To clean up Tami's study journal, my messages about thickness descriptions are moved here. This thread here is not restricted to only references to Tami's thread but available for unrestricted discussion.



Quotation reference: viewtopic.php?p=116789#p116789



This is much less informative than characterising thickness by degrees of life, connection and territory potential.



Reply reference: viewtopic.php?p=116791#p116791

Just "thickness" without any degree is even easier to understand. The effort of understanding well is worth it so that better strategic planning becomes possible.

E.g., in the simpler model, a wall with two eyes can be useless if it cannot make any territory. A wall with two eyes but, after an opposing move, less than two eyes is not, as the simpler model claims, top grade thickness. A wall without weaknesses and not 100% alive need not be "medium-grade thickness" but can be just an attacked burden. Etc. The simpler model causes trouble without end. To defend it, you need to invest as much effort as you would need to invest in my proper model.

Invest that effort and you avoid problems of misleading information.

It is possible to consider simplifications of my model. E.g., one can say "with territory potential" instead of calculating the amount precisely. E.g., one can require "at least 1-connected and at least 1-alive" for calling something "great thickness"; determining this is easy enough. Whenever one needs more information, one can drop simplifications and my model provides a meaningful detailed answer. The simpler model has no such fall-back option apparent from the model itself.



Quotation reference: viewtopic.php?p=116799#p116799



A wall without any territory potential can be thickness currently without any additional territory potential, as in these cases:
- the wall protects current territory
- the presence of the wall limits movement potential of opposing groups
- the wall could gain territory potential as a consequence of an executed ko threat; then it is better if the wall already is thickness than if it is not already thickness



1) The Japanese definition: what is it? Please write it down!

2) That those using "the Japanese definition", according to you, would fail to consider properties of a wall just because currently it does not have additional territory potential would be another reason to criticise them because they would ignore useful information.



Linguistically this would provide more information than English "thickness" without extra adjective, but the accurate size of the degree(s) is not specified by suffixes, isn't it?



Thickness does not have a uniform development. So a regular and predictable meaning of the word would be misleading. The fact that a degree changes is insufficient information; one must also know the value(s) of degree.



Good information is not a shock but welcome.





Quotation reference: viewtopic.php?p=116840#p116840



Indeed. (I have just talked about walls because earlier talk was about them, to keep discussion simpler.) In my definition (Joseki 2 Strategy, p. 90), in general I speak of "a player's group of stones".



This is not disputed. What I have been referring to is the impact of opposing plays possibly threatening the life status, i.e., requiring an answer. Those groups not requiring an answer after a few successive opposing approach plays have a higher degree of life than those requiring an answer.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?NConnection
http://senseis.xmp.net/?NAlive



Respect of other opinions is something different than respecting their contents and its validity. WRT to respecting other opinions, Voltaire has suggested the standard. WRT to contents, I respect such that is true or good and has convincing justification. I criticise such contents that is false, weak and lacks convincing justification. Respect towards bad contents encourages bad contents to prevail. I do not have this kind of respect because I want good contents to prevail.



You are invited to prove that it is not. Citation:

"_Thickness_ of a player's group of stones has these properties:
- The stones are m-connected to each other.
- The stones are n-alive.
- [The territory potential...]"

This is the formal version. My informal version (p. 77) is:

"_Thickness_ of a player's group of stones has these properties:
- They are well connected.
- They have good life potential.
- They protect or have good potential for making territory."

For your reference, these definitions imply
- stones (especially on the outside) radiate influence and have potential for making additional territory directly by enclosing it or indirectly by attacking the opponent,
- thickness increases with eye value, thicker shape, less aji, better board division lines insurmountable for the opponent.

Do you doubt any of the three properties? Do you doubt that any of the implications is indeed an implication of the three properties? Is any necessary property that is not an implication missing? Is any of the three properties not necessary but superfluous? Can degrees be described well by simpler values than the m-connected and n-alive values 0, 1, '2 or greater', which suffice in practice when speaking of thickness (rather than of weaker influence stones)?



It has the merits of
- specifying the necessary properties
- leaving implications as implications instead of confusing them with necessary properties
- omitting superfluous properties
- being general
- being as precise as needed
- still being as simple as possible to maintain the aforementioned aspects
- being instructive



We have understood that:)



In English, we would say "sphere of strong influence".



Aims, aji, potential territory are advanced features, and influence can be considered as an extra concept. So a good starting point is (good degrees of) life and connection.



This version is better than your previous version.

We agree that (this form of) thickness is constituted as the stones themselves, that thickness is related to being strong (or "powerful"), that thickness has degrees, that being alive is better / stronger than having the possibility to die and that [shape] weaknesses and defects lower degree(s).

Your text has these shortcomings:
- it uses two instead of one words for strength: strong, powerful
- it uses two instead of one words for weakness: weakness, defect
- a living group can die, so it is not clearly specified what distinguishes a top-grade living group from a medium-grade might-die-group (suggestion: use 'at-least-2-alive' instead of 'living')
- groups without shape weaknesses can be strong even if their life is generated not by eyes in the wall but by extensions or connection options; this is hard to derive from your text because it misses degree of connection as a general property
- it is unnecessarily complicated because of the aforementioned aspect, the two words weakness and defect used, the use of the realated implications; instead, using only the one word 'connection' together with a degree would be simpler and more basic




Quotation reference: viewtopic.php?p=116860#p116860



Go terms are universal and their meaning is not restricted by origin from only one country.

Quotation reference: viewtopic.php?p=116878#p116878



When speaking of dynamic usage of ordinary thickness, turning it into great thickness is one possibility. Other possibilities include

- establish great thickness elsewhere
- sacrifice / exchange
- fight using already the ordinary thickness (e.g., because also the opponent might have nothing better yet than ordinary thickness)
- make territory (early during the game, this is not the major usage but a possibility nevertheless)