Life In 19x19

A thing I have wondered lately is if it's really necesary to give reasons to all the moves verbally while playing, I mean, when playing saying in your thinking "I will tenuki this because it's unimportant and humm... That side looks big" affects the play while you are doing it, or if playing one just has to go with the feeling sometimes or just read without thinking and if it looks good just play it.

A lot of good players say that you should give reasons of why you played something, but a lot of players really do that after playing the game, not while doing it, so it's a little weird on that side, I guess there is nobody that really plays without really thinking, but for example a lot of strong players can play blitz and still do strategy around it.

My question comes at the fact that some intuition things are easier to do if you don't think while really doing it, for example, writing on a keyboard as a typer comes as an easy thing if you do it without thinking, but if you start thinking on where is exactly every letter in the keyboard or if you write looking at the keyboard you get a little more sloppy.

Any opinions?

nacroxnicke wrote:My question comes at the fact that some intuition things are easier to do if you don't think while really doing it, for example, writing on a keyboard as a typer comes as an easy thing if you do it without thinking, but if you start thinking on where is exactly every letter in the keyboard or if you write looking at the keyboard you get a little more sloppy.

Usually those things involve muscle memory and rapidly executed maneuvers where the activities you're aiming to accomplish are the sort that are straightforward to accomplish once technique has been appropriately implemented.

I think it's doubtful that Go falls under that category. It may be true that you can think yourself out of making 'proper' moves when those moves really are proper. Most activities that involve elaborate planning allow for the possibility of falling into this trap. However, in Go many many situations are fine-grained in a way that makes it such that very small differences can greatly affect the optimal move. So I suspect the benefits of thinking things explicitly through outweigh the risks of thinking yourself out of good moves.

The psychology of go is incredibly comprehensive. Unlike chess, go more actively uses both hemispheres of the brain. You are doing more than just logical reasoning when you play go - your brain is also trying to be creative.

I do think there is something to be said for playing a move because it "looks right." Often times this is not a bad move to play. On top of that, after playing go for enough time, your brain will come up with moves based more on experience and previous board positions that you have seen than based on your overall analysis of the board. If you have ever studied the opening, for example, you might find that you instinctively want to play on the largest side of the board before you even consciously think "this side of the board is the largest."

And finally, you don't analyze every move on the board or even every common candidate move before you make every move. In the opening, for example, the choice to enclose vs. approach is often more about feeling at the moment than about which move is what you believe to be technically correct.

I previously but briefly tried using checklists, or verbally reasoning my move choices. Each time I aborted quickly; I ended up talking myself into bad moves that were against my instincts but fulfilled some arbitrary cache of half-proverbs.

A friend of mine had a road block around 3k for what I think were similar reasons: In a review I said: "This looks like a mistake, I would prefer to play here". He asked, "what proverb/piece of strategy advises you to play there?" And I couldn't say anything that wasn't painfully post-hoc. "I like the continuations better".

(He had a long list of proverbs that backed up his move choice).

Loons wrote:I previously but briefly tried using checklists, or verbally reasoning my move choices. Each time I aborted quickly; I ended up talking myself into bad moves that were against my instincts but fulfilled some arbitrary cache of half-proverbs.

A friend of mine had a road block around 3k for what I think were similar reasons: In a review I said: "This looks like a mistake, I would prefer to play here". He asked, "what proverb/piece of strategy advises you to play there?" And I couldn't say anything that wasn't painfully post-hoc. "I like the continuations better".

(He had a long list of proverbs that backed up his move choice).

Surely the problem there is having the wrong reasons?

It is not obvious to me that we can verbally reason all of our important go thinking by default.

My personal experience felt to the contrary. So- if our reasoning is happening off screen and then we are post-hoc verbalising it, why post-hoc verbalise it?

In my opinion, both reasons and intuition are valid for identifying moves to consider. But these must be verified by reading out ssequences.

Um it's important to have reasons about where you move, but don't over think it. Basically just read, choosing one move or direction over another I think should be primarily based on reading. The foundation of strategy is based on reading. I almost never verbally think to myself during games (or at least I'm not aware of it).

nacroxnicke wrote:"I will tenuki this because it's unimportant and humm... That side looks big" affects the play while you are doing it, or if playing one just has to go with the feeling sometimes or just read without thinking and if it looks good just play it.

Intuition is good for thinking about initial moves, but once you thought of them you should tried to read out continuations especially if it's a complicated situation. "That side looks bigger than the other" is kind of a cop out from actual reading and counting. Same with thinking "my group is weak and I need another move" if you don't read how weak the group actually is. Of course I'm guilty of this as well.

Good play, whether created by reasoning, subconscious or creative decision making, reading or positional judgement, can (almost) always be explained by reasoning. If a creative choice is made among several equally good moves, then a related reasoning chooses one of the possible best moves. Reading and positional judgement do not contradict reasoning, but reading and positional judgement are an integral part of reasoning, which must verify and explain the low level decisions by reading and positional judgement.

If some players make decisions for themselves by their subconscious thinking, then other players with a profound knowledge of reasoning can (almost always) provide the appropriate reasoning for the other players' decisions. I say almost always, because of limitations of thinking time or already available research results about reasoning; where knowledge is not available, one must have sufficient thinking time to enhance the knowledge of reasoning.

Reasoning must rely on mighty knowledge of good and correct principles, concepts, values and formulas. The limitations or side conditions of such theory must be understood. Of course, half-true proverbs do not belong to such knowledge.

Needless to say, if thinking time allows it, I always decide by reasoning, which relies on mighty knowledge of good and correct theory, reading and positional judgement. Where my knowledge is still incomplete, I enhance it by further study or research.

Reasoning includes knowledge of how to dissolve seemingly contradicting reasons by applying priorities and side conditions, which specify when or when not to apply a particular piece of theory.

Reasoning and theory work despite using parameters, such as "an important group", "a valuable region" or "almost equal". As long as a parameter can be fulfilled clearly, there is no problem. When a parameter is ambiguous, check the side conditions; if their determination is ambiguous, override a piece of theory by more general theory. E.g., if it is unclear if a region is "valuable", use positional judgement to determine its value.

E.g., players inexperienced or lazy with reasoning might complain "The theory is bad because I cannot determine if this region is valuable.". Experienced players determine, or learn how to determine and then determine, it.

The question is not whether to apply reasoning but how to fill knowledge gaps for a more complete understanding of reasoning.

Loons wrote:He asked, "what proverb/piece of strategy advises you to play there?"
"I like the continuations better".
(He had a long list of proverbs that backed up his move choice).

Seems very likely that is one reason he was stuck (there are probably other reasons, too.)
Out of curiosity, did you or your friend get a high-dan or pro opinion on that move (and the variations)?

nacroxnicke wrote:A thing I have wondered lately is if it's really necesary to give reasons to all the moves (verbally) while playing,

I parenthesized "verbally" as it is optional.
We can also approach this question from another angle:
if someone asks you (during the game or in the review),
"Why did you play here?" and you cannot give a reason, any reason at all,
then I think it's not very good.

Currently I'm teaching a lot of beginners. And during teaching games I often ask them why they played a certain move. When they can't give me reason, they have to take back the move. But I won't judge whether the reason was good or bad (only after the game).

So even if you decide on a move by intuition/shape/joseki memory/etc, you should be able to give a proper (in-game) reason when asked.

Akura wrote:Currently I'm teaching a lot of beginners. And during teaching games I often ask them why they played a certain move. When they can't give me reason, they have to take back the move. But I won't judge whether the reason was good or bad (only after the game).

So even if you decide on a move by intuition/shape/joseki memory/etc, you should be able to give a proper (in-game) reason when asked.

I see two problems with this:

First, I see no problem with playing moves based on feelings when you are first starting out. When teaching someone I will often ask them for reasoning on their moves, but I never ask them to take it back unless the move was a blatant mistake (usually I even wait for them to realize it themselves) and I never demand that they do - if they want to keep playing I really respect that. Sometimes even if the move was a mistake I don't ask them to take it back, but if they want to I will let them.

Second, this process would seem to have a lot of selection bias unless you question every single move. Do you only question moves that you wouldn't play? What if they are playing strictly in imitation of you and they have no idea why a move is good or bad? For example: Would you ask them about this move?

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And if they said "I don't know, I guess I just felt it was good..." would you seriously have them take it back?

Well, I don't ask them on every move. When they tenuki in on a local fight, make awkward attachments or so. And often I ask, when they play good moves. And of course I don't force them to take the move back. Mostly I ask what their move does and wait until they find any reason.

In your example I might ask if it's one of their first games expecting the answer "I want the corner. Territory is easier to make in the corner."

Example 1:

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[go]$$
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$$ | . . O . 1 . . . .
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$$ | . . . X . O . . .
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$$ --------------------[/go]

Me: "Why did you play ?"
Sudent: "To seperate your stones."
Me: "Ok."

Example 2:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . . . .
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$$ | . . 1 a . O . . O .
$$ | . . . b . . . . . .
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$$ ----------------------[/go]

Me: "Why did you play ?"
Student: "To secure the corner."
Me: "And why not 'a' or 'b'?"
Student: "..."

Loons wrote:It is not obvious to me that we can verbally reason all of our important go thinking by default.

My personal experience felt to the contrary. So- if our reasoning is happening off screen and then we are post-hoc verbalising it, why post-hoc verbalise it?

I'd agree for the most part, but what struck me about what you said was that he was stopping at the point of "proverb says play the hane at the head of two" and not doing the reading to confirm or deny this. Outside of what's being discussed, this would start seriously limiting your go after a while I think.