Narratives/concepts of go?

[RobertJasiek]

"Keeping the initiative [...] I have not seen a standard term yet for this"

This phrase is the term.

"Japanese criticising Western ideas as focused on static objects and ignoring dynamic objects"

If so, those Japanese overlook very much of my theory on dynamic objects and procedures about fighting, positional judgement and endgame! In particular, they overlook where my dynamic theory describes Asian pro play applied but not explained by them.

"endgame theory can miss this because mathematicians are used to independent endgames"

This is misleading. The mathematical endgame theory by Elwyn Berlekamp, Bill Spight and me says very much about global endgame decisions!

[John Fairbairn]

"Japanese criticising Western ideas as focused on static objects and ignoring dynamic objects"

I have never seen such Japanese criticism. I think what Daniel is referring to is my own oft repeated point, going back to rec,games.go days, is that westerners get too hooked on the Japanese term katachi (static) and ignore suji (dynamic). In other the words, the Japanese connection comes in only because those terms are Japanese. But, as we have also discussed in the past, Korean haengma is an alternative way of looking at it. My journalistic formula is katachi + suji = haengma.

@John. You may be interested in thinking about the AI popularised invasions into seemingly narrow sides (often by W) when W has stones nearby on both adjacent sides.

Daniel: This seems to be what I mean when I talk about probes that are not-quite-probes (quasi-probes, or whatever). I deliberately shy away from calling them invasions because that is another term that is misused and misunderstood. The Japanese source (uchikomi) does not mean 'invasion' as in D-Day invasion. In military terms it amounts to creating a 'salient', but it can perhaps be better described in go as driving in a wedge. Or making a quasi-probe

PS Why does no-one talk of haengma any more?

[RobertJasiek]

Stones as only static shapes were stupid. Haengma contributed to a dynamic perception and introduced global efficiency to Western thinking. Now, for me it has become second nature to always check for global efficiency, or rather to strive doing so. It is not necessary to consider the concept of haengma explicitly but rather one must always develop all one's stones well. Haengma has been a PR term but the more fundamental concepts, such as connection, life, development, efficiency, sacrifice, strategic choice and tactical reading, matter in practice.

[dhu163]

I'm going back to the original post, wondering even.

"What is a concept?"

at least in Go?

Everything useful seems to be a function of expected score and board shape, thereby associating them. Or only a function of one (e.g. keima etc.) which helps organise thoughts and allow freer word associations such as "keima is best for attacking."

connection into chains arises from the rules. Eyespace comes from chains and capture. Territory comes from score, but is close regardless. Because eyespace, territory are slightly different forms of control (as eyespace must be kept empty with all boundaries defended, whereas territory may be filled in with area scoring). Every point needs two eyes to secure control regardless of other considerations (or at least two liberties that the opponent can't play in even if they may sometimes be approach liberties or shared seki liberties (unless there is torazu sanmoku or ko).

Development is like areas close to being territory but not. Normally any region neighbouring a territory is development potential for such a territory. There are degrees of control and accounting for how many moves are needed to build it (and hence what the opponent can get from letting you try to build it). There are mutual areas of eyespace (side, corners) etc, but with a wall, that can make the centre areas eyespace options too, and hence also potential territory. But such is xu1 (abstract, weak) since though there may be a lot of space, each may quite easily become the opponent's control too.

Big moves before urgent moves. Urgent moves concern eyespace. But if the group isn't very big, then it isn't really urgent. All must be relative to score in the end.

Other than how to count, the key theoretical difficulty is estimating open areas, and evaluating fights (e.g. semeai, long before they start). This is difficult because the board is 2d not 1d like the real line. Otherwise, we get mixed concepts of positions we are so used to that we forget why it was optimal to get into such positions. We get strategic ideas of playing at outside eyespace point of opp in order to threaten to live immediately inside by attacking rather than opp having the advantage in their area. This relates to overconcentrating, direction of play, ...

Strategy, tactics may include mitigating cutting points, using their threats in combination. Plans may include preparing for fights in open areas by deciding how much you expect to get given the weak points and what it is that you want to get, preparing expectation of the likely valuable points even if there are many possible variations, so that you know which are more valuable. If the opp plays differently to expectations, you can compare and judge accordingly: did you misestimate, or should you counter with a more valuable move or a more dominating move that both takes away their threat and the value of their move (especially for weak points). F

An example of planning thoughts with a wall. It is more difficult for the opponent to make eyespace near it, so if they invade they tend to invade high, and yet if you also lack eyespace you don't want to make it inefficiently in the centre and may still want to compete for further away side eyespace at their weak points even if 2nd line since it remains difficult for them to make centre eyespace and valueless if you are already alive (even if it is only 2nd line). This is probably the main reason L shapes (magaris centre or wall with side) occur. You have good influence over the centre, but lack eyespace and can get that by making another wall around your centre while better controlling a thin layer of your own eyespace (perhaps by the opponent's weak points).

Probes at good timing are quite important in even games. Delay showing hand by committing to an area that becomes the target of the opponent's plans. Leaving the threat of aji is good. though don't let it conflict with the value of moves. Perhaps the not quite probes are fighting, to do with getting small sente moves when they may not be sente later since the opponent can lean on your weak points if they play first.

Working out exactly how far is the correct extension is tricky, but seemingly very instinctive once you get around professional level (I feel as though I am getting more confident in such a skill).

Why is small knight's move almost only shimari for 4-4 but rare for 3-4? Well in a 4-4 the corner is big and also the main source of eyespace locally. A 4-4 is happy to control it better and still try to be severe on the outside. Other moves leak the corner too easily. With a 3-4, a small knight's move isn't necessary to kill off the corner sufficiently, and still hasn't killed of the opponent's ability to play big "penultimate" moves that threaten to retake the corner from attaching/shoulder hit on the outside. A 4-4 shimari still leaves the opp approach or undercut, big move aji with eyespace, but just responding gets more territory so it doesn't mind. A 3-4 shimari doesn't want to give anything to the opponent locally without a fight.

Has AI changed Go theory? Very much so. Although its opening theory isn't exactly proven, there is a logic to it once you study it enough. This logic might one day be proven. Fuzzy things no-one was confident of, people are now sure of, with some corrections.

I mentioned play as B. For B it seems that when choosing direction of play, much like my ELO/Tian qi theory, B should uniformly add some pressure of continuing to attack by adding more moves nearer to B strength while expect to be able to invade W even if W gets the first move in their area.

If opp plays small move to both reduce your potential there and support their weak group, then let them connect then and instead commit to territory from the other direction (assuming you can't kill anyway). Then their small move isn't reducing any potential of yours and then still might not have connected their weak group to it.

[dhu163]

@RJ

The mathematical endgame theory by Elwyn Berlekamp, Bill Spight and me says very much about global endgame decisions!

just done a rapid read through of endgame 4. I've only skimmed endgame 5. review/notes are in my study journal.

My impression is that no-one seems to talk much about the board shapes. All the theory is about move value, sente and gote. There the dependence is a matter of some moves may have follow ups, similar size moves should be played in special orders to achieve the pinnacle of accuracy globally.

But I wanted to say that thinking of weak points in terms of endgame theory has (obviously) more subtle concepts. The dependence is more subtle like the maker-breaker game of Erdos rather than being able to assign definite value to moves (yet).

[RobertJasiek]

"Has AI changed Go theory?"

No. Instead, AI play has motivated human beings to change some informal go theory.