Looking for a good book on the endgame

[dankenzon]

Have you lost your mind????
Seriously. Buy this book http://livre.fnac.com/a6910594/Dai-Junf ... -jeu-de-go now and destroy even the smallest idea of purchasing any other book.

Javaness2, would you please add more details about that book?

[tchan001]

Have you lost your mind????
Seriously. Buy this book http://livre.fnac.com/a6910594/Dai-Junf ... -jeu-de-go now and destroy even the smallest idea of purchasing any other book.

Unless you have more details on why this particular book is better than other books on endgames, your recommendation is just pure advertising.

[RobertJasiek]

singular,

Dame filling and "tiny ko" paper for area scoring: http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/kodame.pdf

Counting and evaluating positions: Of course, there is Positional Judgement 1 - Territory. However, a) it is only marginally about the endgame and b) it is too demanding for your KGS 9k level. You can still do with roughly approximating multiples of 10 or 5. Note that each dead stone counts 2 points (the stone plus its intersection.)

Practising ultra-basic positions: start with your own games and multiples of 10.

How to calculate value: you find Ogawa's book above your head and are still interested in value calculation theory? I can suggest a lot, but please first clarify how serious you are in surpassing your current rank WRT to counting theory out of curiosity.

Sente versus big move: multiply sente by 2.

Damezumari: tesuji, throw-ins, capturing race theory.

Endgame start: at move 1 of the game! It proceeds in parallel to opening and middle game. Optimise your early strategy also for the later endgame.

Avoid making shapes vulnerable to tesuji: create "thick" shapes.

Which moves are endgame moves: each move. Each move has its impact on the endgame.

Ignore endgame: nnnnnnnnnooooooooo! But... you do not need all value theory yet.

[John Fairbairn]

I have a theory. (There's my little joke for the day.)

Usually pros present tips for better play by saying "I do it like this. Copy me." The well proven idea behind this is that over time your brain will absorb for you what you need to know, but there are many westerners who get irritated by this approach and demand to know the theory.

But in the special area of the endgame, pros consistently present the theory, and our stroppy westerners say, "That's all very well in theory, but how do I make it work in practice?"

Hence the well known saying that you can please some westerners some of the time, but some just bleat all of the time.

With all this bleating going on I would like to be able to say "Ca' the yowes tae the knowes where the heather grows". Unfortunately our friend Erica has eluded me and so I cannot offer guidance. The best pasture I can offer is the observation that each pro seems to do it all in his own way, but there is a common core, and that is massive memorisation.

From many articles and talks with pros, I gather that pros have a passing acquaintance with the theory of how to count endgame positions, but in practice they just learn the counts for huge numbers of positions, and in some cases they memorise tables. The 3-3. 4-5, 5-8 etc table is one trivial example. Another one I have seen is 0.875, 0.9375, 0.96875, 0.984375 and so on.

The kinds of position they memorise are nearly all corner positions, and as to number I gather it can be well over 1,000.

On top of that, some pros go their own way, and we have seen a good example of that with O Meien, discussed here previously.

This observation would explain several things: why there is little textual material to study, why pros often differ in their counts, why they are sometimes wrong, why they find central positions hard to count...

And while it regrettably it does not answer the central plughole question (Sheep in the northern hemisphere apparently chew clockwise. Do Australian sheep chew anti-clockwise? Do Ecuadorian llamas do it side to side?), it does suggest western go players would be better off behaving like elephants rather than sheep.

[RobertJasiek]

A table http://senseis.xmp.net/?MiaiValuesList is helpful, but can be misleading when values are not simple numbers, values are multi-dimensional, values depend on aspects or special positional contexts (such as tedomari) let non-linear move orders be correct.

[Bill Spight]

I comment on mistakes with damezumari at the end of the game in this note: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 15#p159015

[singular]

[W]hat good does it do to be able to tell the difference between a play that gains 1 pt. and one that gains 1/2 pt., when a 5 point or 10 point swing is staring you in the face?

Yes, the 5 point or 10 point swing part of the game is really where I should focus. Maybe I could also practise knowing when I am at that part! I still fumble blindly at all of this. It is not usually clear to me what is bigger on the board.

I must say, I do enjoy the 1 point practise, too, as it is most like reading stones one by one but is not just reading, it is keeping read sequences in memory while counting, and then reading another sequence, and counting around that, and then keeping all of that in memory to compare the counts. Kind of thrilling when I get it right, and a maybe good way to stave off general mental deterioration. And I wonder if endgame counts boost overall reading ability?

What to do at your level?

First, always play the dame out. How can you improve your dame filling when you don't fill the dame? It does not take long to do, unless somebody makes a mistake. Your opponents often will. So will you. Look for dangers, look for opportunities. Your game will improve.

Second, study the end of high level games that were played out. Go to the dame stage and then see if you can predict the final score correctly. If not, look for the protective play or plays that you missed. Very important: Do not be afraid to try moves out on the board. You should try to develop your reading, but you have already gotten reading practice when you tried to predict the final score, and when you went back and looked again for threats and protective plays. Your aim now is to discover what you are not seeing.

Once you are aware of the dangers and opportunities in the late endgame, you will be at least a few stones stronger, and then you can worry about endgame calculation.

By 'fill the dame' you mean ignoring the airy elegance of Japanese rules (no need to play here so don't play) and just caulking the borders? I think I can see mistakes happening in the corners already.

I have been studying the opening of a pro game, and so I will take your advice and go the end also. 'Protective plays' are often those moves I see pros play and wonder why they played them. Hopefully I will start seeing deeper into the game soon.

Thanks Bill, please put me down for the pre- pre-order of any book you get time to write.

[singular]

So to tackle a few of your questions, at least, an endgame move is a move that is only worth points. The contrast is with moves in the middle game, which concern the life and death of groups. Once all the groups' statuses are decided, it's time for the endgame.

Regarding Tedomari, as mentioned, the endgame starts when all the groups statuses are decided.

Thanks skydyr, that is a nice and tidy way to look at it. I will think of it this way from now on.

It is interesting to think of outlying games that have only strong(ish) groups with not much threatening them, which are therefore kinda in endgame for the most part. Those 'big points' on the board can be endgame points.

I suppose that overlaps with --

Endgame start: at move 1 of the game! It proceeds in parallel to opening and middle game.

--overlaps and also conflicts. I think I'm gradually getting the gist.

[Bill Spight]

[W]hat good does it do to be able to tell the difference between a play that gains 1 pt. and one that gains 1/2 pt., when a 5 point or 10 point swing is staring you in the face?

Yes, the 5 point or 10 point swing part of the game is really where I should focus. Maybe I could also practise knowing when I am at that part! I still fumble blindly at all of this. It is not usually clear to me what is bigger on the board.

What I had in mind were those large swings that arise towards the end of the game when the dame get short.

What to do at your level?

First, always play the dame out. How can you improve your dame filling when you don't fill the dame? It does not take long to do, unless somebody makes a mistake. Your opponents often will. So will you. Look for dangers, look for opportunities. Your game will improve.

By 'fill the dame' you mean ignoring the airy elegance of Japanese rules (no need to play here so don't play) and just caulking the borders? I think I can see mistakes happening in the corners already.

The Japanese abandoned that airy elegance in 1989, when the new rules stated that if a group has dame, it has no territory. They left in a loophole to allow dame to be filled informally, as was the traditional practice. But since then there has been at least one accident when a pro apparently thought that he was filling dame informally and lost some stones. Now I think that the Japanese pros usually fill the dame during play instead of informally. (It's not in the game record, OC.)

Thanks Bill, please put me down for the pre- pre-order of any book you get time to write.

Next year!

[singular]

The Japanese abandoned that airy elegance in 1989, when the new rules stated that if a group has dame, it has no territory. They left in a loophole to allow dame to be filled informally, as was the traditional practice. But since then there has been at least one accident when a pro apparently thought that he was filling dame informally and lost some stones. Now I think that the Japanese pros usually fill the dame during play instead of informally. (It's not in the game record, OC.)

Interesting, and quite funny. Well, from now on I will fill dame.