Comparison of Interest in Pro Go by Country

[Ember]

if japanese people still hold on to the belief that they are the strongest in 2 day game..

Who said that?

i am sorry for your stupidity.

What good will it do to insult me if you don't even know me? I don't think you understand the point why I'm interested in japanese Go and not that much in other country's Go that much at all. You also don't seem to try to bother understanding my point, either. So to make it clear in one sentence: For me, it is about FUN. I enjoy them more. You want to enjoy the games of (what you say) are the BEST (and NO, I don't want to say with that, that japanese are best. I'm realistic. Just to make sure you don't misunderstand me AGAIN or in case you have fun twisting my comments).

i have said it and say them again. if you are good at 2 day game then you are also good at 2 hour game.
reason why japanese players can not place well in world championship is because they are weaker than chinese and korean players.
result speaks for itself!!

I never said that japanese were stronger or as strong as the others. What I have problems to understand is that in your opinion the japanese players are "second class". This is not true. As was already pointed out before (I think topazg posted it), e. g. the game between Iyama and Gu in the Super-Meijin-Tournament was definitely NOT one-sided. I'm not able to see the games on Tygem oder WBaduk, but I was told that the fans went this way and that way in saying who would win the game. And I do not believe that this is a "odd-man-out"-game. There is a difference, yes, but not such a big one as you keep proclaiming. What bothers me is this "all japanese are bad"-thinking of yours. Of course, this is ok for you, but please don't try to sell your opinion as the Allmighty's truth. It sounds exactly like that.

does 2 day game have less mistakes than 3 hour game?
yes and no!!!
i am sure more time will give them some chance of correct move.
but 3 hours is plenty of time for anybody to play reasonablely good game.
but if you are second class player ...does it really matter how much time you get??

my final point...stop holding on to the belief that 2 day game will give japanese advantage.

I do think it matters how much time you get for a match. For me, it is a sign of quality (I know, again we disagree there).
And then: I'm no person who wants to be told what to think and as I don't know you and don't understand you (even though I tried) I will stick to my beliefs. I don't care if they are true in your eyes, I will stick to them unless I have reason to change them. I honestly say that to me, you don't make that much reason with your "wild fury" against japanese Go. If you want people to recognize more of the games you think are worth watching: post them. It is a benefit for all of us and maybe a step in a direction in which we will get more info from all asian go nations. This would be great!

EDIT: And it would be exactly the reason to all this problem of yours that the "wrong" games get more attention than the "right" ones. But there has to be done something about this problem or the situation won't change. Just sitting here and complaining / arguing about or discussing the fact will not get us anywhere...

Ember: i can give you 1 year to think but you will not be able to beat me. because rank matters. it is not the time but it is strength.

This illustrates pretty well for me, how big a difference you think is between J and CK. But as said above: I disagree.

I don't think we will ever come to an agreement.. Right now, I also don't have the energy and the nerves to discuss this topic with you further, so I don't think I will be posting in this thread again - as in my eyes everything is said. I just want to enjoy Go - just like everybody else here - and I have my views on and preferences of what I like. Just as you, just as everybody. That doesn't have to do with intelligence or anything like that.

[karaklis]

i can give you 1 year to think but you will not be able to beat me. because rank matters. it is not the time but it is strength.

I think if the difference of strength is less than 3 handi stones, then time would matter, because the level of knowledge of both players is similar. But then the question is, how would time effect the play? If you give a DDK 3 or 6 hours, it wouldn't make any difference, but for a high amateur dan or a professional player it would.

[Kirby]

I would guess that more thinking time does not ALWAYS imply better moves. It's possible that that additional time could yield diminishing returns in terms of move quality. It's also possible that "over-thinking" can get you into trouble.

Of course, we don't really know and can only speculate, because there's not much empirical data when it comes to players playing against one another with different starting times on their clocks.

It'd be interesting to take maybe 200 pros and match them up against one another in a round robin tournament, letting one player have 2 days and the other have 3 hours. At this point we don't have much data like that, so we are all kind of speculating.

[hyperpape]

One might distinguish between empirical and qualitative data subject to statistical analysis. I suspect you mean the latter, Kirby.

I say that because I remember a comment Charles Matthews about complex macroendgame a long time ago that's based on examining games when two days per game was the norm in Japan. (http://senseis.xmp.net/?KoreanDominanceDiscussion). That's the kind of comparison that you're likely to find on this subject, not anything that you can do statistics on. Ultimately, I doubt we'll get anything more concrete than one's sense of how games differ, unless go programs reach the level of chess programs.

[Kirby]

One might distinguish between empirical and qualitative data subject to statistical analysis. I suspect you mean the latter, Kirby.

I say that because I remember a comment Charles Matthews about complex macroendgame a long time ago that's based on examining games when two days per game was the norm in Japan. (http://senseis.xmp.net/?KoreanDominanceDiscussion). That's the kind of comparison that you're likely to find on this subject, not anything that you can do statistics on. Ultimately, I doubt we'll get anything more concrete than one's sense of how games differ, unless go programs reach the level of chess programs.

Do you mean qualitative vs. quantitative analysis?

What I meant when I said empirical was to make a hypothesis on whether 2 days of time yielded superior results than 3 hours of time, then have several games using the said time constraints to test the hypothesis.

Edit: As for your link, it seems to be mostly speculation to me. I think it would be more interesting to actually test the theories by holding actual games.

[hyperpape]

Kirby, I don't know any precise meaning of "qualitative analysis" but I suspect it's not what I meant. My point was that one might either say, without having examined games, what differences there are between games of various lengths. On the other hand, one might study games involving different time limits and make comparisons about them. This would still require one's judgment, and not be subject to statistical analysis, but it would be empirical, in the sense of being based on observation, not preconceptions (but it would be vulnerable to one's preconceptions confounding the observations).

Btw: your proposed experiment wouldn't work well, because it's possible to think on your opponents' time (this is even more true for professionals). I doubt there's any way around that.

[Vesa]

OK, I'll bite too:

Wikipedia says:
Meijin (名人), literally translated, means "Brilliant Man." It is the name of the second most prestigious Japanese Go Tournament. It also refers to a traditional Japanese title given to the strongest player of the day during the Edo period.

Now, hello, what was the other game Magicwand was so keen on?

Cheers,
Vesa

[Kirby]

Kirby, I don't know any precise meaning of "qualitative analysis" but I suspect it's not what I meant. My point was that one might either say, without having examined games, what differences there are between games of various lengths. On the other hand, one might study games involving different time limits and make comparisons about them. This would still require one's judgment, and not be subject to statistical analysis, but it would be empirical, in the sense of being based on observation, not preconceptions (but it would be vulnerable to one's preconceptions confounding the observations).

Yes, I think that it is better to look at the data more to make a better conclusion. It's still not really rigorous, and kind of subject to one's opinion.

For example, if I have a preconceived biased toward longer games, it is easier for me to find aspects of longer games that are of better quality.

Btw: your proposed experiment wouldn't work well, because it's possible to think on your opponents' time (this is even more true for professionals). I doubt there's any way around that.

That's true. I overlooked that detail. The person with less time would still be at a disadvantage since they are one ply behind their opponent, so you would still get some information.

However, you're right. If the player with less time can think during their opponent's time, the experiment doesn't work well.

I am not sure if it is possible to set up an experiment that would work, but if it were, I would put more confidence on it than simple observations by somebody that's viewed a few games.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to implement this, now that you bring up the flaw in the experiment.

[tj86430]

Now, hello, what was the other game Magicwand was so keen on?

I'd guess anything with Korean players.

[Kirby]

However, you're right. If the player with less time can think during their opponent's time, the experiment doesn't work well.

I am not sure if it is possible to set up an experiment that would work, but if it were, I would put more confidence on it than simple observations by somebody that's viewed a few games.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to implement this, now that you bring up the flaw in the experiment.

Ah, you meant one side having more time than the other and not comparing 3-hour and 2-day games. Well if one of the players were in a really fast orbit around earth it may in principle work, but the engineering problems would be huge. Probably easier to invent better AI and use that for quality comparison.

Good point. Although, computers may have ability that scales differently with time than humans do. However, I have no better test to provide.

Another interesting point is how we define "quality".

It may be possible that it's the case that a game that's played under faster time constraints has more mistakes (though this has not been proven).

But it is debatable whether those mistakes take away from the quality of the game. In theory, given enough time (maybe a few lifetimes!), somebody could read out the optimal result of the game of go from move 1. Playing optimally can certainly be seen as "quality play" by many standards.

But some might find "quality" in the ability to come up with a good result under fast time constraints.

For example, some people used to find Scott Flansburg (once deemed as the "fastest human calculator") to be quite amazing. You could give him a complex math problem, and he could spit out the correct answer very quickly. Let's say he made mistakes 10% of the time. It's still an amazing that he can compute things in his head so quickly and accurately.

Now take Bob, the average citizen that's had a high school education in math. Let's give him 5 hours to come up with the solution to 5863*23121 in his head, while we give Scott Flansburg only 20 seconds... Who cares if Bob can get the right answer in 5 hours? Anybody can do it given enough time. But it's really amazing that Scott Flansburg can get the right answer almost all of the time with such speed.

The speed brings about awe more than the fact that the problem is solvable.

---

I am not saying that there is not merit to slow games, and certainly they require unique skills such as patience and stability of mind. But some people find both fast games and slow games impressive. Maybe somebody playing a fast game makes a mistake once in awhile. But people playing slow games do, too. We don't know for sure that fast games have less mistakes, but even if they do, look at how impressively they can perform and how quickly they can think!

[hyperpape]

In Chess, they now have computers look at games that were played and analyze their quality. If Go programs were at the same level, they could say "Shusaku was stronger than Shusai, but weaker than Go Seigen" or whatever, and they could also say "this slow game is like ten times awesomer than this quick game" or perhaps "Lee Sedol drunk is better than Cho U sober"...

Alas, it'll be awhile before we'll be made wholly obsolete.

[Magicwand]

Now, hello, what was the other game Magicwand was so keen on?

I'd guess anything with Korean players.

Mok jinsuk - choi chulhan
i wish i can post the game..but i am not sgf savvy so it will take 30 min for me to create sgf.

i hope someone can post the game.

[Kirby]

In Chess, they now have computers look at games that were played and analyze their quality. If Go programs were at the same level, they could say "Shusaku was stronger than Shusai, but weaker than Go Seigen" or whatever.

Alas, it'll be awhile before we'll be made wholly obsolete.

In chess, how do they measure the quality with a computer? Is it based on optimal play, using the computer's evaluation?

Also, it is interesting to note that, for some poker AI programs, it is advantageous for the AI to play in a "suboptimal" fashion, because humans make irrational decisions. So if a computer were to play against humans using a purely rational, game theoretically optimal strategy, it may not gain as much money than a computer AI that plays "suboptimally" to take advantage of human irrationality.

[Kirby]

Now, hello, what was the other game Magicwand was so keen on?

I'd guess anything with Korean players.

Mok jinsuk - choi chulhan
i wish i can post the game..but i am not sgf savvy so it will take 30 min for me to create sgf.

i hope someone can post the game.

[sgf-full](;
EV[2010 olleh kt]
DT[2010-08-10]
KM[6.5]
RE[W+Resign]
PB[Mok Jinsuk]
BR[9d]
PW[Choi Chulhan]
WR[9d]
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Is this the game you meant, Magicwand?

[John Fairbairn]

It may be possible that it's the case that a game that's played under faster time constraints has more mistakes (though this has not been proven).

Not proven, but my impression that commentaries on older, slow games seem to point to fewer mistakes than commentaries on modern slap-happy games suggests to me that time does affect quality in that sense. On the other hand, quality as measured by excitement is not necessarily time based, however. Shin Fuseki games were (are?) considered exciting even when they were played with 13 hours each.

I think it is also useful to give some weight to opinion of the now fairly wide spectrum of pros that fast games lead to games they are not very proud to have in their portfolios.