Lines of Play That are Especially Difficult to Read

[lemmata]

I don't think that lines of play with many variations are necessarily complicated.

That's not what I said. "Numerous AND complicated" is what I wrote, not "numerous and THEREFORE complicated".

I am thinking of it more like Texas' holdem where one of the strategies is to increase the bids early on before the flop so that people don't get as much information to work with and can't predict the odds as well.

The key difference is that go is a game of "complete and perfect information" in the language of game theory. Poker is a game of "incomplete and imperfect information". The private information that each player has must be inferred in a probabilistic manner by combining the public information (the open flop cards and observed bids) with conjectures about the strategic behavior of the opponents. There is an information asymmetry to begin with since each player gets to privately observe his own two cards-in-hand. That is, you begin the game knowing something your opponent does not EVEN IF you are the weaker poker player. In go, even if you complicate the situation there is no such initial information asymmetry. In fact, the asymmetry of information only arises due to the number of moves one can read ahead. A stronger player will read ahead more moves and will therefore you will be the one with the relatively greater information deficit after a "clever" attempt to create a situation that is unreadable. It will still be partially readable. The difference is that it will be more readable for stronger players and less readable for weaker players.

As an amateur I used to prefer the simple enclosures, but if someone can read it out better you are in trouble.

You are likely in trouble if someone can read out a situation (be it a joseki, a center fight, or a corner enclosure invasion) better than you. It just so happens that corner enclosures require less reading to handle as long as you don't commit the sin of allowing the corner to be completely surrounded. Once the corner is surrounded, strong players are sometimes capable of creating dan-level life and death problems out of the situation. Of course, us weaker players complain, saying "My global judgment was better and I would have won if the strong player didn't unfairly kill my corner and its 15 points". However, the truth is that, many groups, when surrounded, can be reduced by squeezing even if they are allowed to live. Surrounded corner territory also has no potential for future greatness. A player likely has poor global judgment if he allowed such a situation to arise in the first place without taking big compensation elsewhere.

I am not sure if that's the kind of thing you are imagining, but playing corner enclosures will indeed simplify a situation in many cases if you have decent global judgment. Anyhow, I somehow get the feeling that you are looking too hard for ways to completely protect yourself from a deficit in reading ability. As a person who is not very good at reading, I am sympathetic to your cause, but there is sadly no magic bullet.

[SmoothOper]

I don't think that lines of play with many variations are necessarily complicated.

That's not what I said. "Numerous AND complicated" is what I wrote, not "numerous and THEREFORE complicated".

You inferred complicated from what I said. For the record simply numerous.

A stronger player will read ahead more moves and will therefore you will be the one with the relatively greater information deficit after a "clever" attempt to create a situation that is unreadable. It will still be partially readable. The difference is that it will be more readable for stronger players and less readable for weaker players.

Do you have an example of something that is only partially readable? I think that sounds very interesting. You may be on to something.

As an amateur I used to prefer the simple enclosures, but if someone can read it out better you are in trouble.

I am not sure if that's the kind of thing you are imagining, but playing corner enclosures will indeed simplify a situation in many cases if you have decent global judgment. Anyhow, I somehow get the feeling that you are looking too hard for ways to completely protect yourself from a deficit in reading ability. As a person who is not very good at reading, I am sympathetic to your cause, but there is sadly no magic bullet.

I don't think you understand how limited reading is.

[lemmata]

I don't think that lines of play with many variations are necessarily complicated.

That's not what I said. "Numerous AND complicated" is what I wrote, not "numerous and THEREFORE complicated".

You inferred complicated from what I said. For the record simply numerous.

You mentioned avalanche and magic sword, which are notorious for having many complicated variations. Therefore, I talked about situations in which there are many complicated variations. You responded to this by saying that lines of play with many variations are not necessarily complicated. Nothing in my post suggested that lines with many variations are necessarily complicated. I was simply talking about situations in which variations are numerous and complicated (such those involving avalanche or magic sword...which were given as examples by...you). Furthermore, if an opponent is better at reading than you are, then he will be able to read more variations. Even if we are talking about variations that are 2 moves long each, do you think that there will be more than 50 of them? If there are 50 such short variations and one side will lose a huge group in all but two of them, who is more likely to choose the better variation, the person who can look at 10 of them or the person who can look at 20 of them? This is so painfully obvious that I am almost worried that it may be impolite to state it.

I don't think you understand how limited reading is.

May I point out the extreme incongruity of decrying the limitations of reading while simultaneously starting a thread asking for ways to overcome the disadvantage one might experience due to inferior reading abilities? What superior alternative do we have? Even good global judgment is heavily dependent on good reading. Identifying urgent moves, which is probably the most important part of global judgment, often requires good reading. If you don't see the sequence that will make your group eyeless and send it running into the center, then you will not play the urgent move to preempt it. If you don't see the sequence that will get a good result against what looks like an overplay, then playing away does not mean that you have good judgment; it just means that you are reckless and gambling. Yes, reading by itself is quite limited because there are many possibilities in the game, that is why we also use intuition, experience, theory, and judgment with our reading. However, your use of those other tools must be backed up by reading most of the time. Doing otherwise is similar to shooting tip-less arrows at the weak points of a knight's armor. Of course, reading by itself is problematic as well. I really do not deny this. If you are unknowingly trying to achieve an inferior position on the board as an objective of your reading, then your reading abilities are working against you. It still does not change the fact that reading is important to executing other phases of the game well.

It is sometimes possible to settle the situation simply (and perhaps take some non-critical local losses) and use your sente more wisely than your opponent (or hope that your opponent uses his sente unwisely and plays bad fuseki points). But if there was a way to nullify your opponent's advantage in one of the most important aspects of the game at a discounted cost, then the game would be boring as heck. Life is like that. To quote a famous alchemist (cough/wink):

"In order to obtain or create something, something of equal value must be lost or destroyed."

[SmoothOper]

...reading by itself is quite limited because there are many possibilities in the game...

To drive the point home. This thread is about lines of play that frustrate a reading oriented player.

[illluck]

...reading by itself is quite limited because there are many possibilities in the game...

To drive the point home. This thread is about lines of play that frustrate a reading oriented player.

What point?

Anyways, the way to play against someone who is good at reading is to play more globally, NOT playing complex local fights.

[Shaddy]

I don't think you understand how limited reading is.

I don't think you understand how powerful reading is.

[oren]

If this thread is about trying to win against someone who reads better, give up. The better reader will win a majority of games. There is a reason why tsumego and tesuji are so highly rated.

[SmoothOper]

If this thread is about trying to win against someone who reads better, give up. The better reader will win a majority of games. There is a reason why tsumego and tesuji are so highly rated.

Doesn't seem like a convincing argument. Better readers read better so play easy to read lines so they can read better. It seems like better readers would facilitate difficult reading conditions, maybe the better readers aren't all that good at reading in the first place, and they just memorized their tsumego and tesuji.

[oren]

Doesn't seem like a convincing argument. Better readers read better so play easy to read lines so they can read better. It seems like better readers would facilitate difficult reading conditions, maybe the better readers aren't all that good at reading in the first place, and they just memorized their tsumego and tesuji.

I'm not trying to make a convincing argument. I'm not going to to try to convince someone the sky is blue either, I will just tell them.

This is like trying to find a way to be a better golfer without actually swinging a golf club.

[lindentree]

Doesn't seem like a convincing argument. Better readers read better so play easy to read lines so they can read better. It seems like better readers would facilitate difficult reading conditions, maybe the better readers aren't all that good at reading in the first place, and they just memorized their tsumego and tesuji.

Projection much? Aren't you trying to learn/memorize lines of play to compensate for your own lack of reading ability?

[SmoothOper]

Doesn't seem like a convincing argument. Better readers read better so play easy to read lines so they can read better. It seems like better readers would facilitate difficult reading conditions, maybe the better readers aren't all that good at reading in the first place, and they just memorized their tsumego and tesuji.

I'm not trying to make a convincing argument. I'm not going to to try to convince someone the sky is blue either, I will just tell them.

This is like trying to find a way to be a better golfer without actually swinging a golf club.

OK another sports analogy, I don't play golf, but from what I understand golfers prefer to keep it on the green and fair weather, so. Does it matter if the golfer has a better swing, if the game is in White Sands New Mexico or during a hurricane? Probably but not as much.

[oren]

So rather than practice swinging, you would attempt to make sure to play only in hurricanes?

You won't become a better golfer praying for bad weather. You have to practice the basic skills to get stronger.

[SmoothOper]

So rather than practice swinging, you would attempt to make sure to play only in hurricanes?

You won't become a better golfer praying for bad weather. You have to practice the basic skills to get stronger.

No, I would just wait until rains so that I could get cheap greens fees because I am unwilling to pay $40 for stupid game like golf.

[oren]

I think what you want is the opposite of the topic title. You want lines that are easy to read. Lines that are especially difficult to read are going to favor the player who enjoys reading.

In fact some pros won't play long one way street joseki because they want to leave the board more complex. It sounds like you want easy to read games that are the opposite of that where the joseki will dominate everything else.

[SmoothOper]

I think what you want is the opposite of the topic title. You want lines that are easy to read. Lines that are especially difficult to read are going to favor the player who enjoys reading.

In fact some pros won't play long one way street joseki because they want to leave the board more complex. It sounds like you want easy to read games that are the opposite of that where the joseki will dominate everything else.

Actually, ideally I want lines that are easy to read for me and difficult for my opponent. In this thread, however I am interested in discussing the nature of difficult to read lines, preferably simple and difficult to read.