CXUD, I grabbed a recent amateur game from KGS and marked it up in ways that illustrate some basic ideas about why it's important to keep your groups connected, and your enemy's groups separated. Why don't you look at this and see if you can point out any plays where you think you wouldn't know whether or not to connect your groups? (Hopefully this will remove any confusion coming from the "unrealistic situation".)
To stronger players: if I'm spouting garbage, feel free, to edit the sgf and re-upload.
[sgf-full]http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=999[/sgf-full]
connectedness and cutting over influence
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jts
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Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
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Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
@jts:
One thing that's not quite right. You say the upper right corner can fend for itself at one point. This is actually false. Black 95 is essential, or black's corner can be killed starting with t15.
The rest up to that point was pretty good.
One thing that's not quite right. You say the upper right corner can fend for itself at one point. This is actually false. Black 95 is essential, or black's corner can be killed starting with t15.
The rest up to that point was pretty good.
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daal
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Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
CXUD wrote:hyperpape wrote:I'm wondering what you think of as influence.
Pretty much when a piece has a field of influence it can use to put pressure on future developments in the area.
In order for your stone to be able to put pressure on your opponent's stones (exert influence, be a bully) it has to be strong itself, otherwise it's more likely to wind up a victim. This is where connecting becomes important. If it's connected to a group of living stones, it will be strong and can be effective. If on the other hand it gets cut off from its support line, you can kiss your influence goodbye.
Patience, grasshopper.
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daal
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Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
@jts, your nice commentary would be easier to read if you edited out the kibbitz.
Patience, grasshopper.
Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
jts wrote:CXUD, I grabbed a recent amateur game from KGS and marked it up in ways that illustrate some basic ideas about why it's important to keep your groups connected, and your enemy's groups separated. Why don't you look at this and see if you can point out any plays where you think you wouldn't know whether or not to connect your groups? (Hopefully this will remove any confusion coming from the "unrealistic situation".)
To stronger players: if I'm spouting garbage, feel free, to edit the sgf and re-upload.
[sgf-full]http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=999[/sgf-full]
That makes alot of sense. I'm no good at capture so I rarely get into those types of games but that helped me realize how it could still effect my games anyways. I have trouble with capture situations so I always tanuki to try to grab more territory but I can see how it would be relevant even when base building (half completed bases need to stay connected in case they lose eye space). I just wish I thought in terms of capture but keeping track of all of that would drive me crazy, I'd much rather just tanuki during a fight to try to grab territory. Playing even a single extra stone in an unpopulated part of the board where you already have one other stone can get so many more points than a small capture battle loss.
amnal wrote:That makes sense. I wasn't sure if there was an added value to connecting groups that I wasn't aware of.
Well, it saves a couple of points under group tax
daal wrote:CXUD wrote:hyperpape wrote:I'm wondering what you think of as influence.
Pretty much when a piece has a field of influence it can use to put pressure on future developments in the area.
In order for your stone to be able to put pressure on your opponent's stones (exert influence, be a bully) it has to be strong itself, otherwise it's more likely to wind up a victim. This is where connecting becomes important. If it's connected to a group of living stones, it will be strong and can be effective. If on the other hand it gets cut off from its support line, you can kiss your influence goodbye.
I keep things close together locally so they can make a physical connection and have local influence and take territory but I had been having trouble keeping connected across the board so as to not get separated. Every time I make a move I expect it to either be helping to take enough territory to make eyes or to invade an opponents intended territory so I have trouble making a move like connecting or separating which seems to neither take territory or invade it. I think it's because I don't like dealing with capture and don't like dealing with killing groups.
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jts
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Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
CXUD wrote:... I have trouble with capture situations so I always tanuki to try to grab more territory but I can see how it would be relevant even when base building (half completed bases need to stay connected in case they lose eye space). I just wish I thought in terms of capture but keeping track of all of that would drive me crazy, I'd much rather just tanuki during a fight to try to grab territory. Playing even a single extra stone in an unpopulated part of the board where you already have one other stone can get so many more points than a small capture battle loss.
When you say that you "never capture," I hope you don't mean that literally! If you surrender every time your opponent starts a fight, and play on a different part of the board, eventually he'll be able to wipe all of your stones off the board. Can you post a game of yours to show us what you mean?
You are pointing to something smart, though, when you say that a single extra stone in an empty part of the board is worth way more points than just capturing a few stones. The problem, though, is that sometimes capturing a few stones isn't just capturing a few stones! Here's an example:
On the top, if it's Black's turn he can play at "a" to save his three stones; if it's White's turn he can play at "a" to capture them. That's worth 6 points (6 points "in gote"; that means that after one player saves/captures the stones, the other player can get points by playing somewhere else.) You're right that this is a tiny play. You can leave this until the end of the game, when there are no more open spaces to claim (unless suddenly the white stones get surrounded and they need space for eyes).
On the right side, if it's Black's turn he can play at "b" to save his three stones; White can capture them. But here you're not "just" capturing or saving three stones. White's stones have surrounded 18 points of territory here. If W captures on the right, he gets 21 points for this area; if Black saves his stones, he ruins W's territory as well.
On the bottom, if it's Black's turn he can play at "c" to save his three stones; White can capture them. Again, though, W isn't just capturing three stones; if he captures these three stones, Black's group is dead. The 3 stones are worth 6 points, but the group is worth 45 points.
Some more examples:
On the top Black can capture two stones at "a", and on the bottom he can capture two stones at "b". White can save. But the positions are completely different. On the bottom, the white wall is impenetrable: the capture is worth 4 points (in gote). On the top, the endangered white stones are all that separates black's live group from pouring into the potential territory that white has built up with his wall. (In fact, White shouldn't even try to save these stones: he should atari at "c" and then, if Black captures, seal that stone into the corner. This prevents Black from separating white's groups by playing "c" himself -- a move which is worth far more than 4 points, even if these cutting stones eventually die.)
Do you understand why a move like "a" is worth far, far more than a move on a more empty part of the board, like "d" or "e"?
Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
jts wrote:CXUD wrote:... I have trouble with capture situations so I always tanuki to try to grab more territory but I can see how it would be relevant even when base building (half completed bases need to stay connected in case they lose eye space). I just wish I thought in terms of capture but keeping track of all of that would drive me crazy, I'd much rather just tanuki during a fight to try to grab territory. Playing even a single extra stone in an unpopulated part of the board where you already have one other stone can get so many more points than a small capture battle loss.
When you say that you "never capture," I hope you don't mean that literally! If you surrender every time your opponent starts a fight, and play on a different part of the board, eventually he'll be able to wipe all of your stones off the board. Can you post a game of yours to show us what you mean?
You are pointing to something smart, though, when you say that a single extra stone in an empty part of the board is worth way more points than just capturing a few stones. The problem, though, is that sometimes capturing a few stones isn't just capturing a few stones! Here's an example:
On the top, if it's Black's turn he can play at "a" to save his three stones; if it's White's turn he can play at "a" to capture them. That's worth 6 points (6 points "in gote"; that means that after one player saves/captures the stones, the other player can get points by playing somewhere else.) You're right that this is a tiny play. You can leave this until the end of the game, when there are no more open spaces to claim (unless suddenly the white stones get surrounded and they need space for eyes).
On the right side, if it's Black's turn he can play at "b" to save his three stones; White can capture them. But here you're not "just" capturing or saving three stones. White's stones have surrounded 18 points of territory here. If W captures on the right, he gets 21 points for this area; if Black saves his stones, he ruins W's territory as well.
On the bottom, if it's Black's turn he can play at "c" to save his three stones; White can capture them. Again, though, W isn't just capturing three stones; if he captures these three stones, Black's group is dead. The 3 stones are worth 6 points, but the group is worth 45 points.
Some more examples:
On the top Black can capture two stones at "a", and on the bottom he can capture two stones at "b". White can save. But the positions are completely different. On the bottom, the white wall is impenetrable: the capture is worth 4 points (in gote). On the top, the endangered white stones are all that separates black's live group from pouring into the potential territory that white has built up with his wall. (In fact, White shouldn't even try to save these stones: he should atari at "c" and then, if Black captures, seal that stone into the corner. This prevents Black from separating white's groups by playing "c" himself -- a move which is worth far more than 4 points, even if these cutting stones eventually die.)
Do you understand why a move like "a" is worth far, far more than a move on a more empty part of the board, like "d" or "e"?
Definitely, the way it was explained to me is to make big moves before little moves but make vital moves before big moves.
I'm going to play a game against the computer either today or tomorrow and post it but I actually think alot of this conversation has already helped me. I think I had gotten so out of capture races because I was so bad at them that I didn't appreciate the effects separating and connecting could have. It had become more of a game of spreading out and trying to swallow up territory as expanding fields of pieces where capture was typically done on a small scale of two or three pieces and typically non vital (although not always). Go almost feels like two games to me, one game is a capture race and the other is influence (not the influence of a hard to capture piece but the individual fields of influence each piece emits in an area). It almost seems like there's two different kinds of influence, the strength they emit during a capture race because they are strong or have eyes, and the strength they emit as a crowded field to block off territory in a way that opponents cant get through or make life within. When I place a stone I'm not thinking about capture I'm thinking about placing another one in a slightly distant position to create a wall that is too tight to invade and at the same time wide enough to absorb the territory I need, that is how I see go, a game of large territory absorbing closing walls. I don't see it as a game of strands trying to capture each other and enlarge/interconnect themselves to avoid capture.
If I were playing a game and a weak group were in danger I would rather spend three stones enclosing off more territory than spend those three stones trying to connect because that would not only make the group live but it would also add to my score.
Re: connectedness and cutting over influence
I think I have it now. This is my game before I got it:
http://eidogo.com/#26eSREw
and this is it afterwards:
http://eidogo.com/#2guwEWF
I still need to get used to taking territory this way but I can definitely see the difference. I was futilely trying to figure out how to not get all my weak stones cut off and keep them all connected rather than not making tons weak stones in the first place.
Thanks for everyone's help.
http://eidogo.com/#26eSREw
and this is it afterwards:
http://eidogo.com/#2guwEWF
I still need to get used to taking territory this way but I can definitely see the difference. I was futilely trying to figure out how to not get all my weak stones cut off and keep them all connected rather than not making tons weak stones in the first place.
Thanks for everyone's help.