the connection status to the string is given for the upper and lower/center groups considered together.



The point is a clarification of whether the move is a honte. The point is not whether the lower/center group is assisted the most. (For that purpose, one would defend that group directly, instead of playing the remote move.)



It is one of many things one can consider for the position.



This is already implicitly contained in my draft of a definition, which includes the changes of outside influence, which includes those related to connection and life that are disadvantageous for the opponent, which implies less flexibility for the opponent to (then again) improve on connection or life.

EDIT: meta-discussion removed.

I quite agree

Well, I checked to make sure, but I have no reference that states that is honte. Capturing a stone that is in a ladder before a ladder breaker has been played is referred to as thick play. The Japanese Wikipedia article, which is based upon Otake's book, states that there is a subtle difference between the two.

----

Let me say that I am not sure of the reasons why you offer your own definitions for go terms. In the case of alive I do, because it has more than one meaning in regular usage and you need precision for your purposes. I do a similar thing with ko threat and eye. Another reason is to provide a different perspective. For instance, for sente, which also has multiple meanings, I can translate a couple of the meanings into mathematical terms, and, having done so, offer a meaning for double sente which clears up the confusion of go authors about the term. (In his yose book of a few years ago, O Meien avoids the term entirely. ) I have also identified and defined ambiguous plays, which are sometimes called sente and sometimes called gote in the literature.

One difference, I think, between John Fairbairn and me is that he leans towards prescriptive definitions of go terms, while I lean towards descriptive definitions. I still rely upon usage in go literature, and not just some amateur's bright idea. For instance, I do not say that joseki refers to any corner variation. It is plain that a definition offered by one pro does not always fit the usage of other pros -- or even his own! I do not mean disagreements over subtleties, either.

Now, perhaps your purpose is prescriptive, to say what we ought to mean by a certain term or terms. If so, more power to you. Maybe people will adopt your definitions. But if it is descriptive, then you need many examples from the literature, both positive and negative. (I suspect that both of your examples here are negative, but maybe not. )

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I have seen such descriptions for removing a ladder stone, but I do not recall where.



It is a move with multiple names. Other possible names are "capture" or "creating thick shape" or "thick shape move". Go terms are not always mutually exclusive. Especially, for move meanings, double names are pretty frequent. Different names for the same purpose do not generate a double purpose move.



I answer in the appropriate thread:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9177

Quotation reference:

viewtopic.php?p=150457#p150457



If it were a good definition, then it would explain what it is that must be safe and what it is that must be sound.

***

Concerning the suggestion by a few that honte must be defined in the global context, why? Honte, like anything else, must be VIEWED in the global context. However, for a definition, the local context suffices, because the local context can always be applied in the global context. 'Honte' is not the same as 'the only winning move'.

Feel free to use a dictionary. The terms are fairly easy to find. I'm sure with a few years of work you can define safe and sound.

What is it that shall be "safe"? The shape? The stability? The connection? The life? The territory? Something else? A combination of which of these aspects? Hint: if territory is unconditionally included, it might include endgame moves.

What is it that shall be "sound"? Apparently neither only "best local endgame" nor only "best enclosed life". Apparently it is not a substitute for "winning move". So what is it?

Hi Bill, I don't know if page 17 in Kageyama's Lessons in the fundamentals of Go
(the English version, May 1996, 4th printing) would be such a reference --
please double check it, if you have a copy of the book.

Thanks, Ed, I'll take your word for it.

Besides, someone else in another thread also mentioned the capture as honte.

To belabor my point with John Fairbairn, some commentaries say that the move is honte, others say that it is thick. IMO, that overlap is one reason that honte occurs so rarely in commentaries.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

So how about dropping honte and always speaking of thick move?:)

Because the two are not synonyms. There is great overlap, but there are honte that are not thick. For instance, http://senseis.xmp.net/?HonteLib6

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

This example move is thick: it creates thick shape and thickness (close to the edge, but thickness).

These discussions are great. I love it when high dans argue about things and even professionals disagree. That means I don't feel obligated to understand those things in order to get to 1 dan.

If a 1 dan can half-understand the fundamentals, awesome. Honte is rapidly showing up as something I don't have to understand beyond what has already been said, and since there is so much disagreement, I can safely ignore it for the time being, right?

Right.

_________________
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