We are all Rumbolds

moyoaji · **#21**

RobertJasiek wrote:

Why? Cutting apart walls is just a matter of connection, life and whether the result of a cut made at a particular moment is favourable for the attacker. Why would a book need 100s or 1000s of diagrams? A book should explain this much faster than your 100+ games.

Yes, it may be faster, but it will not stick as well.

If you tell me that this shape is bad for a wall because of a double atari, I can look for this shape.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ What white wall? $$ . . . . . . . . $$ . . . . . . . . $$ . X X X X X . . $$ X O O X O O X X $$ O . a O b . O X $$ . . . . . . O X[/go]

And you can say that this wall is also bad for white.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ Please tell me I'm black to play? $$ . . . . . . . . . $$ . . . . . . . . . $$ . X X X X X X X . $$ X O O O X O O O X $$ O . . a O b . . O $$ . . . . . . . . .[/go]

But these are nice book examples. Such positions rarely come up in games (and, if they do, it doesn't look as clean).

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ What about this one? $$ . . . . O . . . . . . $$ . . . . O X X X X . . $$ . . . X X O O O X . . $$ . X . X O , . O X X . $$ O X X X O . . . O O X $$ X X O O . . . . O O X $$ O O . . . . O . . X . $$ . . . . . . O X X X .[/go]

Obviously white has options, but something is captured.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ This could happen. $$ . . . . O . . . . . . $$ . . . . O X X X X . . $$ . . . X X O O O X . . $$ . X . X O 4 . O X X . $$ O X X X O . 7 5 O O X $$ X X O O 1 3 . 6 O O X $$ O O . . 2 . O . . X . $$ . . . . . . O X X X .[/go]

What about this from one of my games? The white stone has enough aji to take the two black stones at any time.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$ Goodbye black stones... $$ . . . . . O O X X | $$ . . . . . O X W . | $$ . . . O O O X . . | $$ . O O X X X . . . | $$ . O B . . . . . . | $$ . O . B . . . . . | $$ ------------------[/go]

If black tries to save them

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W The wall is dead... $$ . . . . . O O X X | $$ . . . . . O X O . | $$ . . . O O O X 4 . | $$ . O O X X X 3 . . | $$ . O X 2 . . 5 . . | $$ . O 1 X . . . . . | $$ ------------------[/go]

Black has to give up the two stones on the bottom to save the rest of his stones one white ataris.

I was black and I read this out almost instantly because my game experience has made me acutely aware of these types of vulnerabilities. Instead, thankfully, I played at :w3:

.

How would the concepts involved in this situation be explained in a book? I simply know from games that anything that can be put in atari in a wall is a glaring weakness that needs to be read out. I suppose a book could say that and then give a bunch of examples. James Davies' Elementary Go Series does this type of teaching quite well. But will it get hammered into my head as well as losing dozens and dozens of games to being cut apart?

Don't get me wrong, I love go books (and books in general) but I know that, for me, learning this from experience was more valuable than being told about it from a book. Either way I would need to apply it to my games, but this way the learning occurred naturally and made me fluent in wall weaknesses. It isn't a matter of speed in learning it's a matter of how well the learning has taken root. I can read these types of situations very quickly, but it takes me a while to figure out if I can use one of the Elementary Go tesujis still. I know that, in time, they'll come quickly to me, but it is going to take a few dozen games where those tesujis are relevant for it to sink in as deeply as my game experience learning. (I now am pretty good at the "Nose Tesuji" but that is only because it comes up so often.)

I think game experience and book learning need to go hand-in-hand. You will never have a true grasp of go without being taught somehow (either in books or videos or someone explaining it to you) but you also will never be able to use the knowledge without applying it in your own games. Both are needed to really learn.

Polama wrote:

She figured out on her own that was a bad enough shape that it needed a name. It certainly helps to have people point out strong shapes, especially unusual ones you might not have come up with, but a sense of shape does arise naturally just playing lots of games.

Shape is not impossible to learn, but it is very difficult to make if you don't know what you are looking for. Obviously someone figured out about the table shape without being taught, but it was probably someone who had been playing for decades. It is much nicer to just be given some good shapes in a book and told when they are applicable so I have something of a tool kit in my games.

Polama wrote:

C (I added it) is sometimes the correct move (I lost a game last week playing b). But the black stones are captured almost immediately after a: this strikes me as an example where being able to visualize continuations is far more important then either memorizing the position or having a conceptual theory for why b must be right.

Yes, but extra stones are needed for c to be correct. It is true, though, that the basic "taco with a thick side" shape often leads me to automatically want to play b, but, if my opponent knows the "bamboo joint tesuji" and the situation calls for it then I can end up in trouble by playing b. This exact situation is actually discussed in Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go's first chapter.

Boidhre · **#22**

Bill Spight wrote:

There is an analogy between being a native speaker and someone who learns a foreign language as an adult. The native speaker will in nearly all cases be more fluent than the adult learner. That does not mean, however, that the adult learner should try to pick up the language in the same manner as a child does.

Or another way to look at it. The adult learner may have learned why the e in words like "hope" is silent and how it affects how the "o" is pronounced. For the native speaker it doesn't matter, you just pronounce "rope" like "rope" whenever you see an e in a word like "hope." Learning the why isn't really that useful or necessary for them and the way they do it is faster than looking at the word and figuring out the e is silent and that the preceding broad vowel is long, they just know when they see that pattern of letters in a native word. Of course it causes all kinds of problems when you try to learn another language with similar looking orthography.

Bill Spight · **#23**

Boidhre wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:

There is an analogy between being a native speaker and someone who learns a foreign language as an adult. The native speaker will in nearly all cases be more fluent than the adult learner. That does not mean, however, that the adult learner should try to pick up the language in the same manner as a child does.

Or another way to look at it. The adult learner may have learned why the e in words like "hope" is silent and how it affects how the "o" is pronounced. For the native speaker it doesn't matter, you just pronounce "rope" like "rope" whenever you see an e in a word like "hope." Learning the why isn't really that useful or necessary for them and the way they do it is faster than looking at the word and figuring out the e is silent and that the preceding broad vowel is long, they just know when they see that pattern of letters in a native word. Of course it causes all kinds of problems when you try to learn another language with similar looking orthography.

When I was living in Hawai'i a friend who was a relative newcomer asked me how to pronounce the name of a famous surfing spot, which he spelled for me. I -- of course!-- pronounced it PEE-PEH LEE-NEH. It is spelled Pipeline. :oops:

Bill Spight · **#24**

Some thoughts.

rhubarb · **#25**

Bill Spight wrote:

When I was living in Hawai'i a friend who was a relative newcomer asked me how to pronounce the name of a famous surfing spot, which he spelled for me. I -- of course!-- pronounced it PEE-PEH LEE-NEH. It is spelled Pipeline. :oops:

There's a sushi place here called "One More". I know exactly enough about Japanese to have no idea whether the name is English. I usually just describe its location if I have to refer to it out loud. Unfortunately, this is Vancouver, so it's one of four sushi places in the same building complex.

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