I was rather taken aback when looking at an article in the latest Gekkan Go World (Aug 2011). It caught my attention in the first place because of the heading which referred to scales falling from someone's eyes. The thing is, while I know what the phrase means (belated but sudden understanding of something) I've always thought of it as an extremely odd locution as I've never heard how dislodgeable scales get on eyes in the first place. I was amazed that such a meaningless phrase turning up in Japanese. I'm pretty it must have entered Japanase via an early translation from English The use of uroko (fish scale) for "scale" rather gives the game away. Even though I don't understand where the English version comes from, I'm pretty sure it's not a piscine origin.

It takes that sort of odd thing for me to get to look at a technical article, but when I did the scales rather fell from my eyes as well!

In the sequence in the diagram below (where, it is my impression, White 7 is becoming increasingly popular), Black 18 is classed a new move. It's not quite (Maeda played it in 1936) but it's very rare and has enjoyed a little flurry in recent times. The standard joseki move is at A, though it's possible to insert the atari at B first. In practice Black will have a stone around C of course. The joseki move at A leaves a huge amount of aji on the side. The key points for White are D then E, and/or F. I therefore took it for granted that Black 18 was a good, natural move and one I would have played. I was aware of the alternative at A, but thought it was just a matter of style. In fact A has all the bragging rights here. So scale #1 fell down. Something fishy here, I thought, so I read on.

[sgf-full](;AB[pd]AP[MultiGo:4.2.1]SZ[19]MULTIGOGM[1]
;W[nc];B[lc];W[qc];B[qd];W[pc];B[od];W[nd];B[oc];W[ob];B[pb];W[qb];B[nb];W[pa];B[ne]
;W[mb];B[md];W[na];B[of]LB[mf:A][mc:B][pj:C][rd:D][qe:E][qg:F])[/sgf-full]

Without explaining the wherefores, I was intrigued to see that the logic of Black 18 has also led to a re-appraisal of Black 16. If Black is going to play 18, there is a good case for omitting 16. One wherefore is that it leaves the possibility of the next diagram.

[sgf-full](;AB[pd][mb][od][nd][nc][me][nf][pj][kc]AW[oc][pc][pb][oa][nb][mc][md][lb]AP[MultiGo:4.2.1]
SZ[19]MULTIGOGM[1]
;B[ke];W[dp];B[kb]LB[ka:A])[/sgf-full]

This example reveals rather nicely I think why the author, Kono Rin 9-dan, has a good claim to be the best writer on joseki anywhere. Apart from the professional skill of identifying the novelties and their relative importance, he has a nice way of structuring his articles, managing to cover a lot of ground in the few pages allotted to him, while scattering valuable details round non-stop. In the present article, the aji details mentioned above are amply covered, for example. But I like also the kind of detail of Black 3 in this diagram - it threatens Black A. It's common to mention a follow-up move in a joseki. You might very occasionally get a follow-up of a follow-up. But a a follow-up of a follow-up of a follow-up? It's this kind of insight (scale #2 dropping) that he shows into the position that makes me all trembly with admiration for Kono's work.

I gave a more extended example of his work in Go Companion (The Fighting Chinese Fuseki), but the ideal would be to read his long series over several years in Gekkan Go World. I haven't looked at every instalment but from those that have inveigled me, I think you will see that he pinpoints the novelties authoritatively and has the knack of discussing the after-life of josekis maybe two stages beyond what you see in joseki dictionaries.

The joseki shown here has appeared in Game 1 of the Judan Final this year, BTW, if you want to look at in the wild (Cho U played it against Iyama).

My bet is it came to Japan via Christian missionaries.

"Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, 'Brother Saul, the Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here-has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.' Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength." (Bible, Acts 9:17-19)

A quick glance at a lexicon suggests that λεπιδες does refer specifically to fish scales, but IANAC.

According to GoGoD the starting position in the second example (i.e. omitting 16) first occurred in Hyeon Mi-chin, 2d - Nakazawa Ayako, 4d 1st Hungchang Cup, Round 1, 1999-09-30. Although it reverted on the next play as shown.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . 2 . . 5 . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . O . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . X O O X 4 |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . X X O . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . X . . . . . X O . O |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Kono Rin refers to an Takao-Iyama game but that is not in GoGoD yet.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Nice article! Does the expression "eye-scales falling off" you mention not refer to the scales they put on horses' eyes, to prevent them from being distracted by any traffic? At least, that's what you'd say in Dutch ("de oogkleppen vielen af")

_________________
My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

I wonder how many people caught the subtle play on words in the title there.

We call them blinkers, but I wouldn't be surprised if our cowboy brethren call them something else. I think the missionary link mentioned above explains the Japanese connection best.

Looking it up on the internet to satisfy own curiosity, I see that a modern version of the Bible has the ugly "something like scales fell away from Shaul's eyes", as if the translator wasn't sure of the meaning of the original word. However, the beautiful King James Bible has "And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales", turning it into a simile rather than the modern metaphor, and this suddenly makes sense. It is fish scales after all - they fall off dead fish easily and whatever it was that was blocking Saul's eyes fell away like fish scales. Rendering it as a metaphor makes you think (outisde of context) of cataracts or flaky skin and so on.

I've heard them called "blinders" over here. Not sure if that was from cowboys or not, though.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Yup, I've heard blinders in the U.S. Of course cowboys don't put blinders on their horses, so I don't think they'd have a special term for it. I assume by "cowboys" John was referring to Americans in general...

Too many ordinary moves (like the hanging connection) are called novelties. The reason for optionally omitting the atari is nice though.