Honte
Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 11:50 pm
Quotation reference:
viewtopic.php?p=150200#p150200
The words (‘the safe and sound move’ or ‘safe and simple’) used by you to describe honte may mean to you what you want them to mean, but are very ambiguous in their meaning when read by somebody not presuming your interpretation wish.
This is what we want:
This is what we do not want:
The words 'safe and sound' or 'safe and simple' allow both kinds of moves. Now, you retreat to meta-discussion and saying that this was not what you meant. I prefer to clarify what we mean, because honte is a concept for everybody and everybody shall have equal chances to understand it well.
My words "[...] postpones the necessity for yet another local move until much later by eliminating aji and creating thick shape." identify that the second example above is not honte, because the move does not create thick shape. It does not create thick shape, because the black group already had thick shape; rather the move "adds" more thick shape to the group. Now, one can object that 'postpones', 'necessity', 'local', 'much', 'later', 'eliminating', 'aji' (when citing its informal definition), 'creating' and 'thick shape' (when citing) are all ambiguous. Indeed, they are. However, instead of retreating to "but this is not precisely enough what I meant", I encourage everybody to contribute to finding a solution for a better description of honte.
We are on the right track. 'safe', 'sound', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape' all play a role and all can be found in the literature, e.g., when professional writer A says "This is honte.", B says "This is honte; it becomes safe.", C says "This is honte; afterwards, Black can tenuki several times.", D says "This is honte; the shape becomes thick." etc. The statement A is the most frequent, but a study of the shapes called honte reveals that always all the mentioned properties apply. They are just not always all listed in informal texts. For the sake of teaching to ourselves and everybody what exactly is and what is not honte, we need to remove the remaining ambiguity and provide a general explanation, so that in every example we can always distinguish what is from what is not a honte.
For this purpose, I have an idea: honte improves the m-connected and the n-alive degrees of the group. Detailed values demand study, but it must be something like the following: the connection degree was at most 0-connected and becomes at least 1-connected; the alive degree was at most 0-alive and becomes at least 1-alive; preferably, the degrees become great.
This explains and removes the ambiguity from 'safe', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape'. Partially it does so for 'sound'.
However, there is more to honte. It must be distinguished from inside defense of only life or only endgame. We must also express that honte increases future potential, i.e., increases the outside influence. Since influence has been defined by me in terms of degrees of connection, life and territory, it can, in principle, be assessed unambiguously, if we set thresholds for the changes of values.
Furthermore, honte must be studied inhowfar it can be distinguished from more ordinary influence-/thickness-improving moves. Maybe it turns out that every such move with the aforementioned properties is a honte. Until, this is clarified, more study is needed.
I know, there are those preferring to do without values of degrees of connection and life. This is the smallest problem, because a modest degree of ambiguity can be reintroduced easily by informal descriptions along the lines "establishes a safe connection, establishes safe life, greatly increases outside influence".
Then we know what 'safe', 'sound' and 'simple' actually are: very good connection, very good life, great outside influence. Informally, a honte is a move creating these features for a group not having had them before the move.
This also means that honte is not an unsound move of reinforcing an already strong group.
viewtopic.php?p=150200#p150200
John Fairbairn wrote:when the words mean what i want them to mean.
The words (‘the safe and sound move’ or ‘safe and simple’) used by you to describe honte may mean to you what you want them to mean, but are very ambiguous in their meaning when read by somebody not presuming your interpretation wish.
This is what we want:
This is what we do not want:
The words 'safe and sound' or 'safe and simple' allow both kinds of moves. Now, you retreat to meta-discussion and saying that this was not what you meant. I prefer to clarify what we mean, because honte is a concept for everybody and everybody shall have equal chances to understand it well.
My words "[...] postpones the necessity for yet another local move until much later by eliminating aji and creating thick shape." identify that the second example above is not honte, because the move does not create thick shape. It does not create thick shape, because the black group already had thick shape; rather the move "adds" more thick shape to the group. Now, one can object that 'postpones', 'necessity', 'local', 'much', 'later', 'eliminating', 'aji' (when citing its informal definition), 'creating' and 'thick shape' (when citing) are all ambiguous. Indeed, they are. However, instead of retreating to "but this is not precisely enough what I meant", I encourage everybody to contribute to finding a solution for a better description of honte.
We are on the right track. 'safe', 'sound', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape' all play a role and all can be found in the literature, e.g., when professional writer A says "This is honte.", B says "This is honte; it becomes safe.", C says "This is honte; afterwards, Black can tenuki several times.", D says "This is honte; the shape becomes thick." etc. The statement A is the most frequent, but a study of the shapes called honte reveals that always all the mentioned properties apply. They are just not always all listed in informal texts. For the sake of teaching to ourselves and everybody what exactly is and what is not honte, we need to remove the remaining ambiguity and provide a general explanation, so that in every example we can always distinguish what is from what is not a honte.
For this purpose, I have an idea: honte improves the m-connected and the n-alive degrees of the group. Detailed values demand study, but it must be something like the following: the connection degree was at most 0-connected and becomes at least 1-connected; the alive degree was at most 0-alive and becomes at least 1-alive; preferably, the degrees become great.
This explains and removes the ambiguity from 'safe', 'simple', 'postpone', 'decreased aji' and 'thick shape'. Partially it does so for 'sound'.
However, there is more to honte. It must be distinguished from inside defense of only life or only endgame. We must also express that honte increases future potential, i.e., increases the outside influence. Since influence has been defined by me in terms of degrees of connection, life and territory, it can, in principle, be assessed unambiguously, if we set thresholds for the changes of values.
Furthermore, honte must be studied inhowfar it can be distinguished from more ordinary influence-/thickness-improving moves. Maybe it turns out that every such move with the aforementioned properties is a honte. Until, this is clarified, more study is needed.
I know, there are those preferring to do without values of degrees of connection and life. This is the smallest problem, because a modest degree of ambiguity can be reintroduced easily by informal descriptions along the lines "establishes a safe connection, establishes safe life, greatly increases outside influence".
Then we know what 'safe', 'sound' and 'simple' actually are: very good connection, very good life, great outside influence. Informally, a honte is a move creating these features for a group not having had them before the move.
This also means that honte is not an unsound move of reinforcing an already strong group.
is honte. Capturing a stone that is in a ladder before a ladder breaker has been played is referred to as thick play. The Japanese Wikipedia article, which is based upon Otake's book, states that there is a subtle difference between the two.