Life In 19x19

I have read the 2013 edition once. Of course, I do not read Japanese, except for recognising Black, White, numbers, points, half and - by context - minus, reverse sente, diagram, stone(s). I think to have understood most but have the following questions for clarification.

1) Is "Endgame - Absolute Counting" a reasonable translation of the title?

2) John Fairbairn mentions some Calling the Election formula. What is this? I cannot guess to which contents this fancy, random name might refer, except maybe to [usually] playing the move with the largest miai move value.

3) Chapter 4 determines the temperature aka largest miai (per move) move value (or, as O might presumably say, the absolute counting value of a move), say T, a territorial positional judgement and then modifies the count by +T/2 in favour of the player having the next turn for [presumably] the value of starting in the environment and by T/4 for apparently some error margin. Is this always +T/4 in favour of the player having the next turn? Is it sometimes +T/4 in his favour and sometimes -T/4 to describe T/4 in favour of the second moving opponent in continued play? If so, when is it added to and when subtracted from the value perspective of the player having the next turn?

Is the error margin used only during the intermediate endgame, only during the early or intermediate endgame, or at any moment of the game until the (late) intermediate endgame?

For what purposes, according to the book, is the error margin used? With which justification, according to the book, may it be used for those purposes? Why is it exactly T/4? Is it, according to the book, meant as an approximation?

4) At a few places throughout the book, bold text occurs and might be important. Therefore, might somebody please summarise those of the following bold texts that are important? (Immaterial contents does not need translation.) a) List at the end of the introduction. b) At the end of chapter 2.1. c) At the end of chapter 3. d) In chapter 4.1 Example 1 before Dia. 8 repeated. e) At the end of chapter 4.

Closer title is "Yose - Absolute Counting". Yose is approach moves but it could be at any point of the game.

I read this book a while ago and don't have time enough to try to figure out the rest. I don't know of any election formula or error margin used. This is definitely a book you need to be able to read in order to get much out of it.

Here is how I make sense of O Meien's estimations.

T = the global temperature, how much the largest play gains.

There are two extremes. 1) The board is miai or sente for the player with sente, and best play gains nothing. 2) After the largest play, best play for the opponent gains nothing. In the first case the player with sente gains 0, in the second place she gains T. The estimate that minimizes the maximum error of estimation is a gain of T/2, with a maximum error of T/2. In practice, that turns out to be a pretty good estimate.

Similarly, what is the error of our estimated gain? The minimum error is 0 and the maximum error is T/2. The estimate that minimizes the maximum error of estimation is T/4.

So if the global temperature is 14, the estimated gain, along with the estimated error, for the player with sente is 7 ± 3.5.

RobertJasiek wrote:At a few places throughout the book, bold text occurs and might be important. Therefore, might somebody please summarise those of the following bold texts that are important? (Immaterial contents does not need translation.) a) List at the end of the introduction. b) At the end of chapter 2.1. c) At the end of chapter 3. d) In chapter 4.1 Example 1 before Dia. 8 repeated. e) At the end of chapter 4.

At the end of the introduction O Meien gives a list of merits of "absolute counting". IMO he gilds the lily a bit, and besides, you don't need convincing.

At the end of chapter 2.1 he just says, informally, what a gote is. Note that he does not say, "double gote".

At the end of chapter 3 he gives the denominators of different kinds of play. The denominator for sente he gives as 0, and says that that's why he does not evaluate sente. (From my point of view, that is an error, but it allows him to avoid the question of double sente.) Then he says that the denominator for reverse sente is 1, the denominator for gote is 2, the denominator for ko is 3, and the denominator for a 2 stage ko is 4.

In chapter 4.1 he states that the gain from having sente is worth half the value of a play, and that the error of the gain from having sente is half its value. Then he says to adjust your estimate of the final result accordingly.

The insert at the end of chapter 4 is not technical.

Thanks everybody! Now I just do not understand either why O takes the denominator 0 for sente :)