Life In 19x19

I think it's obvious that newer players are inclined to play on star points--they look so big and important. But, for sure, that needn't mean stronger players are manipulated quite so easily. Growing in one's intuitive grasp of the meaning of a given arrangement of stones (i.e. their shape) is a big part of one's development. Gradually we shed (or gain) an understanding of the value of certain arrangements that might be visually counter-intuitive for beginners (e.g., I think a bamboo joint intuitively looks more appealing to the human eye than table shape even though, with a little bit of play, we often prefer the latter). So, presumably, as one gets stronger, the faux-appeal of the star points wanes.

...But is that really so? Speaking at the shodan level here, I still see plenty of people who play at the 10-4 (and 10-10!) points without any clear meaning other than "nothing much on this board looks urgent." I wonder if the same psychological pull that inclines the newbie to go for those big points, looking like Pac-Man power pellets in a sea of pac-dots, inclines even more serious players to play them, all things being equal.

Not that I'd want to do away with the things, but I'd be curious just how much high-level go they've unduly influenced.

I think it does, I will sometimes comment when someone plays tengen as some moyo growing/reducing move "Just because it's got a dot on it doesn't mean it's a good place". Maybe nearby centre points without dots are better, but I think there's a certain laziness of going for tengen to avoid difficult thought about the exact best centre place.

columbo wrote:Not that I'd want to do away with the things, but I'd be curious just how much high-level go they've unduly influenced.

Looking at historical game records, I would say not at all. Even the oldest game records we have, with set up stones on the 4-4 points, players played on the third line on the sides. The 9-3 seemed to be a popular point. And once players started playing free openings, it took centuries before playing on the 4-4 point in an open corner became popular.

I use the "bolded" points as references when deciding where to play. They make it easier to judge distances without explicitly counting.

references... easier to judge distances

Landmarks.

BTW, for those of you under 30, that picture in my post above is a rotary dial telephone.

The development was an exercise in ergonomics. The earliest ones had the number and the accompanying digits in the circle, so that a person would simply put his finger on the number that he wanted.
It looked like this:
But this was soon found to be a problem for people with less than perfect vision, for the font had to be small to fit everything in the finger hole. So the engineers moved the numbers and letters outside of the finger hole, where there was more room for a larger font.
This caused great confusion, for people did not know where to put the finger. ( Intellectually, they knew. But when it came to repeat usage, they had problems. The brain's visual systems wanted a target. )

It was solved by putting a dot in the center of each finger hole.



This was the endpoint of ergonomic development, lasting virtually unchanged until the invention of the pushbutton phone.

Again, for those under 30:

Mine didn't had dots in the center :

When under 30s are faced with one...

It hurts me on a deeply emotional level that "kids these days" are already unable to understand how these work. And I'm not even that old! But I guess I am in the 30+ range, so fit in with the expected demographic.

I've also seen that video before... oh man do they get close, and yet so far.

To the actual topic at hand - I have no doubt it affects how some people play, but probably not as much as you'd think. Maybe for beginners, but beginners need all the help they can get, and landmarks or a target to shoot for is helpful.

When my cousins got dial phone service, I felt sorry for them, with no operator to talk to.

operator wrote:The lion is busy.

If putting fake flies in urinals alters the aim of those who use them, it is not unreasonable to suspect the same of star points on go boards.

The only question in my mind is is whether putting small tsumego in urinals would have an effect.


Sorry, no pic

Calvin Clark wrote:...
Sorry, no pic

As noted above, our brains like visual targets.

fake flies in urinals... star points on go boards

apples & oranges, imo.

Luckily, this hypothesis can be tested, especially with software: display a 19x19 board with no star points, compare the moves.

At least we know the bots don't care.