Life In 19x19

Bill Spight wrote:

Boidhre wrote:

Bill Spight wrote: No one is claiming that it is.

Sorry my point is unclear. My thinking is that saying X, Y and Z are necessary (yes not sufficient) isn't very useful until you can show why X, Y and Z are necessary as a group and insufficient with one element missing and even then you run into the problem of of X, Y and Z being necessary for Concept 1 yet X, Y and Z does not exclusively consist of situations where Concept 1 applies and ends up being "You need X, Y and Z and then you need to judge if it fits within the Concept or not."

Defining thickness specifically this way just strikes me as very problematic because of the latter issue, we can probably agree on a bunch of necessary factors but then find these necessary factors are all present for shapes or groups which we'd never consider as thick, rendering the definition not that useful.

My weak players 2c.

I was a dan player before I was fairly confident of distinguishing between heavy and thick, between light and thin. These concepts are important, but fuzzy and difficult to define.

Robert has not convinced me that he has good definitions for these terms, but I applaud the effort. Besides, it is not like anyone else has come up with good definitions, either.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it will be amenable to definition, or at least very precise definition due to the nature of the concept, similar to trying to put a precise numerical value on something like the value of influence.

Boidhre wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure if it will be amenable to definition, or at least very precise definition due to the nature of the concept, similar to trying to put a precise numerical value on something like the value of influence.

Shhh! That's one thing I am working on.

Bantari, a good definition can give much more than a player at his level needs for his ability of application. A definition considered alone has little value, because it also needs accompanying strategy and tactics or related principles of application. Such as "Use thickness to build territory, fight or build new thickness elsewhere.". IOW, also go theory (not only skill and experience) generates knowledge. BTW, that's why there is go theory at all.

A good definition provides knowledge itself: My definition tells how to build good thickness: build good connection, good life potential and good territory potential. The first lesson of using thickness well is to build it well, so that then it can be used well.

RBerenguel, the "target" language consists of terms, read partial game trees and choices. E.g., we use the term 'territory region', so that we can make the choice to use partial reading elsewhere on the board for the sake of creating more territory there.

RobertJasiek wrote:Bantari, a good definition can give much more than a player at his level needs for his ability of application. A definition considered alone has little value, because it also needs accompanying strategy and tactics or related principles of application. Such as "Use thickness to build territory, fight or build new thickness elsewhere.".

Not sure you are right on that.

Or do you redefine the word 'definition' to also mean all the applicable time and learning and skill and effort to be able to apply it? You cannot just say what you said above without understanding that you are also including all the years of playing and experience and honing your reading ability and intuition and whatnot - to be able to make proper use of precisely distinguishing between 'thickness' and 'influence' (for example.) And this long learning process is independent of how you word the definition. Not to mention - I think this process of refining your understanding is ongoing, you hone your skills throughout your Go 'career' - there is no 'end', there is no "that's it, now I understand what it all".

What's more, at the point of the process, when the student went through all the years of learning - the formal definition you wrote might be redundant to his strength.

Either way - what I am trying to say is that the more skill you have, the more you have to delve into the finer points of both distinguishing between thickness and influence (for example) and making use of this distinction. At low levels, I doubt it is very useful to have this distinction defined very precisely, since the skill to make use of this distinction is simply not there. All you need is some vague ideas which compliment what you can actually do with it for the moment. As the skill grows, the ideas need to crystalize as well, but they do regardless, I think. Its just the nature of the beast.

RobertJasiek wrote:RBerenguel, the "target" language consists of terms, read partial game trees and choices. E.g., we use the term 'territory region', so that we can make the choice to use partial reading elsewhere on the board for the sake of creating more territory there.

If you were just slightly farthest from what I meant you'd overflow the distance meter and be back at square zero.

Bill Spight wrote:

Boidhre wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure if it will be amenable to definition, or at least very precise definition due to the nature of the concept, similar to trying to put a precise numerical value on something like the value of influence.

Shhh! That's one thing I am working on.

How do you go about working on something like this? Sample game data? Would you take a large number of games and try to identify patterns in how many points resulted from that influence? Or do you take a more theoretic approach, trying to identify rules for how influence translates into points?

I suppose I have an idea on how to do an empirical analysis to try to define the value of influence, but I'm not sure how I would go about doing this in a more precise fashion.

In general, how do you "work on" something like this?

RobertJasiek wrote:

hyperpape wrote:that one could not judge the practical merits of your research based on your work on Ko.

Uh, but you do know that the Ko definition paper has relatively little practical merit, while the Ko and Dame Endgames paper has also intermediate practical merit (up to 4 points per game)?

I know that distinction, but what I don't see is the distinction between the ko definition paper and the thickness definition. Both seem relatively idle for the sake of actusl play.

Ko definition paper: if you don't recognise a long cycle ko or its cycle, you might lose every 5000th game and call that immaterial.

Thickness definition: if you don't know that thickness must be well connected and well alive, you are considerably weaker than if you know this. If you can't distinguish connected / alive from better connected / better alive, you are weaker than if you can make this distinction. These things are relevant many times during each game. In particular, they are relevant for choosing moves creating / improving good connection or life as well as possible. The same applies to influence. E.g., around 5k one learns something like that walls need an extension; it is correct that walls without sufficient inherent eye shape need an extension for the sake of establishing good life and converting a heap of rubbish into thickness. With my thickness definition, this is just a special application besides lots of other applications. I have seen 4 dans that confused a target of attack (wall without extension) with thickness (wall with extension), because they were not aware of the good life requirement of thickness.

Kirby wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:

Boidhre wrote: Yeah, I'm not sure if it will be amenable to definition, or at least very precise definition due to the nature of the concept, similar to trying to put a precise numerical value on something like the value of influence.

Shhh! That's one thing I am working on.

How do you go about working on something like this? Sample game data? Would you take a large number of games and try to identify patterns in how many points resulted from that influence? Or do you take a more theoretic approach, trying to identify rules for how influence translates into points?

I suppose I have an idea on how to do an empirical analysis to try to define the value of influence, but I'm not sure how I would go about doing this in a more precise fashion.

In general, how do you "work on" something like this?

Make hypotheses and test them. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nlS9Irx7Q (Don't worry about the title, it is not accurate. )