The addition of "nobi" to the iron pillar was mine, not Minue's. I'm sure we can have another discussion on how "nobi" and "iron pillar" are different. At the very basic level, it is about adding a stone next to another stone. I like simple definitions and build on those. If a nobi is not merely adding a stone to an adjacent one, fine. I dislike iron pillar mostly because it's such a mouthful.

Minue discusses relative merits and "demerits" of shapes as they are. The iron pillar is slow, if the purpose is to advance. So it is usually not used as a way to advance.

We seem to largely agree but on one point: I find Minue's treatise very usefulf for anyone looking for fundamentals, because it lays down a foundation for higher concepts. I don't think you can go more fundamental than this. Obviously, it's not complete as a "theory of Go", far from it, and it seems Minue had something more extensive in mind but did not complete it.

Anyway, there is no conclusive agreement in the (western) go literature on what the fundamentals are, so merely pointing out to someone they should become better at the fundamentals, is not very helpful. I see some lists with useful knowledge to learn, but which is not really fundamental, in the sense of being a foundation for other knowledge.

The list of Kageyama's chapters is also a good candidate, for what follows. Bozulich' "Second book" contains more food for thought, as does his "strategic principles". Richard Hunter's chapters on capturing races could be called "fundamental" too, at least they provide a foundation for a theory on fighting.

It would be interesting to link up Minue's "fundamentals" with these bodies of work.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

Maybe some will find this excerpt of Chapter 1 of The Breakthrough to Shodan interesting

To point out just your most glaring mistake: Hunter's theory on semeais contains mistakes and uses liberties with three different meanings without distinguishing them all clearly. His work researched in semeais and contributed to Wolf's and my later studies of the fundamentals of some classes of semeais.

No it isn't. A nobi is an advance out on front of an enemy shape, so it is by definition an addition to a group of stones. An iron pillar (which refers to a two-stone shape, not one) is not usually in contact with other stones and the move making it (a sagari) is an addition to a single stone. Apart from the quite different dynamic aspects, the liberty situation is quite different. Even if you wish to cleave to the building-block approach, you get to a quite different destination (a more accurate one, I think) if you start with liberties rather than stones.

If nobi and/or iron pillar are being used in an idiosyncratic Alice in Wonderland way for just two stones in a line (which a nobi is not usually anyway), why gratuitously confuse other people, especially beginners seeking the fundamentals?

Just drop the "nobi" terminology, and we are good to go.

_________________
be immersed

In the FWIW department, the step, which is a pattern of stones in a 5 point window, the stone played plus its adjacent points, includes both the iron pillar and the nobi, as well as other, more specific patterns. See http://senseis.xmp.net/?BillSpight%2FStep . OC, the step is neither shape nor haengma.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

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Thanks Bill! The "step" may be exactly the kind of simple term, void of historical or linguistic charge, that I'm looking for.

To John: I'm not deliberately confusing beginners. I'm trying to help building the articulation of fundamental go knowledge, by exposing Minue's view, making mistakes in the process, such as calling something "nobi" which it isn't.

In general, we will get much further by finding terms to describe things as they are, than by denouncing the usage of terms for things they aren't.

I'd rather have people help building a common understanding of the fundamentals than pointing out each others' mistakes.

I know you have built upon Richard's work. I have not read it yet, unfortunately. Let's say Richard's work has been foundational. I agree with you that some of his definitions of kinds of liberties are subject to improvement. Still, many of the results of his research still stand and reading them will give one a good grip on fighting. I'm sure you think the same or better can be said about your own treatise of the subject.

You may remember I mentioned you as one of the writers being active in the realm of fundamental knowledge. I haven't had the opportunity to read it yet.

"Idiosyncratic" ... "gratuitous" ... every time I come here, I learn new words!

It's in a textbook or two, even in English, I'll hand that to you. But I think this makes a good case study in just how much can be considered "fundamental."

I did a Kombilo search on this position from Winter 2015 GoGoD, 85931 games total. Only 2554 of them, or about 3%, even contain this extension. So we are already looking at a position that only occurs in 3% of games even before the white play. Is this fundamental? I guess it depends on your viewpoint.

with black to play next appears in 46 games, or about 0.05% of the total games. (Actually 'a' and 'b' and more common than , but one has to look at the whole board context in these situations in order to determine whether those moves would be called reductions.)

I've seen the openings of maybe 2-3 thousand games. I know this is in Attack and Defense, but I don't recall seeing it ever. I either truly haven't seen it or don't recall or maybe I never hit on one of those 46 games. However, I have played it recently but I messed it up because of something that probably really is basic.

I suspect a lot of pros would call this a basic thing to know. If so, we have our work cut out for us.

Edit: The attachment of occurs 282 times if there is white stone at 'c', so that's quite a bit more common at 0.3% of games. At that level, I should have seen it played, but maybe I didn't think much about it. In GoGoD, if something appears in more than 100 games, I consider it potentially worth studying.

Is there any mistake in Wolf's or my semeai theory?

Mistakes must not be excused but avoided. Theory with mistakes must not be promoted as fundamentals worth learning justified by the excuse that every theory would contain mistakes. No! Good theory is always correct.

Why have Western players problems to catch up with Eastern players? As far as go theory is concerned, the reasons include neglected LD study, neglected and under-estimated endgame study and too long trust in outdated theory of old Western literature or old verbal Western knowledge. The same mistakes of the past recur.

Even when old results still apply, modern theory can be much more efficient.

Just curious. Did you search for this?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W 3 pt. high-low extension
$$ . . . . . . .
$$ . X . . . . .
$$ . . . . . X .
$$ . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . .
$$ -------------[/go]

When I was learning go this was a very common pattern.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . X . . . , .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ -----------------------[/go]

It won't show up if you leave two spaces around the stones.



IMX, few amateurs know about , or play it (the invasion is more popular). I know it's been played against me a couple of times. The last time it had been so long I had to work out the play for myself.



I would call it part of the fundamental knowledge of invasion and reduction. There are twelve extensions on the side (2 space to 5 space, low-low, high-low, high-high), which have standard invasions and reductions. Dan players should know the basic patterns of play for them. The usual caveats about studying joseki apply.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

It has been my experience that this is the prevailing opinion in China. Shodan (1 duan) is more a time-based milestone than anything. It is simply assumed that all students will achieve shodan given enough proper study.

I thought about it, but what I actually searched for was this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W 3 pt. high-low extension
$$ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
$$ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
$$ ? ? X ? ? ? ? ? ?
$$ ? ? ? ? ? ? X ? ?
$$ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
$$ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
$$ -------------[/go]

Of course that changes things, and now white 'a' is more common in my brain, but only slightly more common in Kombilo at 144 hits, even with the tight boundary marked. Now we are close to talking about the same thing, but I think I remember this from a different book now, though I have long forgotten the expected follow-ups. It was most popular in games from 1900-1949. But it's good to know that b, c, and d aren't the only moves in this position. Go has enormous flexibility.

I haven't analyzed it, but I'm pretty sure I play fewer contact moves like 'a' than pros. Part of that is because I know it opens up a lot of variations that I have not prepared. Part if it is just the experience of it turning out poorly against players with stronger reading, but that is misleading feedback because everything turns out poorly against such opponents anyway.

I would not play 'a' for yuks. I would need to have a plan and understand its aim. I would have to think about black's 4 basic responses 'r' plus black tenuki and have some feeling that the result will be okay for me no matter what. For 'b', 'c', and 'd' I kind of know what I'd be trying to do. So this is indeed a gap in my repertoire.

What does database frequency tell us about whether a particular shape move can be played? Nothing! If it is frequent, the move can be right or wrong in the actual game. If it is rare, the move can be right or wrong in the actual game. The basic aspect is NOT whether the move is frequent.

The basic aspects of an extension / connection are: Is it connected but must be reinforced nevertheless? Is it directly connected? Is it indirectly connected? Is cutting it advantageous? Is preparing to cut it advantageous? What are the aims of maintaining a connection? What are the aims of attacking a connection? In which equally fair or advantageous strategies do such aims fit? Do make the related reading and positional judgements to answer these questions.

Is this a description of what dan players know or just a moral statement that dan players should know it because it would be embarassing not to?

In his 4th installment, Minue discusses "Evaluation of local positions - basics of positional judgment"

http://senseis.xmp.net/?HaengmaTutorial ... alJudgment

In this chapter he talks about urgent moves:



He goes on to expand the characteristics of stability from single stones to local positions:



The last part of the installment is about efficiency and overconcentration, in other words "shape". It is hard to summarize because it works from specific examples. They mostly show which shape problems arise from being preoccupied with territory and not with strength of stones.

The examples induce a new concept: "ja choong soo" or "removing your own liberties" with the specific example of allowing "hane at the head of two". Minue even devotes an entire chapter to this concept, with lots of examples.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?HaengmaTutorial ... aChoongSoo

If the frequency of a certain move in a certain position tells nothing about it being right or wrong in general, then why is it played so often or rarely in pro games? The move will not always be right but it makes sense for anyone to inspect regular moves in regular positions first, before moving on to the irregular.

I believe AlphaGo is based precisely on frequency of occurrence, not as a decisive argument, but as a working argument.

Absolutely. And that brings up another way of looking at "what are the fundamentals" that may be more useful in practice, even if not rigorous: candidate moves.

If positions are presented to a higher ranked player and a lower ranked player and we compare their list of, say, 5 candidate moves in each, we can get a rough measure of whether they have arrived in the same ballpark. The types of move that they both include in their list will presumably be the easiest aka the most fundamental.

Obviously, even when their lists tend to coincide the higher ranked player may hit a home run more often, but at least the weaker player then knows that he has at last something specific to work on.

Here's an example where both higher ranked and lower ranked players can compare themselves to an even higher ranked player, a pro, in picking 5 candidate moves (and then making a final choice, of course - Black to play). I think we can all agree that this sort of position is very common and, both from that point of view and others, fundamental.



Obviously this only works if enough people here offer their list of candidates.

Incidentally, this comes from a Japanese game in which one player favoured a thick (atsui) style for a reason I had never come across before: his name was Atsushi. Calling someone "thick" over here does haven't quite the same flavour...