Hello guys, Lately i have been interested in the path of Takemiya Masaki's Cosmic Go. However i can't seem to find anything on his specific style of play i would like to look at. I tried analyzing Pro games of his but i currently don't have the experience to analyze any closer. If i can have some materials that would help me understand his style of play better that would be great. thanks!

Yuan Zhou has written a series of books focusing on the styles of different players and has one on Takemiya:

Master Play The Style of Takemiya.

If you can read French there is a translation of a book by Takemiya himself where he analyses his own games:

Le Go Cosmique

I wish I could stop playing cosmic go. I always seem to end up playing a moyo game no matter what I do. I've tried setting myself extra rules to control it (e.g. no 4th line moves until move X), but they just seem to grow out of nowhere.

Hehe, I play double sansan and still often end up with centre :p

"Imagination of a Go Master" by Takemiya Masaki

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Greetings,
surprised no one mentions the book Cosmic Go, which explains in detail in English. I got my copy from Slate and Shell I seem to remember. It is in print and not expensive,
Regards,
Buri

Is this book specifically about Takemiya Masaki's cosmic go style or is it about someone else's cosmic go style?

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A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

When I was was participating in the summer go school hosted by the nihon kiin, Kobayashi Chizu-sensei said that the most important thing to understand in Takemiya's play style was to try to connect "lines" between your stones and separate "lines" in your opponent's stones. Takemiya, if i recall correctly, said that his play style was trying to bring the whole board together. But that one shouldn't aspire to copy him, but should try to find one's own style.

In Japanese books by Takemiya, he explains
- cap from the center no matter what even if it is on the 6th line as White
- consider center moyos as endgame boundary objects already early during the game
- rely boundary plays on reading (although he publicly pretended the maxim "don't read"; if necessary, make exchanges during the late middle game / early endgame)

Of course, he does not always go for the center.

Besides studying his games, you can study also games of other players with similar styles, such as mine as Black 2005-2010.

Why would anyone study a game from a player that needs at least four handicaps to play with a pro?

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At least 4 stones: nonsense.

Why? Because the principle developments of center strategy are very similar. The related drawbacks in my play (reading and endgame accuracy) can easily be ignored and studied in pro games (any pro games, not just Takemiya; preferably the classics because nowadays the time restrictions let pros also make (fewer) reading and endgame mistakes). For the other aspects of center strategy, my games are as good as Takemiyas; I could hardly notice another difference (except for a somewhat different playing style related to center moyos). If you think that there are differences that I overlook, please point them out! (But how can you when you don't study my games?;) )

Center moyo strategy is so infrequent in pro play that I had difficulties to find suitable examples for Joseki 1. My own games were a much more exhaustive source. Only somebody wishing to restrict his sources dramatically would reject amateur games entirely. It is your choice to keep a narrow mind;)

To be fair, the starter of the thread is "interested in the path of Takemiya Masaki's Cosmic Go" not "the path of RJ's cosmic go". Not saying that RJ's games might not be useful to him, but that is not his focus.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Studying a player's style is good - studying it in a broader context of similar styles is better. In particular, this eases recognition of what exactly is Takemiya's cosmic style in contrast to other cosmic styles: greater frequency of 4 hoshis and related josekis, large scale center connections (extensions) and center caps; starting center moyo development relatively early during a game, trying to get a center moyo suitable for winning as frequently as possible (although IIRC Takemiya had periods during which he tried it less frequently).

Neither, it is about 4 stone handicap games.

Oh, so you think that the OP asked about books rather than about style? Possible:)

Do you mean these books when speaking of H4 games? Le Go cosmique

http://bibliographie.jeudego.org/le_go_ ... masaki.php

(I do not recall whether these were such books with H4 games rather than even games of Takemiya himself. But I recall that Japanese books by him about cosmic go were much better addressing that topic. Unfortunately, I cannot dig out them quickly.)

??? My first answer gave the two books which I think best fitted what he wanted, namely books about Takemiya's cosmic style.



That is the 2nd book I mentioned, and not the H4 one Buri mentioned which I don't think is what the OP wants. I've only flicked through it at French bookshops, but think they are his even games.

Also Alexander Dinerstein has commented a few Takemiya games, you can get them at:
http://www.sanrensei.info/games.html

I know this is going off topic, but, what you're saying does not make sense at all.

About a month ago, I had a chance to play a simultaneous game with Yun Junsang 9p. I placed five handicap stones and lost by five points.

I think Robert you are a horribly weak player compared to pro strength. You also lost with me in 18? points, in a KGS game, if I remember correctly. Pro's also make mistakes in reading and endgame, but they are just nothing compared to mistakes that you make in KGS 4 dan level. I never studied your games, but your rank tells your strength, quality of your moves.

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Amsterdam, soon.

i dont exactly know how strong robert is but i am sure that professionals will give him 3 stone and never lose.

i remeber 7 Kyu level player publishing a handycap playing book saying that since he is a kyu level player he understand the frustrations other kyu level players go through. long story short... book was not successful.

if you are not professional level player.... you publishing book is not much different from that 7 kyu player above.
i am sure that he claimed that his playing is not much different from professionals.

keep making fools out of yourself by claiming that your book worth something.
it is annoying but in some persepective it is comical.

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1) Earlier you wrote "pro", now you write "9p". Of course, there is a difference between handicap needed "at least" against any pro and handicap needed "at least" against 9p. Ok, now it seems that you mean playing against 9p.

2) By experience, when playing real world games against 9p, I need at least 3 stones to have a good winning chance. My experience of such or similar games is only a small sample, so the exact number of handicap stones I need "at least" in real world games cannot be determined exactly.

3) Compared to real world games, I am - on average - "horribly weak" in go server games because byoyomi games is my weakest time setting and because of several other reasons (including escaping opponents, playing too much when tired etc.). In particular, my blunder rate in KGS games is the one I had as a real world ca. 3 kyu player.

4) When you compare my playing strength to pros, then you do not refer to 9p, but suddenly you appear to refer to any pros? IOW, you choose whichever most shocking reference you can find to support whichever argument you construct. Be serious by stating clearly which pros you mean for comparison! Clearly, you do not mean Taiwanese 1p, don't you?

5) It is quite possible that I lost to you by 18 points or whatever. Do you use one particular game to judge? Ridiculous! Everybody knows that different games can produce different results. Magicwand also cried that I would be a "very weak" players. If I used your style of argument, I could refer to a single particular game against him, in which I crushed him terribly. But... such ridiculous arguments are not my discussion style. Presumably "lovelove" on KGS is you; if so, then in the one game against me played recently, you had a good strategy. But so what - it is just one game. On that, you want to conclude that, because you need H5 against 9p, I would need H6 against 9p? I suggest you improve your handicap games!

6) Handicap games are a very weak reference. I do not exercise them for the sake at becoming particular strong at them because I prefer to play even games. (There are fun exceptions such as H9 versus 130 komi games against 5d opponents.)

7) The big mistakes I make on KGS I do not make in real world tournament games. You can criticise my relatively weak KGS play - but to conclude from that about my general playing ability is ridiculous.

8) Since you stress my KGS 4d rank, you should also stress that, at other times, I have KGS 5d rank. You do not even attempt to make fair statements, but you only pick the low examples. Why not instead pick the high examples and praise me for my current 2nd place in European 13x13 Championship?

9) As long as the KGS rating system punishes regular players, rewards partial escapers and allows real world 3d to occasionaly become KGS 9d, all arguments related to KGS ranks are dubious.

10) My KGS rank does not tell you my strength / weakness or the quality or missing quality of my moves but it tells you a mixture of rating system design, tiredness, escaping opponents and my move mistakes when playing on KGS.

11) Are you, on average, so relatively weak that you need to hide your real name?

12) Why do you meta-discuss me instead of discussing my games and moves? We could both learn from the latter!