Yose = endgame? No way, Jose!

[Bill Spight]

Because it is prophylactic it is also gote

Sorry, John, that cannot be right. Prevention is better than cure, so gote prophylaxis is sensible conservationism, but any move in Go that does not achieve at least two objectives is worth only half of one that does.

You may find the thoughts of Kasparov interesting in regard to prophylaxis. See viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7456&p=123131&hili ... ic#p123131

[RobertJasiek]

yose begins when there are no more semeais and the only thing that counts is what counts, as the actress said to the Count.

This is a bad description because many local endgames that are semeais (or other local life and death situations) are evaluated by counts like those that aren't. If yose shall be considered a game phase, a better description is that the large-scale partition of the position into local endgames does not change any more except for their settling, which may involve ko exchanges so that each ko threat region is like a local endgame. This improved description overlooks multiple threats against two or more local endgames and other excitements, which can reopen middle game aspects of the game. Hence, it is hard to define the endgame phase as something clearly separate from the middle game.

[John Fairbairn]

As luck would have it, here is a source for modern Chinese usage. https://www.zhihu.com/question/53826401

Bill: This is not really usage in the yose meaning, which was what I was referring to. In fact this Chinese usage seems to be limited to corner invasions at specific coordinates (2-5, 3-5 etc), which is an old usage. In practice these seem to be joseki names, in fact, and they don't occur in the endgame (nuff said!). Qinfen doesn't seem to be used on its own in modern go. I suspect the original meaning of "invade and divide" may derive from the group tax feature of old Chinese go, a concept - making the opponent have extra groups - Japanese go had no need of.

Little off-topic but I can't seem to PM you: I'm reading your book on Honinbo Shuei right now. The book itself does not have his game records (for obvious reasons), instead they can be found at GoGoD. However, I'm pretty old-fashioned and only go through game records on paper. Do you know if there are any books on Shuei's games?
Alternatively, signing up for GoGoD, is there an alternative to PayPal?

Ian/Robert: The book will be print on demand, not electronic. I still have some anxieties about how well the binding will hold up in printed form as it will be big (c. 500 pages), but current plans are for paper. If that works, I may turn the digital version of Shuei's games and commentaries into paper. I now have even more commentaries on his games so I would like to do a new edition anyway. I can't say anything about the gogod site, you'll need to contact them direct (my daughter and son-in-law).

jaca: I recognise a fellow provocateur but I think you need to be a little more fact based. Gote doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. You seem to be thinking of "gote no sente," as have great men before you, so that's no shame. You may be interested in looking at e.g. kendo for more details. As to bowing to the 99% masses over usage, that's a chess player's mindset - all or nothing. I prefer the co-existence of go. I think the best example in (British) English is "chronic." It is used by the masses to mean "very, very bad." Doctors and other educated people use it to mean "persisting long-term." The Oxford English Dictionary lists the etymologically correct but less common version first and the "informal" British usage second, giving as an example "the film was absolutely chronic." That is, it accepts co-existence but makes a gentle implied statement about correctness. But that doesn't always help. How do you interpret "he was a chronic liar": a persistent liar or a very unconvincing one? Or on L19: "we have a chronic problem with thread derailers"?

侵分

[RobertJasiek]

I do not have experience with binding of 500 pages in softcover but know that the reliability of the binding depends on the carefulness of the binder's work and the adhesive. If you can, use a printing service that allows you to inspect a sample copy before ordering the print run. Especially inspect the second and second-last papers. The safe way would be two volumes.

[Kirby]

Or on L19: “we have a chronic problem with thread derailers”

Better yet: “we have a chronic problem with succumbing to the backfire effect”

https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10 ... ffect/amp/

[Elom]

If the early champions of spreading go in the west were all experts in linguistics and history, the most common terms may have also been the most suited, or even the most nuanced. However, I think it makes sense to say that they'd already done more than their stead by bringing go westward. But it doesn't mean their is little to gain from avoiding misconceptions that slow down the learning of what a term actually means, if not helping to speed up example-based learning in the case of some individuals.

Maybe some learn well through game records alone, and maybe one shouldn't expect to master difficult concepts without a barrel of examples, but I can imagine that someone who understands yose as a boundary play rather than the endgame would do better when selecting such moves.

[Bill Spight]

As luck would have it, here is a source for modern Chinese usage. https://www.zhihu.com/question/53826401

Bill: This is not really usage in the yose meaning, which was what I was referring to. In fact this Chinese usage seems to be limited to corner invasions at specific coordinates (2-5, 3-5 etc), which is an old usage.

From what you wrote I did not get the idea that the Chinese had ever used 侵分 to mean yose. Didn't mean to get sidetracked.

[Ian Butler]

I may turn the digital version of Shuei's games and commentaries into paper. I now have even more commentaries on his games so I would like to do a new edition anyway.

That would be so amazing. It could be like a new 'Invincible'. I really hope you go through with that plan.

[Uberdude]

Isn't all yose also by definition kakoi (not kakkoi, though)?

No. In go pro talk kakou is reserved for a high-level concept that hasn't really made it through to English yet. It's part of a nexus of prophylactic moves that includes e.g. mamoru and honte. It refers mainly to surrounding (loosely) an area that otherwise would be prone to invasion or erasure. Because it is prophylactic it is also gote and so it is the timing of it that makes it high level. Fujisawa Hideyuki is especially good on this term, and of course Sekiyama Riichi's famous gote no sente underlies this nexus, too.

I found this a nice example of kakoi (or at least my non-Japanese understanding of the concept), and punishing the failure to do it .

viewtopic.php?p=241458#p241458

[jaca]

there was a time, a long long time ago, long before i had ever heard of John Fairbairn, when i was happy.

Now he's got me running in ever-decreasing spirals, questioning every thought i ever had, which by his own indirect admission of being an agent provocateur, was his intention all along.

Not just me, of course (of my numerous failings, hubris is not one), but the entire L19 community.

And he seems to have succeeded admirably, for the pot of general confusion is cackling so hard and fast that global warming has gone into overdrive.

In desperation and despair, i turned to the only rock of ages solid fount of wisdom i can rely upon: The Urban Dictionary. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yose

At last! Finally, something that actually makes sense

The Meaning Of Liff is Yose! - as an ardent hedonist, that's a little different from what i had fondly imagined 100 years ago, before those bloody Dunderheads Darwin and Dawkins came along, but consistent with it [and... sigh... them], for there is nothing so onerous and irksome as counting, let alone having to build Trumpwalls across empty space to keep imaginary wannabe invaders out, which Orson Welles warned us of and bothered me ever since listening to the radio.

Although yosed out from the exertion of reading dictionaries, at least i don't have to yose about it any more and can finally get some yose, perchance to yose of yoseing my way through the rest of the yose without a yose in the yose. See - You can understand that last sentence perfectly well just as it stands, so who needs other words?!

In the Beginning, There was the yose. Yose saw the yose, And it was yose. On the yoseth day, Yose took a yose, which is such a yose yose yose that i'm gonna have one too.

jose.png (129.34 KiB) Viewed 7483 times