I am having trouble focusing on the idea of sente and gote in my games.

When is it right to make a gote move? If the value of the move is large enough? Obviously keeping sente is good, but when is losing sente worth it? Is a major part of keeping sent knowing more sequences so you can tell if they end in sente or gote?

Advice (and examples to look at) are appreciated!

At the beginning level you have not learned enough to be able to judge sente and gote very well. Some moves are clearly one or the other. But other are not so clear. If you really want to learn whether you should answer your opponent's move, don't. If you should have answered, give him the chance to prove it.

Aside from that, the general rule is sente-gote-reverse sente.

Later on, you will learn about different kinds of sente and whether it is good or bad to play them.

_________________
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At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

A good rule of thumb is that if you find yourself hoping that the opponent doesn't respond the move is sente, and if you're hoping that he doesn't play elsewhere, it was actually gote.

I would focus on trying to assess the size of a move and the size of a follow-up first, if you are having trouble with sente and gote. Often my own mistake about sente and gote are connected to general problems with positional judgment and misreads. The more comfortable you are reading ahead, the better you'll evaluate what you've read out.

It also helps to have a strategy. If you believe that making your weak group live is the biggest thing on the board, suddenly all sorts of moves that threaten to live become sente.

In the same vein as Polama...

If your opponent responds, then your move was sente.
If he plays somewhere else and you respond to that, then your original move was gote.
If he plays somewhere else and you follow up on your original move... You get the drift.

This whole sente/gote situation is essentially a game of chicken. Each move is like a bet and your opponent decides whether or not he/she needs to respond. Make sure your move has a good follow-up and your opponent should respond.

At your level, if your opponent doesn't respond and doesn't threaten to kill a group, I would advise to stick to your follow-up and not look back. You thought your move was best, and that's the time to prove it.

You'll learn very quickly about the value of moves, and your game will become much more efficient.

As a beginner, instead of thinking sente/gote, maybe it's better first to just think about not following your opponent's moves all the time. Think about playing in the biggest area after you have made your weak groups safe.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
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Go is such a beautiful game.

Please tell me that this is a typo!

Usually, 1) double sente, 2) sente, 3) reverse sente, 4) gote.

Bill (or an imposter) has discussed this a bit here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?WhenToPlayAReverseSente

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be immersed

Let's not complicate things for beginners. Double sente are the largest plays on the board. At the same time, things that are called double sente may not be. Even Kano, who authored the Yose Dictionary, was confused about double sente.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thank you all for the advice! There are some ways of thinking about the sente/gote mentioned here that I had not thought of before.

That is a good question. Many times it is possible to accept fewer local points but in a way that allows you to get sente globally. However, it is difficult to fight those greedy instincts that tell you to get profit, captures and influence now, and also kind of risky, because you might have to prove that a group is alive.

One example of what SmoothOper was saying is a full monkey jump (ogeima shape), which can often be gote, vs a shorter (keima shape) one, which is generally sente. One trades a few points for sente in that case, and is generally better off for it.

Descent vs hane on the 2nd line can also bring this into play.

When thinking of a move as sente, you need to think how sente is it. Some moves are more sente than others, i.e. they have a bigger follow-up if ignored. So when you think of an endgame move as 4 points in sente, more accurately it is 4 points gote with a further (e.g.) 100 point kill in gote next. 100 is pretty big so you can probably just think of it as sente. But what if the follow-up is 10 points, but there is also a 3 point sente move, or more accurately 3 points gote with a 20 points follow-up. If you do the 4, and the opponent the 3, then you "punish" his ignoring your sente and get the 10 follow-up, but he then does the 20 points follow-up to his move then you lost out (unless Bill constructs a board position with just the right tedomari ). I started writing a little article about a position from a game of mine like this at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.j.simons/go/yose/.

I don't think you can discuss this issue without asking whether by "sente" you are referring to the privilege or to the relative value of the play and the follow-up. If both players have a twenty-point gote follow-up, then it's neither black's sente nor white's sente, but double , right?

Or more accurately, both players have a gote move with a big gote follow-up (which itself might have more follow-up). For example:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Double sente
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | X X X X . . . . . . . . . . . O O O O |
$$ | . X . X . . . . . . . . . . . O . O . |
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X O O O O O O O O O |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . X O . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X O 4 . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 3 1 2 . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This is a common double sente endgame position. But neither move is totally sente, white could omit and lose a load of (hard to calculate exactly) points. Ditto for white going first into black's area to left. But the move is slightly more sente for white than black because black has a bigger territory (by 1 line) behind so stands to lose more should white end up playing 7 gotes or whatever it takes to turn it all to dame. In practice these considerations usually don't matter as it's easy to find the right stage of the game when that large hard-to-calculate-exactly potential loss of points is too big so the move is sente. But for an example of when a double sente move is more sente for one player than the other and would thus be a mistake, see my comment on move 108 of viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7635.

P.S. If Bill thinks calculating the value of the above position too easy and wants a challenge, how about:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c Argh!!!
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O . O . . . . . |
$$ | X X X X . . . . . . . O . O . O O O O |
$$ | . X . X . . . . . . . O . O . O . O . |
$$ | X X X X X X X X X X O O . O O O O O O |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . X O . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X O 4 . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 3 1 2 . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I find the way that you phrased this confusing. You seem to be asking when is it okay to not make a sente move and instead make a gote move. But if you really have a sente move... why would you not play it? If it is truly sente then your opponent will respond. As long as you have sente moves you can keep making them and your opponent will respond. If you ever run out of sente moves then you can come back and make the defensive gote move that you need to.

The problem becomes knowing when sente moves are truly sente. If your "sente" move will cost the opponent x number of points, and but letting him get the first move in some other situation by not playing the gote move will give him x+1 points then your move is no longer sente.

Basically if the damage that your opponent can do by ignoring your move is greater than the benefit you can get out of your followup move after he ignores you, then your move isn't sente. You just have to evaluate the board and decide which move is bigger.

NO NO NO NO NO NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Loads of bad moves are sente. There is nothing inherently good about sente. Good moves are good, good moves in sente are even better. Bad moves are bad, bad moves in sente are just as bad (or maybe even worse as if you like playing bad sentes then after your bad sente it is your turn again to make another bad move).

To be more concrete, suppose a move is one point in sente, and has a 40 point followup if ignored. It's absolutely sente, there's no question your opponent would not answer. Why not play it? At least two reasons are possible:

1. It may be that there are two choices of move that each get one point. Right now, it's not clear which does more for you. You should often wait, and see if another move
2. There is a potential ko on the board. You'd really like to save that ko threat, because the ko is worth many points.

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That lesson has just started clicking for me. In a recent game I had an unsettled, largely surrounded group in the middle game. I could play a gote move, ensure smallish life and be done. Or I could extend, threaten to break into a loose moyo and after a few sente threats find life. Perfect! I lived in sente with a few extra points instead of living in gote.

Except that those sente moves had turned a loose, invadable moyo into formidable quasi-territory. Had I just lived in gote, the move my opponent got would not have strengthened the moyo nearly as much.

A lot of go is about about creating options for yourself and limiting your opponents options (killing a group means systematically removing all the options to find life). Sente moves often buy you a profit in points at the cost of future options. A good gote move, on the flip side, gives your opponent the initiative but first removes options he would have liked to kept.

P.S. This reminds me of when I used to play tennis as a little kid and we'd only just learnt overarm serving. For tennis pros, serving is a big advantage, but for us it was actually a disadvantage and you'd tend to lose your service games with loads of balls into the net. Sente is similar to serving, in the hands of a pro it's an advantage, but for a beginner who doesn't know what to do with it can actually be bad.

You can get a similar idea in handicap games: if white is always attacking and doing sente things then black knows to respond and although he might not make the perfect move, it will probably be in the right area of the board. Sometimes it's better to play a gote move and let black decide what to do, and often you'll be pleasantly surprised how stupid he can be given the choice of anywhere to play.