I guess I agree with a good portion of this post, although I intentionally do not want to make distinctions between countries. For one, it's hard for me to be objective. In addition, there are distributions of skill that likely overlap between a number of countries.

As far as "quality" of games go, it is difficult to measure this, unless you say exactly what constitutes a quality game - or even what constitutes a game. You could consider a game to be the board states only, with the board states consisting only of stones on intersections. If you include "time spent on move" or "average time constraint on move" in that state, it seems that you'd end up with a different set of "quality" games.

If you think of time as a constraint that is part of the game, good use of time is certainly an aspect of quality of play.

_________________
be immersed

Could you be a bit more specific? The major Korean titles allow at least 3 hours per player. Are these "Mickey Mouse" time controls?

I haven't checked, so don't go putting this on SL, but I don't think I'll be far off when I say only the GS Caltex and Kuksu are now 3 hours. The Ch'eonwon is now 1 hour. The Myeongin (the one I'm least sure about), Siptan, KPI Cup and Maxim are all about 10 mins plus 40 secs, and the KBS and Baduk League are even faster. The lower profile events such as the Senior events are also 10 mins. Among the women only the Kuksu is 3h, while the Myeongin is 1h.

Even in the international events, the BC Card Cup is 1 hour each and the Samsung 2h. The Nongshim is 1 hour. Only the LG is 3h.

The top Koreans are mostly playing around 70 games a year and have even gone over 90. I estimate that at least 80% of those players' games are quickplay. Never mind Mickey, this is Donald Duck territory.

I'm not sure how relevant it is to this discussion, but I think the 38th (2010) Myeongin had time limits of 2 hours with 3 periods of 60 seconds per person, iirc. I'd have to look up the others.

_________________
be immersed

I'd certainly like it if someone who spoke Korean could help me with these numbers, it's very possible that they're wrong. I first asked about it in this thread: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2025.

The time limit for Myeongin I found (3 hours, 5 hour final) on GoGame world, which could just be incorrect:
http://www.gogameworld.com/gophp/pg_titlelist_detail.php?title=Myungin.

Also I have that Chunlan & Ing Cup are 3 hours, and BC Card Cup is 2, but those numbers come from wikipedia or SL, either of which could easily be a mistake.

I am genuinely curious about this, so I'd be happy to find out that I'm wrong!

These are not Korean events.

The 2nd BC Card Cup was 1h each plus 30x3 according to the yearbook, and it looks like the Myeongin is 2h + 3x60. I can't be bothered to check the rest, sorry.

There are researchers who have redefined go theory significantly.

Unfortunately researchers who redefine go theory are not at the top of most player's mind when they think about go theory. Which is why a lot of famous go books are ghost written and then published as being "written by" or "written in collaboration with" brilliant famous go professionals.

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Here is current time setting for Korean Tournament.
(From Oro information) It is for final unless specified otherwise.

Kuksu 3 hours 5x1m
HighOne resort cup 2 hours 3x1m
KBS Baduk king 5 minutes 5x30sec
GS Caltex cup 2 hours 3x40sec
Chunwon 1 hour 3x40sec
Maxim Coffee cup 10 minutes 3x40sec
Korea Price information cup 10 minutes 3x40sec
SipDan 10 minutes 3x40sec
JiJi Auction 10 minutes 3x40sec
2011 Baduk League short game 5x40sec, long game 1 hour 5x40sec

DaeJu cup Preliminary: 1 hour 3x1m, Main 15minutes 3x40sec

olleh kt cup 1 hour 3x40sec

Woman Kuksu 3 hours 5x1m
Woman MtoungIn 1 hour 3x40sec
Woman Kisung 1 hour 1x1m

Wasn't this first said by Hugh Briss?

Awesome, trout. Obviously, I should just learn Korean, Japanese and Chinese (talk to me in twenty years...), but if you're feeling super magnanimous, there was an attempt to track down times for the preliminaries that was a lot harder because we're all monolingual.

@Emeraldemon Where times for the finals are different from times for the preliminaries, the preliminaries are probably more important. There are more games played there.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

I'm pretty sure the BC Card cup allows 2 hours of play + three periods of 1-minute byo-yomi.

I also think that it's obviously difficult to compare the new generation of playeres with old playeres. That because new players learn to play the game studying the style of older players. For example, like it happened with Cho Chikun and the Korean insei. The boy had probably studied some of Cho Chikun's games and knew how to respond to his style. Nowadays, probably there would be some low ranked pros who could beat (or at least have a good game) against Shusaku. That's because probably 99% of them has studied his games an know how to play against it. I think historical players are so well considered because they have changed the game somehow, like Shusaku did with the fuseki that wasn't his invention, but that he certainly improved. And also with Go Seigen's New Fuseki Theory (along with Kitani Minoru). That doesn't mean old players are weak compared to the new generation. But you would certainly have to give them a time to adapt to new joseki, komi rule, and other recent changes of the game.

_________________
My blog with World Go news in Portuguese: Jornal do Go
The link to the Google Translation to English: Jornal Do Go

Having been away for the weekend, I am only now catching up with various threads, so my apologies for coming in late. Could we have the names of two of these researchers, please? Their theoretical achievements should be celebrated as much, at least, as those of the professionals who were putting the ideas into practice.

Best wishes.

_________________
No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

John Conway. Start by reading his On Numbers and Games. (Warning: pure maths!) The book is ground-breaking for two reasons: Numbers are defined more elegantly than by previous attempts still taught at many schools and universities. Combinatorial games (number-like things that can be added and subtracted) are defined in general so that CGT numbers in Go are just a special case of combinatorial game theory.

Contless names of people having contributed to computer go research. Random example: Tristan Cazenave, who, among many other things, studied proof-play.

Researchers around Elwyn Berlekamp. Random example: Bill Spight. It is difficult to access his findings though. Example: He has explained values of approach kos.

Researchers in the rules theory camp: Random example: Ing Chang-ki. He demonstrated the possibility to classify and define objects and terms of Go strategy (although, in most cases, he could not define well by himself).

Experimenting amateurs: They have shown (before programs did the same) that any 3rd line move or above is possible in the opening. Prominent example: the KGS player sum.

Other Go theory research: Random example: Richard Hunter explained how to assess liberties and play basic semeais without kos and without approach defects.

Coy. sum is RJ is it not? But more to the point, how does this differ from what pros were doing during the New Fuseki era?

And are we to be believe no pro knew what Richard Hunter wrote about liberties or what Bill Spight wrote about kos? The western presentations are new and valuable but that is not the same as discovering.

And, further, although it's debatable, of course, I think most of us make a useful distinction between go theory and go rules theory. One makes us significantly stronger at playing the game, the other does not.

New Fuseki and decades later amateurs like Zandveld and Colmez tried only a subset of the possible moves: 3-10, 4-10, 3-11, 5-5, 10-10, 9-10 and maybe a few more. KGS players during recent years and then MC programs have tried and justified empirically all first intersections!



I can't know because never have I seen anything big eyes principles other than the basic nakade liberty count. Hunter has described much more than that. If there was anything related in Asia, it is still hidden to non-Asian language readers.



All from him about kos was new, AFAIK. If you have access to earlier information from others, please tell us!



Sure, and I do mean discovering. (I cannot be sure because I have not specifically searched for counter-proofs if they should exist. Only in case of terms defined by myself (like "ko [in general]"), I am sure.



There is fluent space in between. Low level rules theory like a formal definition of hypothetical-strategy may be entirely useless for improving. High level definitions like of thickness are at the core of becoming stronger. Intermediate level definitions like of ko assist modest improvement provided one is willing to learn on that level of abstraction. (An immediate application of the ko definition is to play only such kos that, with good timing, are related to winning versus losing the game. It is not necessary to learn this advice from the definition - it is possible though. I did not learn that advice from others but had to work it out by myself around 3k-5k level. Now, thanks to the definition, the advice is available easily.)

This implies something interesting. Either:

1. Professionals already have entirely adequate high level definitions of thickness, in which case the efforts of these 'go researchers' are at best matters of presenting existing material to Westerners, or

2. The work of Go researchers could seriously elevate the strength of professionals.

I think one is plausible enough, so long as we're relaxed about what we call a definition. However, it's your habit to take definition rather strictly.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

There are not just these two extremes.



Apart from this preference, I will raise the definition of thickness to a higher level of much greater accuracy than before. So, yes,...



...this is correct, although one definition of just one strategic concept alone does not imply "seriously [stronger]" for professionals.

This is interesting. Are you of the opinion that thoroughly researched and carefully compiled literature on, for example, all of thickness, haengma, aji and miai by western mid-dan amateurs could increase the strength of top level professional players?

i am not sure the disjunction is appropriate here. I agree that 1. is plausible enough but this knowledge may not be written anywhere, existing only in fluent (not easily extractable and explainable) form in minds of strong players, spread partly in speech and partly by self study and self discovery

this may sound improbable but i think it is possible and in that case it would indeed be beneficial if someone would precisely define the concept and serve it for use of weaker players. however, i can't decide how much is it possible to define it to catch the essence and be understandable enough, ie. whether it will work as a shortcut to learn the concept compared to the present situation at all

_________________
Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.