Life In 19x19

AlphaGo has a lot to answer for.

Takemiya just played this in an exhibition game against a 1-dan pro. He lost.



Black (Kaneko Maki) did not answer the 3-3 invasion.

Seems Takemiya was having fun. What did Maki play?

I would have thought that, even in Japan, a three stone handicap would have been considered excessive. Aren't pro shodans of today a stone stronger -- at least! -- than pro shodans of the mid 20th century?

I don't think this move looks good, but I applaud Takemiya's willingness to experiment / have fun in an exhibition game. Hopefully that attitude leads to growth in the pro game, and it should at least leave us with some interesting game records.

Maybe Takemiya wanted to lose, to show how silly AlphaGo is for playing these early 3-3 and that this "subway" Go of playing stones so near the edge of the board they are almost falling off is flawed . And yeah 3 stones seems a bit much, even if it were current top pro Iyama Yuta rather than top pro of 25 years ago like Takemiya.

There was another game with Takemiya and 3 handi on WBaduk 2-3 days ago, with Takemiya playing black against a 1p! He won that one of course, his opponent played weird moves in the center and there was lots of early fighting.
His opponent's name is very similar to the one reported here, I guess they played experimental handicap games.

I think the early 3-3 is doubtful to begin with, and even AG only uses it when it has a good enough followup line planned for erasure. In a handicap game, with a different territory-influence balance it can be even more doubtful.

Actually, this could make a fun kind of competition: the players play two 3 stones games (alternating colors) - and their scores are the SUM from the two.

I'm trying to find the game record, and I see something from twitter on September 9th.

Did they play more than one game?
(https://twitter.com/natsuki_kibe/status ... 8602842112)

It looks a bit different from what was in the OP - maybe they played more than one game?

Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing the game record.

Oh, yeah - that is the other game I mentioned in my post above!
Thanks for finding a mention of it on Twitter.
Note that Takemiya is receiving handicap in this one. Not surprisingly, he won.

Kirby wrote:I'm trying to find the game record, and I see something from twitter on September 9th.

Did they play more than one game?

(https://twitter.com/natsuki_kibe/status ... 8602842112)

It looks a bit different from what was in the OP - maybe they played more than one game?

Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing the game record.