Anything other than a 1 moku is a loss.

[Bill Spight]

The easiest way to win the game is to only strive to do the minimum necessary to win.

It's an easy way to lose.

[illluck]

I feel like people are being a bit too harsh. I agree that this is unlikely to be conductive to improvement (though would like to see some example games where OP tried to achieve this 1 point win), but I think calling him a troll or mocking his use of Jesus or being hung up on the use of "moku" isn't super helpful.

[illluck]

As an aside, when I first saw the title I thought OP was going to say that half-point losses are more luck than skill, and only losses larger than that are real losses, turns out he has much more strict standards

I also think this is going to require a counting ability far greater than the average kyu. I know I'm pretty bad at counting as a dan, but I don't think I could even dream to do this at any board sizes larger than 9x9 (and would probably lose more games than win even against ddks trying this).

[wineandgolover]

I feel like people are being a bit too harsh. I agree that this is unlikely to be conductive to improvement (though would like to see some example games where OP tried to achieve this 1 point win), but I think calling him a troll or mocking his use of Jesus or being hung up on the use of "moku" isn't super helpful.

OK, I removed my troll accusation, though I still suspect he's trying to get a rise out of people. Even if he isn't, he's succeeding.

[Uberdude]

I feel like people are being a bit too harsh.

I did think it more likely for people to complain I was being too harsh rather than too subtle when I said that quote was bollocks.

So to get back to the discussion, Joel, how would you answer Herman's question about the -2 or +4 situation?

[Cassandra]

There is a saying that the player loses the game, who made the last but one error.

So I think, it all has to do with one's error bandwidth, as well as with one's counting ablility.

Ten years ago, I participated in Go seminar, guided by Catalin Taranu 5p. Final event of the seminar was a handicap game, Catalin against "the world" (i.e. the participants of the seminar; stronger player 1, weaker player 1, stronger player 2, weaker player 2, ... , stronger player 1, ...).

It seemed to me that Catalin's aim was to reach a Jigo as the result of this demonstrative game, just because he seemed a bit "disappointed" that he managed to win by two points.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

It is one main feature of the game (may be the most important) that it is sufficient to win by barely one point. There is no need to crush your opponent, in order to win.

But -- in my opinion -- it does not make sense to INTEND winning by the smallest margin possible.

[Joelnelsonb]

Well for one, I don't get paid to win at Go so it really doesn't matter if I call a game a loss even though I deserved a win. But as I make the commitment to only win by one point, I'm thinking more about pre-game plan or rather the approach I take to the game every time. It makes sense to me that the easiest and most likely way to win would be to come up with game plan that lets your opponent get as much as he wants just short of winning. Seeking to take more than this will be harder and give you a greater chance of making a mistake. In practicality, if I win by under five, I feel pretty good about it. But my ultimate goal would be to play in such a way that I always win by a very small margin. If something weird happens in the game such as my opponent blundering than there will be an exception. If he blunders early on and I'm way ahead, I passively play defensive gote moves the whole game and cruise in for an easy victory. Why try to demolish your opponent?

[Joelnelsonb]

Also, I have sort of a different idea of "perfect play" than most. I play the guitar. Sometimes when I finish a song, I think "wow, I nailed that! perfect!" Does this mean that Eddie Van Halen couldn't have played it any better? Of course not! Eddie would've gone nuts and blew my version away. But then, he would have totally different idea of playing perfectly altogether. In other words, he may sound better than me and yet say "I screwed that up" while I say "I nailed it!". Back to Go, I consider a perfect game to be when I don't make any obvious blunders (by my own standards) and everything I attempt to do works out: I tried to take that corner, it worked. I tried to kill that stone, it worked. I tried to invade there and live, it worked, and so on. When everything goes according to plan, I pat myself on the back for a perfectly played game FOR MY LEVEL.

[Bill Spight]

When I was young I had an tendency to play that way. Unconsciously I adjusted the level of my play to that of my opponent. I remember a match play golf tournament in high school in which I came in second. I don't think I finished off an opponent before the 16th hole, even though none of them could play nearly as well as I could. (Until the final round, OC. ) When I started playing go I had a surprisingly large number of jigo. In one game I made a horrendous blunder that lost 80 points -- to win by one point. Not exactly a thing of beauty.

I had something of the same tendency in bridge, but I managed to find a cure. I not only matched the poor play of bad opponents, I matched the good play of good opponents. So I played against the best players I could.

So here is a thought for Joel. Strive for balance and to win by one point, but play against SDKs.

[Joelnelsonb]

Good idea, Bill! I'm now playing smartgo handicapped and finding my resolution to by quite a challenge. I definitely notice this in my Chess game, btw. I have a horrible tendency to play at my opponents level. I'm the only one at the club who can beat anyone there and lose to anyone there on any given night.

[Kirby]

It's the endgame. You're behind by 2 points, and are about to lose, when your opponent misses an atari. You can capture 3 stones, and then you will win by 4 points. What to do?

The point being, of course, that go is a two player game, and it is arrogance to think that you alone control the flow of the game. Striving to win by one point is disrespectful to your opponent, IMO.

@Joelnelsonb:

Before claiming that people just "don't understand" your point, I think that it's helpful to think about the point that Herman makes here; It simplifies things a lot, since the endgame is much less abstract than the opening and middle game.

In Herman's example, there is no option to win by 1 point. You have only two options:
* Lose by 2 points.
* Win by 4 points.

Because of the way your opponent played, you have opportunity to win by more than 1 point, but it is impossible to win by exactly 1 point, so it's impossible to achieve the goal you're describing.

And the endgame simplifies things. As you move earlier in the game, it becomes more difficult to control and/or see the outcome, so controlling a 1 point win is even more unlikely.

[Polama]

I agree that a half point game can be a thing of beauty, something to hope for. Every brilliant tesuji, every subtle blunder: balanced in the end. Two opponents gave the game their all, and came up exactly even.

I disagree that forcing a game to a half point balance is beautiful. I've tried that for fun a few times against weaker opponents, and it's clunky. You aren't avoiding overplaying, you aren't adopting a passive style, you're intentionally playing under your ability. You make two space extension where you should extend three, not because it's safer but so you can bleed off your lead. It's tempting to think a slow move should be a safe move, but often it's not safer, just worse. Too often in high handicap games black tries to play safe and just gives white opportunities to attack by it.

Worse, you are tricking your opponent. If you peer into a corner and see that it is killable and profitable to do so, kill it. That is how we teach each other, so that in the future your opponent will not make such a group again. When we overplay and our opponents refuse to punish it, they're tricking us into thinking our overplays were good moves.

It's a mistake to judge the quality of go by score. A masterpiece can be decided in the end by a decisive kill after 100 beautifully flowing moves. And a half point win can be a fierce match between two players rising to the occasion, or random chance in a sloppy, distracted blitz game.

If you wish to have a peaceful, flowing, balanced style then strive for that. If the balanced, flowing, beautiful move puts you 10 points ahead, why not accept it? You can only dictate your moves, not your opponents.

[xed_over]

I feel like people are being a bit too harsh.

I did think it more likely for people to complain I was being too harsh rather than too subtle when I said that quote was bollocks.

So to get back to the discussion, Joel, how would you answer Herman's question about the -2 or +4 situation?

I believe he answered that already...

Everyone seems to be missing the entire point. It's not a bad thing to win by more than 1

winning by +4 is closer to winning by +1, than is losing (even if mathematically -2 may or may not be closer, the point is still to win)

edit:

[xed_over]

The point being, of course, that go is a two player game, and it is arrogance to think that you alone control the flow of the game. Striving to win by one point is disrespectful to your opponent, IMO.

One of my favorite stories...
http://gobase.org/reading/stories/?id=5

Was this Japanese professional disrespectful to his opponents?

[Joelnelsonb]

I first got turned onto this idea when I use to play smartgo being a much weaker player than now and I would always lose by around 2 or 3 points, leading me to believe that I was just below the skill level of the app. It wasn't until I improved considerably and continued to play the app that I noticed that the program knows what it needs to do to win way ahead of time and begins making overly defensive moves to slowing build up the winning infrastructure (in other words, it was never actually close). This got me thinking about the idea that if you're up by 10 points, why take all of those to the grave? Use them for something. That's 9 opportunities you have to reinforce your structure before losing.You don't need all 10 of those points.

And then on top of that, there are now games where we'll be approaching the endgame and I'll do a count and see that I'm up by 30 points and there's not enough free real estate left for my opponent to catch up so I drop back and begin to just slowly "fill in" the rest of my structure. I guess I just assumed that as I progressed in skill, I would become increasingly better at this to the point that I can only need a 1 point lead to cruise in safely for the win.