In these sort of endgame formations, is 'a' always better than 'b'?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to move
$$ | . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . X O . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . X . a . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . b . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

_________________
Regards,

Peter

If I may make a suggestion:

Get GoGOD and use Kombilo for database searches.

Not that I mind your questions. In fact, you have started some wonderful discussions. But you can learn a lot from such searches.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to move
$$ | . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . X O . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . X O . . . . . c . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . X . a . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . d e b . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

In this case, "c" looks pretty good for Black. OC, that's not what you are looking for. You are looking for yose plays. There is not enough information to say whether "a" or "b" is better. What does the White territory to the right look like? Details matter. "d" or "e" might be good plays, too. Depending.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Something which is probably common knowledge but I only discovered recently is that you can access kombilo and some a pro game database online at Josekipedia.

http://www.josekipedia.com/

OK, I have downloaded Kombilo, and I am trying to learn how to use it.

This is what I have come up with so far. I think it might be answering a different question to what I am asking (my fault for not being able to ask the question in the right way).

I have set the move limit to 200, and I am currently using a database of 50,000 high-dan KGS games.

How can I tell it that the area to the right of the white stones is under strong white influence, without specifying a precise layout of white stones?

_________________
Regards,

Peter

As far as I know, the only way would be to add "empty or white" markers to a number of spaces on the right, while expanding the search area. Crafting such a query may end up being tedious or difficult.

It may be just as easy to just start looking at the games that come up when you do the initial search, and see what the players do and whether the boards are relevant to your question.

Also, I use kombilo pretty infrequently: there may be tricks I don't know about.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

You see why it's very hard to give you a general answer!

As W gets very strong around the marked points, it becomes likely that he has played so many stones there because he needs to live locally. Then B's endgame plays become powerful because of their life and death significance. As W's stones get further away, W worries less about dying, but he has to worry more about being unable to contain a Black reduction (and the exact position of the stones affects which reduction is most worrisome). As his stones get yet further away, his control over the area becomes tenuous and "reducing" it while it's still open to invasion becomes counter-productive.

Good.

I only occasionally use Kombilo, but IIUC, the stats you are showing are for when Black moves next, except that the gray parts of the bars are when White tenukis and Black moves later. The indications are that the jump is better than the monkey jump. One reason, perhaps, is that when the monkey jump is better, White does not tenuki. So to really understand this position, you need to look at both players' plays.

As for White influence, you can look at games in which Black made the jump and the one game in which Black made the monkey jump. Doing so will give you pertinent information and help you to craft new searches.

I would also be interested in these searches:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ C O C C C
$$ X . X . C
$$ . . . . .
$$ ---------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ C O C C C
$$ X . . . C
$$ . . . X .
$$ ---------[/go]

where the s indicate wild cards.

True, these might not indicate the results of one space jumps or monkey jumps, but I can sort those out when I look at the games.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.