Fuseki Schmuseki #1

[topazg]

Despite my general lack of activity recently, I've been wanting to do this for a little while, and John F's recent post on attitude differences between professionals and amateurs has finally made me want to go ahead.

I have gone from sagely nodding, to disagreeing, to finding annoying, to finding rather amusing, people's absolute definitiveness of statements like "this is the way he must play", or "this is the only move". I try not to do such things myself, but realise that I too am equally guilty at times of this, and should open my mind and humble myself a bit to my relative lack of understanding of this wonderful game. Even professionals seem more tentative about their comments than some strong kyu / weak dan player comments on here, and that has certainly taught me a lesson, culminated by Rui referring to herself as "the pupil" in the upcoming Asian games training.

So, here's my exercise: The following are semi-standardish fuseki-moves, with some rather odd looking continuations (to my untrained eye). They are from a variety of strengths, the upper and lower bounds of which I will not disclose. As with other similar threads, please put your answers in hide tags, and if you have reasoning behind your statements, put those down to. To begin with, these are restricted to the first 10 moves (5 each) only, and you have to guess the strength of the players.

Yes, I'm aware this is far harder than Sol's exercise, but go with your instincts - the idea of this first week is to get the taste for the exercise and hopefully build some suspense . I'm also aware that kyu players can play out professional level fusekis for the 10 moves, so I have tried to pick ones that aren't completely theory.

After a week, I will upload the .sgfs again, this time with the next 10 moves (So moves 1-20). If you feel your original instinct was wrong, update, and say why you changed your mind. After another week, I'll say what games they are

I've no idea how to "score" this one - I guess I'll do the same "-1 for every rank off your guess was, with 10 points for spot on". Any professional games would be considered 9d for the sake of scoring.

If people enjoy this, I'm may try to do a few more things in a similar vein, with the aim of challenging our conceptions of what constitutes "good moves" and "bad moves"

So, game #1:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[pd]
;W[dd]
;B[dp]
;W[po]
;B[pq]
;W[mp]
;B[fc]
;W[cg]
;B[cc]
;W[dc])

Game #2:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[pd]
;W[cq]
;B[pp]
;W[dc]
;B[nc]
;W[qn]
;B[on]
;W[rp]
;B[qq]
;W[qk])

Game #3:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[pd]
;W[dd]
;B[qp]
;W[dp]
;B[oq]
;W[np]
;B[nq]
;W[qf]
;B[nd]
;W[qo])

Game #4:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[qd]
;W[pp]
;B[de]
;W[co]
;B[jc]
;W[oc]
;B[md]
;W[oe]
;B[pf]
;W[of])

Game #5:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[pd]
;W[dd]
;B[pq]
;W[cp]
;B[fp]
;W[dn]
;B[kp]
;W[qn]
;B[qj]
;W[pp])

Game #6:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[pd]
;W[dp]
;B[pp]
;W[ed]
;B[df]
;W[mq]
;B[nq]
;W[nr]
;B[or]
;W[mr])

Game #7:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[0.00]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[qd]
;W[dd]
;B[dq]
;W[pp]
;B[dn]
;W[od]
;B[qg]
;W[kd]
;B[gc]
;W[ic])

Game #8:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[white]PB[black]
;B[nd]
;W[dc]
;B[np]
;W[dq]
;B[dj]
;W[qp]
;B[qq]
;W[rq]
;B[pq]
;W[ro])

[dfan]

#1: 3d. I see no issues, and I know, for example, that Black should jump into the corner rather than back off when White place the large knight's move in the upper left.

#2: 10k. O17 makes little sense, and neither does Black's response to R6.

#3: 12k. This is one of those bimodal ones; either the players don't know the rules at all or they know how to break them. They could be dan players but I doubt they're 5k.

#4: 4d. This is the kind of crazy game those guys like.

#5: Uh, I'll say 2k.

#6: 15k. Unlike #3, I have trouble believing that strong players would play this even as an experiment.

#7: 5k. Looks perfectly reasonable.

#8: 3d. Black's moves are unusual but they seem logical.

[zinger]

Not enough moves to distinguish between strengths. Anyone from SDK through pro could easily play the same 10 moves. And even when mistakes are evident (game 6), the possible strength range is still really wide.

Although I wonder if Game 3 is Go Seigen.

[Shaddy]

I won't guess on any of them, but #3 reeks of go seigen.

[Kirby]

Number 2 must be Bill Speight.

[tj86430]

I tend to suck at these, but it doesn't prevent me from trying:

1. 1d
2. 9k
3. 6k
4. 2k
5. 3d
6. 7k
7. 4k
8. 5d

[judicata]

I've never done these, but I'll bite. First, I could just randomly throw out numbers, due to strongish players that play random opening moves (and, sometimes, the opponent obliges). Also, did you pick them all because they are misleading?

That said:

1. 2 dan. The diagonal fuseki makes this look a little odd, and jumping right into the corner at 9 seems a little early to me, though it IS a large knight's response. I'm pretty sure black can safely tenuki from the lower right, though I imagine he'd still like sente to come back. All in all, nothing too off-base here.

2. 16 kyu. (Watch, this will turn out to be a pro game). From my unscientific observation, I don't see DDks open with 3-3 often--usually I see it from people who are experimenting. But, 7 is weird. I don't see black getting securable influence out of it. Also, I would think a 12kyuish player would habitually enclose the 3-4 before approaching (though this isn't saying the approach is wrong).

3. 5 dan. Why, you ask? White 6 is obviously weird but, for some reason, White 8 and 10 seem to reflect an deep experimental strategy. I haven't read it out, obviously, but I'm going with my gut on this. So, 5 dan it is.

4. 4 kyu. Again, a bit of an odd fuseki, but it has some principled basis, I think. White's approach seems reasonable on some level, but the upper left might become urgent afterwards.

5. 3 dan. I couldn't decide between 12 kyu and 3 dan. . Through these moves, black shows an enormous moyo strategy. Black 5 and White 6 are odd, but not unplayable. Black 7 is what tells me "12 kyu," and the non-pincer at 9 might tell me the same. Low confidence about this one.

6. 16 kyu. Black 5 is weird, but whatever. White 6, though... I just can't imagine the reasoning for this, and the moves through 10 seem to fight over 7 points in the opening.

7. 5 kyu. I think I understand the thought behind black 9 -- Black doesn't want to be one-space-low-pincered with the small knight's move approach, so black chooses this one-perhaps thinking white might defend the corner. But, I dunno.

8. 5 dan. Why? because it seems intentionally random, as if there is an express or implied agreement not to play fuseki/joseki moves. At the same time, both players are in playable positions.

[John Fairbairn]

Despite my general lack of activity recently, I've been wanting to do this for a little while, and John F's recent post on attitude differences between professionals and amateurs has finally made me want to go ahead.

I have gone from sagely nodding, to disagreeing, to finding annoying, to finding rather amusing, people's absolute definitiveness of statements like "this is the way he must play", or "this is the only move".

This sounds like a "minor ad hominem attack" on me - where's the admin?

If it is, I don't mind. What I really wanted to say was that I once tried something a bit similar as a way of justifying my own incredulity at the many people who talk knowingly about a pro's style. I can't remember the details now, but I think the idea was to guess which of two named players was White or Black in a series of games on the basis of style. As I recall, the results were as I expected - it was not possible to say who was who reliably.

I'm not sure if that was a harder or easier test than the one here. I'll disqualify myself from answering this one but I expect again that the results will show that a pin is as useful a way of judging ranks as any other for most of us. I include myself in that category. The only amateur I know that I'd be tempted to exclude would be T Mark.

I don't know about the Sol experiment. What were the results of that?

A more general question. You are using the fuseki as the benchmark. Would you expect different results if you used middle game positions? I'm wondering whether mistakes such as direction of play might be more obvious markers of weak play. I do know that many pros have a sort of table in their heads that tells them e.g. if he doesn't know this he can't be 1-dan, or the like, but I regret never having made notes of specific examples.

[daniel_the_smith]

Maybe choosing ranges is chickening out but seriously, this is impossible... ^^

1 12k-9d
2 20k-5k
3 20k-10k (on account of white's last move, if not for that could be 9d)
4 15k-5k
5 15k-5k
6 15k-5k
7 10k-9d
8 10k-9d

[topazg]

This sounds like a "minor ad hominem attack" on me - where's the admin?

Not at all, actually, I found your post insightful and rather humbling - there were some really valuable points on how we view Go, our knowledge, and the learning experience. The comments regarding "false certainty" were certainly not directed at you

I don't know about the Sol experiment. What were the results of that?

Very variable - some people's judgements were very good, some people's weren't

A more general question. You are using the fuseki as the benchmark. Would you expect different results if you used middle game positions? I'm wondering whether mistakes such as direction of play might be more obvious markers of weak play. I do know that many pros have a sort of table in their heads that tells them e.g. if he doesn't know this he can't be 1-dan, or the like, but I regret never having made notes of specific examples.

I agree, this is also interesting, and I haven't found a good way in my head of doing a similar experiment on that - midgame direction of play choice will be another, but I need to find boards where the rest of the board doesn't look too much of a giveaway.

[topazg]

@daniel: No, ranges are almost definitely more appropriate. Actually, that is part of what I was hoping for, "players below x or above x would never play this" is exactly the sort of interesting insights I was hoping to draw out

I may do moves 21-30 depending on responses...

[John Fairbairn]

I agree, this is also interesting, and I haven't found a good way in my head of doing a similar experiment on that - midgame direction of play choice will be another, but I need to find boards where the rest of the board doesn't look too much of a giveaway.

I would certainly blench at having to find examples, but I wondered whether graded examples from books might do the trick. Sort of seeing one in my head in a typical layout - a title, a hint, a diagram - my eye at the same time fell on your phrase "too much of a giveaway". That got me to wondering further. You chose to avoid hints. I chose likewise. I have a feeling that's a fairly common stance in western go journals. In general, we tend to laugh at nudge, nudge, wink, wink anyway. But Oriental books nearly always have hints. Many people here buy Oriental problem books and can't read the hints. They get something out of it. They might even claim in a hair-shirt way to get more out of it (I think I would). But the Orientals may know something we've missed - they have been at the business longer than us, and so have chessplayers. In the few chess problem books I now have, the ones with hints seem the best to me, though I suppose I had always thought that my preference was perhaps because of a liking for the author, or something like that. Anyway you've given me food for thought on the real value of hints. It's bedtime now, so I shall try to use that instead of counting sheep.

[Harleqin]

Game 1:

• Up to move 10: This could be anything from 8 kyu to 9 dan, but
  Black's strategy does feel somewhat inconsistent to me. I will
  put them at 2 kyu for now.

Game 2:

• Up to move 10: I have no objections up to move 6, but 7-9 reveal
  that these players have a lot to learn. I say 7 kyu for now.

Game 3:

• Up to move 10: I do not see mistakes here. I think that it can be
  any dan player to pro game. I will say 4 dan for now.

Game 4:

• Up to move 10: I do not like move 6; I think that the upper left
  corner is bigger. Move 7 seems slightly redundant to me, since
  Black already has a sort of pincer in place. I think they are
  strong kyu players: for now 1 kyu.

Game 5:

• Up to move 10: Again, I see no obvious mistakes. I like move 10. I
  will put them at 4 dan again, for now.

Game 6:

• Up to move 10: No. No no no. 11 kyu.

Game 7:

• Up to move 10: Until move 8, exotic, but perhaps playable in an
  experimental mood. 9 and 10 show the kyu player. I'll say 6 kyu
  for now.

Game 8:

• Up to move 10: This seems like the kind of experiment one can
  observe on KGS in the low to mid dan region. I put them at 2 dan
  for now.

[Chew Terr]

Let's see if I can get these as horribly wrong as the last time I tried to guess ranks!

Game 1: 3d

1-3: normal
4: It wants influence in a particular direction, but I would not choose it, because nothing makes one direction better than the other. That said, it does not seem like a bad move, just a pre-emptive decision.
7: Brave tenuki
10: Blocks in the direction I would choose.
I see nothing I could mark as a mistake, for sure. Both players play fast, for rapid development. The players seem more confident than I tend to (which could mean a lot of things), but I see nothing that I can specifically mark as a mistake. Thus, I name this one as above my pay grade. I say mid dan (3d) because I have seen a reasonable amount of experimentation between 1d and 5d.

Game 2: 2k

4: The top is boring (one side is low), the bottom is boring in general. So we want to look at two options: prioritize the right side, or approach the 3-4 corner. Personally, I like approaching the 3-4, but at least this move emphasizes the right side by building a loose enclosure facing it.
6: If the top right were a 3-4 enclosure, I would say that this should be at R10 (to block a more ideal extension). But it's not, so I'll reserve judgement.
7: Unusual move, but it works okay since the bottom left is a 3-3, so the bottom is more interesting for white.
The rest makes sense. I had originally questioned several of the moves, but they kind of made more sense after I thought 'Well, this side is big...' If black's next move was a large extension from the bottom right, I would definitely decide it to be high quality. If not, I would still hesitate. I'll go with 2k, but I'm not confident at all about it.

Game 3: pro

Okay, this is a weird one. Move 6 looks really weird, though it makes a little more sense after move 10. Black's play is fine, but whether white's is good hinges on whether 8 is a clever probe or a throw-away. If it's a probe, it checks black's direction of play before starting to build a wall below (since black didn't pincer). I had originally figured this would be low-rank, but I kind of like the hope that 6, 8, and 10 are all made with one plan in mind, because it looks like afterwards, white's stones could all be made into a cohesive purpose on the right side. I had originally thought DDK, but I'm going with pro, on hopes that his stones really are meant to work together.

Game 4: 6k

This game makes much more sense to me, which makes me assume it's closer to my level. As white, I would have tried to settle quickly instead of jumping immediately, but I don't know that it's any better.

Game 5: 12k

Black plays this game just like I would. Moves quickly, approaches the 3-4, pincers wide without giving an ideal jump. White's moves make some sense, but he seems to get less bang for his buck (and I prefer R3 for W10). Because of this, I could be convinced that the players are higher ranked, but tend to think some white's moves are more odd than inspired. I guess 12k. It's sad, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear this is a pro game.

Game 6: 20k

Okay, not big on this one. 4 might be the wrong way, since it emphasizes a side that white has no support on. 7 makes me cringe in the way unsolicited attachments does, and N4 would make much more sense at 8. While I could be wrong, the contact plays seem odd and risk giving an awful lot away. DDK

Game 7: 15k

5: This move is weird. Seems like it tries to do a lot of things, and does them all poorly. The other moves seem fine (I kind of like that w8 is high, and it works well with the pincer at 10. However, I don't remember seeing move 5 since I was SDK, so I'm going with 15k. (I could be convinced that it's playing for influence, above my level).

Game 8: 2d

Okay, I swear I've seen a very similar opening before, possibly this game. People a few stones stronger than me (low kyu to low dan) seem to often like the facing 3-4s, and while the 6-4's are uncommon, the followups seem reasonable. I think the last person I saw with this opening as white was 2d, so I'll go with that.

[Solomon]

I can't bring myself to post a single rank per game based off of just 10 moves, so instead:

Game 1
25k - 15k: 5%
14k - 9k: 10%
8k - 4k: 20%
3k - 1d: 25%
2d - 5d: 35%
6d - 9d: 5%

Game 2
25k - 15k: 30%
14k - 9k: 40%
8k - 4k: 20%
3k - 1d: 10%
2d - 5d: 0%
6d - 9d: 0%

Game 3
25k - 15k: 0%
14k - 9k: 0%
8k - 4k: 5%
3k - 1d: 5%
2d - 5d: 10%
6d - 9d: 80%

Game 4
25k - 15k: 10%
14k - 9k: 30%
8k - 4k: 45%
3k - 1d: 10%
2d - 5d: 5%
6d - 9d: 0%

Game 5
25k - 15k: 20%
14k - 9k: 20%
8k - 4k: 30%
3k - 1d: 15%
2d - 5d: 10%
6d - 9d: 5%

Game 6
25k - 15k: 30%
14k - 9k: 50%
8k - 4k: 10%
3k - 1d: 5%
2d - 5d: 5%
6d - 9d: 0%

Game 7
25k - 15k: 5%
14k - 9k: 10%
8k - 4k: 40%
3k - 1d: 30%
2d - 5d: 10%
6d - 9d: 5%

Game 8
25k - 15k: 0%
14k - 9k: 10%
8k - 4k: 25%
3k - 1d: 45%
2d - 5d: 15%
6d - 9d: 5%