Seeing too many moves

[skydyr]

Regarding Karigane Junichi, Honinbo Shuei apparently said that he sees too many moves. John Fairbairn has mentioned this phrase in one or two of the other books he's written/translated as well, but what exactly is meant by it? What makes it a criticism rather than praise?

[Krama]

Regarding Karigane Junichi, Honinbo Shuei apparently said that he sees too many moves. John Fairbairn has mentioned this phrase in one or two of the other books he's written/translated as well, but what exactly is meant by it? What makes it a criticism rather than praise?

If he doesn't want it I would be happy to take this curse away.

[Kirby]

I don't know what Honinbo Shuei meant, but hasn't it been said that pros don't always read more moves than kyu players (they just read the meaningful variations)?

If that's the case, seeing too many moves may not be a good thing if those moves aren't the good variations.

[DrStraw]

I suspect it is what Kirby just said. Top players quite literally do not see bad moves. If the do see them then they are probably seeing too many moves. But that is pure speculation as I cannot read the mind of Shuei.

And, of course, what is a bad move to a top play is not a bad move to us mere mortals.

[dfan]

There are different ways to see too many moves, too. You can have too much breadth (as Kirby and DrStraw alluded to), but you can also have too much depth, where you analyze variations 20 moves deep unnecessarily and are unwilling to hand-wave even when you should.

[John Fairbairn]

Obviously I can't know for certain, I don't think it means what is being suggested above.

One possible interpretation is that he 'looks at' too many moves, implying a different nuance, but I don't accept that because it's a superficial difference when you analyse it - not even a difference, really.

The sense I favour is that, in football terms, Karigane ought to have done his training before he came to the match. Instead he's not really match fit and is spending too much time and energy in actual games looking at things he ought to know the answer to already. For that reasons he lacks discrimination. I am tilted towards that meaning because Shuei was a very fast player by the time he was Meijin. He had trained very, very hard and now he was match fit and could discriminate instantly.

One reason discerning pros value that kind of skill is that you can see the wood and not just the trees. You can concentrate on strategy. You can be consistent in your strategy, and consistency in a game is something that pros value enormously. Do that and you naturally acquire a style (as opposed arsey-versily to choosing one for yourself, one of amateurdom's major foibles).

Obviously, by our standards Karigane was almost a superhuman player but to someone like Shuei there were obvious flaws, and I think we can share a glimmer of his insight if we consider that it is actually rather hard to say what kind of style Karigane had. It seems he never acquired one. By Shuei's lights his play was a chaotic mess - because he saw too many moves.

[Bill Spight]

Obviously, by our standards Karigane was almost a superhuman player but to someone like Shuei there were obvious flaws, and I think we can share a glimmer of his insight if we consider that it is actually rather hard to say what kind of style Karigane had. It seems he never acquired one. By Shuei's lights his play was a chaotic mess - because he saw too many moves.

Shuei did say that Karigane's play was like water, which I take to be a compliment, of the Taoist kind. (No reference, sorry. I think I may have seen that on a web site that no longer exists.)

I first ran across "sees too many moves" in a comment by Go Seigen about Karigane's play in one of their games. It was not a compliment. At the time I interpreted it this way. Karigane would play moves that other top players would not, because he saw possibilities for those moves which the other players might not have seen, maybe because they didn't look, or maybe because they did not see as far as Karigane. But instead of being brilliancies, some of these moves were inferior. In a sense, Karigane's judgement was clouded by his ability to find candidate moves.

An amateur example might be the player who makes an invasion because he can see a tesuji to make life which most players at his level would miss. However, he misjudges the value of the thickness that his opponent gets in the process.

[negapesuo]

Regarding Karigane Junichi, Honinbo Shuei apparently said that he sees too many moves. John Fairbairn has mentioned this phrase in one or two of the other books he's written/translated as well, but what exactly is meant by it? What makes it a criticism rather than praise?

I haven't read the book nor do I know Go that well... but from the context, sounds like he was referring to the classic paralysis by over analysis

[John Fairbairn]

Here is the relevant quote from New In Go in one of my short pieces about Karigane:

Karigane's style
In 1905 he left the Hoensha and became a student of Honinbo Shuei, being also promoted to 5-dan. Shuei said of his new pupil, "Karigane's go is very different from other people's. He does not stick his neck out in jerks and spasms, Rather it is like water flowing gently downhill and accumulating there. In this respect he is like Shuwa. As regards those fit to become a future Meijin, he is the only one at present."

However, leaving aside the rise of arch-rival Tamura Yasuhisa, it seems that Shuei may have modified his assessment in the next year or so. A friend of Karigane, Isawa Shunko, told this Mozartian story: "His go style was greatly influenced by Shuei. But while it seems just like Shuei's, there is one aspect in which it is dissimilar. This is because the time he had with Shuei was short and he could not assimilate everything his teacher had. There is an extreme coolness in his go. He therefore lacks the violent impulse to 'slaughter the dragon and quell the tiger', yet there is an unending tenacity of a kind that is virtually never seen.

"One day I looked in on Shuei on his sickbed. I asked him about Karigane's go style. The Master thought for a long time, then said, 'His go suffers from seeing too many moves.' In my ignorance I cannot understand this phrase, even now. From what I infer, this is why, when a complicated position arises, there is no explosive power. It implies there is no pressure being applied. Or maybe this is not what Shuei meant. The Meijin's phrase is not easy to judge, but I think it was favourable to Karigane."

[Bill Spight]

There is an extreme coolness in {Karigane's} go. He therefore lacks the violent impulse to 'slaughter the dragon and quell the tiger', yet there is an unending tenacity of a kind that is virtually never seen. . . .

When a complicated position arises, there is no explosive power.

FWIW, the tenacity was what I picked up on in Karigane's go. Another player who also seems to me to have had great tenacity is Jowa, but he certainly had explosive power.

BTW, when you say coolness in go, I think of Takagawa.