Re: Can I edit the title later?
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 11:56 am
Tengen: Results and impressions
.............Wins..-..Losses
As Black......6....-....1
As White......1....-... 2
Total.........7....-....3
Ten games is too small a sample to get any meaningful data, but this is still a good result, and more importantly, I think I got a pretty good feel for what it's like to play with Tengen. I'm ready to move on to something else now, but I like playing Tengen so I'll definitely be coming back to it.
There's also a lot of food for thought here, enough that I'm not really sure how to write it all without it turning in to an incoherent mess, but I'll have a go. ^^
General thoughts about Tengen
I think my idea about tengen being worth more than a corner because it can be useful in multiple fights was correct to a certain extent, but was also a little naive. It's generally quite easy to start a fight in which the center stone is useful, and if you start multiple fights it will end up working far harder than a single corner stone, but conversely, you have to keep starting fights in order to get value from it. I don't think you can afford not to make use of it, because if you don't you've effectively passed with your first move. That's worse than a simple reversal of colours because komi stays the same. Your effectively playing a reverse komi game, which means that you have to make the tengen stone do at least 13 points (komi of 6.5 + first move worth 6.5) of work in order to justify it. I assume I'm like most kyu players in that I rarely even think about komi, but starting the game 13 points behind is intimidating.
I remember a quote (which I'm paraphrasing and translating from a vague memory, so take it with a grain of salt) from Hikaru no Go :
At the time I thought that was either a huge exaggeration to make the anime more exciting, or might possibly be true at the top levels where games are regularly won or lost by a few points. After thinking about it some more though, I think it's almost certainly true for pro's, likely true for strong amatuers, and still only a slight exaggeration at SDK levels.
But is that really a problem? Didn't I just say it's easy to start fights that make use of the center stone? Unfortunately, it's not enough just to start fights, you have to make sure your starting fights that are in your favour, and that's a lot harder. It's no good saying "this ridiculously optimistic overplay would have been even worse if I didn't have a stone on tengen, so I'm getting good value out of playing there." A lot of my recent playing has been like that; I just start fights whenever I get the opportunity, and though that seems to work well against 4-6kyus, I don't think I would get away with it at higher levels so I can't say it's easy to make use of the center stone. Actually, maybe I should say that it's not easy to make good use of a stone on tengen.
One thing that did surprise me about crazy tengen fighting games is how often they were much closer than my normal games. Here are some stats from my October games list:
......................Tengen...-...Normal
Total games.............10.....-....12
Went to counting........3......-....3
Scores
Game 1..................4.5....-....22.5
Game 2..................3.5....-....19.5
Game 3..................5.5....-....11.5
Why I won when I won and why I lost when I lost:
On the surface, it just came down to fighting. Almost every game was decided by who made the most (or biggest) tactical mistakes, but as you might guess from the stats above, there weren't as many all or nothing fights as I expected. In fact, I think I won a lot of games simply because I my opponents gave up after losing a big group even though the game was still up for grabs. I don't like to admit it but my win ratio may be more a reflection of my opponents' ability to calmly assess the situation than of the quality of my go.
One thing that happened in a few of my games was that thanks to the stone at tengen, I found myself in situations where even if a weak group died, I could still get a result I was happy with because my other stones connected in the center and gave me great influence over the rest of the board. If I could recreate this situation deliberately it would make tengen a very powerful move.
Another thing worth mentioning is that I suspect the kind of opponents I had difficulty with were the same ones I used to find the easiest to play against. When I first came back to go I decided that the style of go I wanted to play was a solid style that gave me a good base from which to attack my opponent and/or punish them for attacking me (somewhat like the one skydyr describes in the intro to his study journal, the willow way). After getting some practice on Tygem I found that the easiest opponents to play against were those that liked to constantly start fights, because my solid moves always payed off against them. I haven't yet played tengen against someone like that, but the first Tengen game I lost was against a 7k that consistently outfought me throughout the game. I don't mean I couldn't overcome the handicap because she played better than your average 7k; I mean she played better than I did. It's possible I messed up because my neighbours were watching baseball, but if she's two stones weaker and better at fighting than me, it seems reasonable to assume that she's one of those fighting players that I used to find easy to beat.
Rather than dismiss this as a rock paper scissors situation, I think it's more useful to consider the possibility that an opponent with good reading was punishing me for starting fights that weren't in my favour. It's also important to try and apply what I learnt about solid play when playing a moyo game. Maybe not when sketching out my moyo, but definitely when dealing with the planned for invasions. Maybe a good way to profit from the tengen is not to start fights, but rather to threaten fights that would be in my favour, and so force my opponent to back down. It's unlikely to result in such big payoffs, but Keep doing that throughout the game and it's easy to imagine that the tengen will eventually make back it's cost.
How to play against tengen:
I haven't yet had a game against tengen, so this is pure speculation, but on of the things that I worried would be difficult to deal with was an opponent attacking the center stone directly. This worried me because it's pretty much guaranteed to result in something like this.
As far as I can tell this is an equal result, which means black's choice to play in centre has yielded nothing. That doesn't matter if white does it as when the rest of the board is empty, or when you both have two corners; the game basically just goes back to normal, except there's some stones in the middle of the board. The problem is what if white waits until all the big opening moves have been played and then approaches the center? Black has already payed the price for playing tengen, but white's approach means he hasn't really gotten anything out of it. I think a properly timed approach to the center stone could be devastating when playing against tengen. It reminds me a bit of a 3-3 invasion, except I can't see a way to defend a tengen stone.
What I learned that can apply to any game:
- It helped break my bad habit of approaching 4-4 stones and then making a 3-3 invasion regardless of what my opponent played.
- How to catch up by starting fights.
- Losing a fight isn't always as big as it seems.
A note to beginners: The point of playing tengen
I doubt any of you read this far, but I seem to remember I used to play tengen a lot as a beginner and completely misunderstood what it was for. (I think) It is:
- A ladder breaker
- Somewhere to run to if you have a weak group
- Somewhere to chase your opponent to if they have a weak group
- Useful for reducing your opponent's moyo
- Useful for creating your own moyo
It does not:
- Claim the middle as territory
Thanks to anyone who actually read this.
.............Wins..-..Losses
As Black......6....-....1
As White......1....-... 2
Total.........7....-....3
Ten games is too small a sample to get any meaningful data, but this is still a good result, and more importantly, I think I got a pretty good feel for what it's like to play with Tengen. I'm ready to move on to something else now, but I like playing Tengen so I'll definitely be coming back to it.
There's also a lot of food for thought here, enough that I'm not really sure how to write it all without it turning in to an incoherent mess, but I'll have a go. ^^
General thoughts about Tengen
I think my idea about tengen being worth more than a corner because it can be useful in multiple fights was correct to a certain extent, but was also a little naive. It's generally quite easy to start a fight in which the center stone is useful, and if you start multiple fights it will end up working far harder than a single corner stone, but conversely, you have to keep starting fights in order to get value from it. I don't think you can afford not to make use of it, because if you don't you've effectively passed with your first move. That's worse than a simple reversal of colours because komi stays the same. Your effectively playing a reverse komi game, which means that you have to make the tengen stone do at least 13 points (komi of 6.5 + first move worth 6.5) of work in order to justify it. I assume I'm like most kyu players in that I rarely even think about komi, but starting the game 13 points behind is intimidating.
I remember a quote (which I'm paraphrasing and translating from a vague memory, so take it with a grain of salt) from Hikaru no Go :
"If the center stones comes in to play, black wins, if it doesn't, white wins"
At the time I thought that was either a huge exaggeration to make the anime more exciting, or might possibly be true at the top levels where games are regularly won or lost by a few points. After thinking about it some more though, I think it's almost certainly true for pro's, likely true for strong amatuers, and still only a slight exaggeration at SDK levels.
But is that really a problem? Didn't I just say it's easy to start fights that make use of the center stone? Unfortunately, it's not enough just to start fights, you have to make sure your starting fights that are in your favour, and that's a lot harder. It's no good saying "this ridiculously optimistic overplay would have been even worse if I didn't have a stone on tengen, so I'm getting good value out of playing there." A lot of my recent playing has been like that; I just start fights whenever I get the opportunity, and though that seems to work well against 4-6kyus, I don't think I would get away with it at higher levels so I can't say it's easy to make use of the center stone. Actually, maybe I should say that it's not easy to make good use of a stone on tengen.
One thing that did surprise me about crazy tengen fighting games is how often they were much closer than my normal games. Here are some stats from my October games list:
......................Tengen...-...Normal
Total games.............10.....-....12
Went to counting........3......-....3
Scores
Game 1..................4.5....-....22.5
Game 2..................3.5....-....19.5
Game 3..................5.5....-....11.5
Why I won when I won and why I lost when I lost:
On the surface, it just came down to fighting. Almost every game was decided by who made the most (or biggest) tactical mistakes, but as you might guess from the stats above, there weren't as many all or nothing fights as I expected. In fact, I think I won a lot of games simply because I my opponents gave up after losing a big group even though the game was still up for grabs. I don't like to admit it but my win ratio may be more a reflection of my opponents' ability to calmly assess the situation than of the quality of my go.
One thing that happened in a few of my games was that thanks to the stone at tengen, I found myself in situations where even if a weak group died, I could still get a result I was happy with because my other stones connected in the center and gave me great influence over the rest of the board. If I could recreate this situation deliberately it would make tengen a very powerful move.
Another thing worth mentioning is that I suspect the kind of opponents I had difficulty with were the same ones I used to find the easiest to play against. When I first came back to go I decided that the style of go I wanted to play was a solid style that gave me a good base from which to attack my opponent and/or punish them for attacking me (somewhat like the one skydyr describes in the intro to his study journal, the willow way). After getting some practice on Tygem I found that the easiest opponents to play against were those that liked to constantly start fights, because my solid moves always payed off against them. I haven't yet played tengen against someone like that, but the first Tengen game I lost was against a 7k that consistently outfought me throughout the game. I don't mean I couldn't overcome the handicap because she played better than your average 7k; I mean she played better than I did. It's possible I messed up because my neighbours were watching baseball, but if she's two stones weaker and better at fighting than me, it seems reasonable to assume that she's one of those fighting players that I used to find easy to beat.
Rather than dismiss this as a rock paper scissors situation, I think it's more useful to consider the possibility that an opponent with good reading was punishing me for starting fights that weren't in my favour. It's also important to try and apply what I learnt about solid play when playing a moyo game. Maybe not when sketching out my moyo, but definitely when dealing with the planned for invasions. Maybe a good way to profit from the tengen is not to start fights, but rather to threaten fights that would be in my favour, and so force my opponent to back down. It's unlikely to result in such big payoffs, but Keep doing that throughout the game and it's easy to imagine that the tengen will eventually make back it's cost.
How to play against tengen:
I haven't yet had a game against tengen, so this is pure speculation, but on of the things that I worried would be difficult to deal with was an opponent attacking the center stone directly. This worried me because it's pretty much guaranteed to result in something like this.
As far as I can tell this is an equal result, which means black's choice to play in centre has yielded nothing. That doesn't matter if white does it as when the rest of the board is empty, or when you both have two corners; the game basically just goes back to normal, except there's some stones in the middle of the board. The problem is what if white waits until all the big opening moves have been played and then approaches the center? Black has already payed the price for playing tengen, but white's approach means he hasn't really gotten anything out of it. I think a properly timed approach to the center stone could be devastating when playing against tengen. It reminds me a bit of a 3-3 invasion, except I can't see a way to defend a tengen stone.
What I learned that can apply to any game:
- It helped break my bad habit of approaching 4-4 stones and then making a 3-3 invasion regardless of what my opponent played.
- How to catch up by starting fights.
- Losing a fight isn't always as big as it seems.
A note to beginners: The point of playing tengen
I doubt any of you read this far, but I seem to remember I used to play tengen a lot as a beginner and completely misunderstood what it was for. (I think) It is:
- A ladder breaker
- Somewhere to run to if you have a weak group
- Somewhere to chase your opponent to if they have a weak group
- Useful for reducing your opponent's moyo
- Useful for creating your own moyo
It does not:
- Claim the middle as territory
Thanks to anyone who actually read this.
), but he seemed to be better in pretty much every way. I felt like I was getting a review from someone several stones stronger. It's really inspired me to buckle down to some studying. 
