Life In 19x19

I'm watching an online Western game, right now, and I've finally decided to ask something that's been bugging me off for a while. If I sound confrontational at some point it's my frustration leaking, sorry.

Now, like a bunch of people, AlphaGo got me busy with something else. I recall being dimly aware of it, but not being able to pay attention. Then, Go changed. So my basic assumptions of Go tend to be out of date, and I've been putting off this to see if it was something on these lines, but the more time passes, the more I doubt it's only that.

Now, I realize that AI have changed the urgency of some moves, and some leisure strategical placements seem to have gone out of style. But I compare the game I was wathcing (and, as I mentioned, it's not the first time I feel the itch) and at one point there were two settled corners, I'd say far past the point were you can revisit them usefully later on (ko threats, urgency...), with not a single move past the fourth line. I compare it with a video on... Dosaku? I saw recently, and the older game has same thing, on the 3rd line... and even then nothing close to the locality of these recent games. Besides the initial shimari on each corner, not a single move in the first three dozen was a *not* in touch of another stone, if you allow for a couple of diagonals (and that was a single space jump right betwenn two stones in two different groups; it takes another dozen moves to get another, single, stone have that little breathing space).

To say it feels cramped, to me, is saying very little. The end result (a bit after move 50) lookes like a solved tsumego with a barrier of several layers of stones around it. It reminds me a lot of old games and the way they'd fight and fight locally without care for the rest of the board.

And I acknowledge that tournaments like the NHK, wich kinda has similar time settings, can lead to similar situations, but even then there's not this sense of "cramped sardines", the stones have some breathing room. They're not using 50 moves for a 2-eye (and glad of it) group and a 4-space one. I mean, 50 moves for six points of territory, in total?

When I compare to, say, a recent female Honinbo, I see some of the same tacticality, of fighting the corners one by one until one of these fights spills over. But the feeling is, again, no way as cramped (nor are the results).

And this is the game that triggered this post, but certainly not the first one that irks me this way. I really don't like the taste of this, and I don't know if it's imply that Westerners still need to grasp certain ideas of strategy, if it's youth, or AI, or a mix of all the above.

Am I missing something? Sorry, rather: what am I missing?

Take care.

Ferran wrote:Am I missing something? Sorry, rather: what am I missing?

I don't know about you, but I'm missing a game record.

Bill's right, we need a game record to judge.

In the abstract, I don't hear anything that you couldn't have said about some Korean games at any time over the past dozen years (or do the taisha/large avalanche also count? you're certainly free to hate those josekis, even some pros hate them). Plenty of games started out with very early, very intense corner fights. They predated modern AI by many years. I don't know whether AI has intensified the trend, reduced it, or left it much the same.

One sequence in particular does jump out at me as very intense that derives from AI: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16016. Not just the named "flying dagger" move, but the entire joseki sequence that comes out of the early 3-3 invasion is very difficult, with a lot of close fighting that can start early.

And this is the game that triggered this post, but certainly not the first one that irks me this way. I really don't like the taste of this, and I don't know if it's imply that Westerners still need to grasp certain ideas of strategy, if it's youth, or AI, or a mix of all the above.

Am I missing something? Sorry, rather: what am I missing?

You might know an old joke about two men making a bet about a spittoon. One bets the other that he wouldn't dare drink the contents. Mr Other takes the best and starts slurping, Mr One revolts in disgust and pleads with Mr Other to stop - but he doesn't until he's emptied the vessel. Mr One asks why he didn't stop. Mr Other explains it's because it was all one piece...

There's a scene like that in the famous Scottish film Trainspotting. It's also how some Japanese pros view western go. They used to say the same thing about Korea (i.e. the 'Korean joseki') but they found worse examples over here. I recall an example published (long ago) in Kido. They're not allowed to say things like that any more in this PC world, of course, but at least some still think it.

Incipit: I won't be embedding SGF or videos, but linking them. This monstruosity is long enough without that.

Also, sorry for the delay.

@Bill, Hyper,

I was trying to avoid mentioning specific people, but the game that prompted me to write (and there are score others) is the second game between Artem and Tanguy, last week [+]. The previous League also had examples, and so did the Transatlantic, IIRC. So far, this 2nd league, the one that has this feeling less is the one with Ryan. Still kinda local, but it has breathing space. And I'll note that, basically, he has a kenkyuukai 24/7 right home.

@John F. I sort of recall, without specifics, some of that. And it might be a perfect storm between shorter time limits and the sportslike competitive character of Go outside of Japan, plus AI influence (which is weird; back when I was training Leela, I don't recall it playing so tight). AFAIK, the main of kendo, in Japan, is veering this way as it keeps shedding the martial art off itself and veering towards competition sport. What I've heard some practitioners say about modern Japanese karate can't be printed. And so on. And I know that martial artists who go down that road pay a price for it (in injuries and long term effects, in loss of efectiveness outside tournament conditions, in understanding of their art...); I have to wonder if the similarities hold through that and, if so, what's the price for Go players.

But the first that comes to my mind is Power & Fairbairn's 400 years of Go in Japan and the "corners, sides, centre" mantra. A bunch of modern Western games "visit" the corner, drop the first stone there, sometimes an enclosure, and then proceed to wrestle for a single one of them and duck it out until they destroy the tavern [*].

As much as I dislike some, mostly physical, characteristics of that book, it's a good collection of snapshots of Japanese Go. Now, without particularly trying, Game 5 ( Y. Sanchi vs. H. Doetsu 1670). It does have a certain locality, but nothing near as close. Game 6, same book, same idea. Game 7, even more locality, but still breathing space.

Less antique Go, Mizutani Nuiji vs Takahashi Kinesaburo, here. Go Seigen vs. Shusai, here. The Atomic Bomb Game.

Even the most... "local" of those games has breathing space between stones. As far as I understood my first readings of Go history back when, one of the characteristics of old Go was its locality, its lack of use and perception of the whole board. I saw a video, very recently, of one of the early Honinbo (Dosaku?), being the first to use an approach to the corner that was near the mid-side hoshi, because it helped him influence the board better. And yet, a lot of modern go is quite local. But even so, when I've checked the NHK, which has similar time limits to the Transatlantic or the Euro Online League, they have this same Japanese "breathing space".

Asami Ueno, So Yokoku, 66th NHK. Sometimes that breathing space ends up cramped like here (65th NHK, So Yokoku vs. Cho Chikun), but it doesnt start that way.

Does this help visualize what I meant back then?

Take care.

[+] Sorry, ,I tried lining to the post itself, but it behaved erratically
[*] Incidentally, I liked Garlock's recent comment comparing go enclosures with bar brawl tactics.