I've heard it said that Go Seigen wouldn't give ground even if way ahead. I think I've heard similar things about Kajiwara. Other pros seems to have a style of playing just enough to win and no more, using precise positional judgement to adjust the aggressiveness of their plays. I'm assuming the latter is more typical of successful pros, so I'm curious about which pros don't - going all out even when ahead and not playing overplays even if behind. Any suggestions beyong Go Seigen and Kajiwara? Any of the current top players?

I am not sure these necessarily go together. Cho Chikun seems to keep the pressure on. I remember Mingjiu Jiang 7p reviewing a game of Lee Sedol, shaking his head at one point and saying about a move of Lee's when he was already well ahead: "This is not a move to play just to win... this is a move to play to break the opponent's spirit."

Go Seigen doesn't seem necessarily mean spirited, maybe he does have a bit of that Roman soldier professionalism and mental efficiency, "Practices were bloodless battles, battles were bloody practices". I think Cho Chikun will play honte moves in the lead, at least that is what his book on positional judgement leads me to believe. I gather that Lee Sedol's style isn't amenable to easing up, because his positions aren't in themselves all that thick or solid, and aren't built for a tortuous end game.

One question: Exactly what does "best move" mean? I think playing so as to guarantee you win when you are ahead could well be the best moves. After all, the goal is to win the game, isn't it? And trying for more often entails a risk. Winning by a point or two and winning by resignation after killing a big group have the same result as far as the tournament is concerned.

I know Takagawa Kaku was the type to play the most 'correct' move that would lead him to victory. He could do this on the strength of his counting and positional analysis. He wouldn't compromise this Go unless it was strictly necessary. As far as this approach is concerned, he was always looking for the 'best' move.

Players like Kato Masao and Won Seongjin, fighters and killers, by definition will not look for the optimal, long-term move. No one will argue, however, that their Go is ineffective or undisciplined. It's the difference between going for the slow poisonous kill or powerfully chopping until one finds an opening to deal the death blow.

Incidentally, I've noticed that where the former group is concerned, their books talk at length of the board position, the underlying relationships between the stones, the unplayed variations, etc. The latter tend to bring up ideas that deal with instinct (well honed instinct borne of harsh practice, mind you) and game psychology. It's important for a killer to be feared and respected on the board, and their aggressive maneuvers, while not 'optimal' as reflected in Go theory, lead to results which are at least as good.

I have always played 'the opponent' before, and I have to say Go has much greater appeal than most games I've tried. And I can truly enjoy playing 'the board'. But strength can come from each approach, and every player ultimately ends up as a lighter or darker shade of grey.

I think my original post wasn't clear, but the replies so far are still interesting. What started me thinking about this was a comment in a game of Go Seigen's to the effect that he wouldn't give his opponent 2 extra points to settle an area, even if it led to a clear win. I think it is almost certainly true that adjusting your play to whether you are ahead or behind increases your chances of winning, so by many standards such moves are best. However, some players seem to have a different standard. If I had to be precise, I'd say that these are plays that don't alter the (theoretical) score assuming perfect play on both sides. In that setting overplays/playing for complications never works (since the opponent is perfect) and giving ground to avoid complications is never beneficial (since you are perfect). Clearly this is never an accurate description, but I find it an appealing goal - play for the result that the position deserves, whether that is a win by 2, a win by 20, or a loss by 5, etc.

I suspect few modern pros can afford this luxury as it is likely to hurt their overall winning percentage. Go Seigen was so dominant he may have been able to indulge in this, and occasional pros will because it is more important to them than winning, but I suspect it is rare.

I hadn't thought about the player's whose style was to play for all out fights early on. Once such a fight starts there isn't much difference between winning the fight and winning the game, so these questions aren't so relevant to them.

This game between Sakata Eio and Otake Hideo, may be what you are talking about.
http://eidogo.com/#2xeNUH:0,4

There is this weird ko that looks smallish, but at the end and Sakata Eio ends up killing a big group.

It's an interesting discussion given that we are talking about professionals and their styles.

When we discuss amateurs though I think the context changes significantly. In game reviews, my pro teacher is always telling me I need to go for the most spirited moves. If I tell him that I counted the position and felt another move would be adequate to win, he always reminds me of the same thing. "If you want to win and remain as a 2 dan, you can play where you want to play. If you want to one day be 5 dan, you should play here, but maybe you could lose this game."

I think one takeaway from that is that for amateurs, unless it's a huge tournament like a congress, all games are for training, and the goal is long term improvement. For pros, all games are for your livelihood.

I often hear the term most severe move rather than "best" move for what you are looking for. The most severe move will always attempt to get the most out of a position rather than go for the winning move.

Remembering that amateur 2d and 5d are really weak players from the propoint of view, your move may have been a mistake because it gave your opponent too much but a 2d opponent wouldn't be able to take advantage of your mistake while a 5d would. Thus you should play a more severe move. You might lose the game because you don't know how to handle that move. If you want to get stronger you have to try these moves that you don't yet fully understand.

Phoenix cites Kato Masao as a player with a fighting style but, interestingly, his reputation as a "killer" stems from his early style. In the middle of his career, when he was number one in Japan, his style was less aggressive, and later he became famous for his endgame play . As he advanced in his career his play became less and less aggressive. His "new" less aggressive style was successful as he won the Honinbo title late in his career, at an age where most players have dropped back from the top.

Pros have a lot of pride, and playing this way is often seen as the prerogative of the professional. Especially if you aspire to the top class.

There are notable exceptions, of course. Before I go further...



And carrying on.

On the subject of getting the most out of each move, Takagawa Kaku gave some of his opponents a strange feeling with his Go. His page on SL tells the anecdote of Hashimoto Utaro who was thrown off by his 'lukewarm' moves. He simply played a course which would win in the end, and not playing quite like other pros. I believe Lee Changho gave Otake Hideo the same feeling. Hane Naoki is a player who self-professes to play sequences that a pro would not think to make because they are sub-optimal and beneath them. With his thick and mathenatical style, though, he can pull it off.

And of course professional styles change throughout their careers. One notable example, of course, is Kitani Minoru, who was said to have changed his style five times. The pro needs to win to make a living. To win, one must adapt to both the playing field and one's capabilities and experience. Kato Masao did himself a favor by changing his own play. I believe the reason he won the Honinbo so late in life is that he played the Go he was personally meant to play at that time.

Cho Chikun said something similar about Lee Changho to the effect of, "He won, but I can't figure out how he did it."

In Nick Sibicky's most recent video he explained that Lee Changho doesn't really study the opening. He only works on the mid game and end game. This means his opening is sub-optimal and so basically he just lets his opponent get everything they want at the start of the game. Entering mid-game his opponents seem to be 20-30 points ahead, but he works his way back a few points at a time until, by the end of the game, he wins. So yes, his opponents often times leave the game confused about how they got everything they wanted in the opening, felt they were winning by a large margin, but still lost the game.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

I still think that the concept of "best move" is not precisely defined. "Most severe" doesn't do it because "severe" itself isn't clearly defined. Using perfect play as a reference doesn't work either because perfect play isn't clearly defined. For example, by perfect play do we mean moves that guarantee winning? There might well be such strategies and moves that we would feel represented different styles of play. Maybe there is a fighting style sure-win strategy and also there is a "lukewarm" style sure-win strategy. Now which of those is best? In the end it is a matter of personal preference. Even such terms as fighting smack of personal interpretation; one person's lukewarm might be another person's urgent fighting. And it seems this is also dependent on the player's strength. Pro's feel urgency about a joseki-like move that loses them one or two points in an early stage of the opening, something we weak amateurs might not even be aware of.

Still going all out when ahead is only part of what I mean - equally it means not making even overplays even when behind. This is usually the pro advice for playing white in handicap games : just play the normal move and black's inferior play will show itself. This is complicated by the fact that winning handicap games is often not the point for pros.

If one wants a precise definition of "best", here's one try: given perfect play by both sides, the result of the position is B/W wins by some number of points. Either side can play poorly and change the score in their opponents favor, but nothing they can do (assuming the opponent plays correctly) can shift it more in their direction. Of course there may be more than one move that leads to this result, and those would have to be considered equally valid.

I put "best" in quotes because this is far from the only definition one could have. It could be to play any move that doesn't change the outcome with perfect play but where changing the score is irrelevant. I think that is off from our intuition, since then literally any move in a lost position is equally good. However, given that people don't play perfectly, one could instead define best as maximizing the chance to win, which involves assessing the certainty about the evaluations, which moves lead to complications, the opponent's strengths and weaknesses, etc.

My guess is that this second, more practical version is what most pros try for. I'm curious about those that don't.

The way I've seen it used is that you try to gain the most points or benefit from your move ignoring the fact that a simpler move may be enough to guarantee victory. In a post game discussion during the Asia TV match there was discussion about Iyama playing a simple strong endgame move where a more severe move may have ended the game. Since he wasn't sure of the result of the more severe move, he played the simple move.

Another way of thinking about it is that the 'best' move is a different kind of move in different situations. It may well be that the position is such that a spirited fighting move is the only way to reclaim the lead. When Lee Changho lost to the very young Shin Jinseo, the game was a dynamic one, despite Lee's best efforts. This took him out of his comfort zone and he ended up making a mistake.

Humans have a very limited capacity as far as reading out complex game trees with many candidate moves is involved. This is why we use generalized terms such as 'thickness' and 'influence' to dictate 'best' play. The best way to play within these parameters could only be correctly assessed by some god or maybe a supercomputer. As far as humans are concerned, we do our best with reading and positional analysis, and experience helps a lot here.

Since there is a lot of uncertainty left in Go, among other factors this gives rise to 'styles' and other such specialization. Because we can't crack it, the game is still a very psychological one, and skill specialization remains important.

So, you are looking for a professional who completely lacks fighting spirit? Good luck with that.

I think for a while Kang Tong-yun would resign games he was losing by even a half a point. That shows a lot of respect for the level of his opponents' play.