often wrote:
Uberdude wrote:
Hi often, in case you missed it I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the below.
Uberdude wrote:
Often, let's say we pick 200 random KGS 5ks. I then construct a board position after the opening in which black is around 10 points ahead (according to me or Bill or some pro or you or a monte carlo bot or whoever). We then pair up those 200 5ks and get them to play 100 games and record how many black wins. Is your position that the opening is so irrelevant that the answer will follow a binomial distribution with mean 50, in other words the same as if they just played all those 100 games from a blank board? My guessestimate is the mean would be perhaps 55-60. Probably rather similar to if 100 5ks were playing as black against 100 6ks. If we did the same experiment with 200 3ds I expect black would win perhaps a mean of 65 due to the higher skill and consistency of those dan players and their ability to maintain a lead throughout the game and the smaller sizes and frequencies of their blunders. With pros, perhaps 90+?
Is your position that the opening is so irrelevant that the answer will follow a binomial distribution with mean 50, in other words the same as if they just played all those 100 games from a blank board? Yes. I think this is applicable for any rank (if you got 1000 Xk,Xd,or Xp). Look, of course there will be games that an opening might be so disastrous that it is impossible to come back from, or that there will be games that are completley lopsided in favor for one person until that "one move".
Thanks for answering, but I must say I am incredulous. Let's break this down. We start with a board with one player 100 points behind (yeah this is hard to achieve, but lets's say we play 4 large avalanches where white screws up and both gives black the outside influence and then dies in the corner. And then maybe play a few self ataris just for good measure. We now pick 200 pros and they play 100 games. Do you still think white wins 50 on average? Assuming the answer is no (because c'mon you can't be that crazy!) then how many would black win. I will say 100 on average. Yeah there might be that 1 game that Lee Sedol won against Kong Jie after dying massively and being 50 points behind, but 100 is a lot bigger than 50 and there are a lot more examples of pros losing games they are 50 points behind rather than making some miraculous comeback. So your position would be a 10 point lead black wins 50, 100 point lead black wins 100. Where does this change happen? Is it a sudden jump or gradual? If black has a 50 point lead how many games would black win of 100? 100? 50? Somewhere in between? Perhaps 42 is the magic number of point lead at which it goes from 50 to 100: start with a 41 point lead and the opening has no effect and black still wins 50, but with 42, BOOM! suddenly black wins 100. Obviously I think this is absurd and there is a gradual increase in the number of black wins as the starting position black lead increases. I don't know what shape this graph will have, but feel confident to say it depends on the strength of the players and will be steeper for stronger players.
often wrote:
However,
If you're playing someone at your same rank there is no real guarantee that your opponent has any better idea than you as to whats happening or whats being played
Not sure if this 'however' is arguing for or against your position. As I said above some 5ks or some pros or whatever may be better at using influence or invading or preserving a lead or whatever. There's no reason to believe your opponent in any of these 100 trial games is better or worse at some aspect so a small advantage to start will on average end up as a small advantage at the end.
often wrote:
There's two easily pointable phenomena in Go that i can use to illustrate this.
1. Handicap games
If the opening mattered as much as is being claimed, there it would mean that handicap stones are just "too big" of an advantage. But if that were so, it wouldn't explain why stronger players would have a chance to win. It is because of the middle game and fighting that ends up determining the game, not the handicap stones in the beginning.
What?????!!!! This makes no sense. In handicap games one player is STRONGER than the other. In my examples 200 5ks play each other and they are all the same strength (or within the relatively narrow strength range of one stone). If a 5k plays a 1k even the 1k will win most of the time, I presume you agree. How much? Maybe 80% (I took inspiration from
http://senseis.xmp.net/?EGFWinningStatistics though those data come with caveats). The exact number doesn't matter, so long as it's >50%. Yet if the 5k and the 1k play with the 5k starting with 4 handicap stones (an opening advantage; perhaps we can say of about 40 points, or maybe 50, or maybe 60; I don't care exactly how much) then 5k will win about 50%, do you agree? (Actually for average 5k versus average 1k the 5k should win a bit less than 50% as white has a half stone advantage in handicap games but nevermind). So what just happened? An opening advantage (the handicap stones) changed the win rate! So now what happens if the 5k plays another 5k starting with 4 handicap stones. According to your previous argument (that opening advantages have no effect on the win rate between equal strength players) the 5k with the 4 handis will still only win 50% of the games. So 4 handicap stones have no effect if a 5k plays another 5k, but if they play a 1k it does? Bonkers.
often wrote:
2. Pro games with joseki/fuseki
It was once asked in a game review at go congresses if Pros bothered with the large avalanche joseki. The pro answered "no, it's too complicated, we just play some set openings and then go straight into the middle game". If the opening mattered even more than the middle game, then this would contradict a lot of set openings and pro behavior.
I'm not saying the opening matters more than the middlegame. I agree with you the middle game is more important and has more effect on who wins. However I do argue that the opening has some effect on the outcome of the game, rather than none as you profess. Regrading the large avalanche, I've also heard that pros don't like to play it because it is too big and settles too much of the board with established patters, it's boring. Also others (Michael Redmond for example) have said that it was good for the player to start in the corner. But you do still see the large avalanche in pro games, for example Kim Jiseok has played it quite a bit recently. I've also heard quite a few pros say the opening is important.
often wrote:
Again the claim that i'm providing arguments against is that the opening matters so much that it can determine the rest of the game. I feel that, especially at the amateur level, the concepts of the middle game are much more important than the opening.
I do not claim it
determines as in a 10/20/60/whatever point lead in opening means you win 100% of games (until that lead gets huge), but that the opening does
affect the rest of the game and have an
effect on the win rate. Are you not able to appreciate that something can have an effect which is not black and white, all or nothing?
often wrote:
Let's think of it in another way.
Take an opening mistake, maybe a mismatch in fuseki where you went for territory and gave your opponent all the thickness, or maybe a misplayed joseki where you get a poorer result. Yes it is important to know where you went wrong and to strive not to do it again.
However, what would be the conditions necessary for this to be seen again? Also, how often could knowing something like this determine the rest of the game?
Now take a middle game mistake, where you misjudged a groups life, or played too close to thickness, or did not properly attack something, or even just didn't know how to kill/make life. In my opinion, these are concepts that can be easily learned from and be repeatable from game to game.
Again, what would the conditions be for this to happen again? How translatable are these lessons, and how often could knowing something like this affect the rest of the game.
Actually I think opening mistakes and theory are often easier to teach and learn about than middlegame fighting, and that is one reason for their popularity. Although there are also lots of middlegame strategies and tactics and theories and shapes etc that can be taught, perhaps the most important part of middlegame is reading, and that is hard to teach other than saying "go away and do a thousand tsumego". But yes, as I said many times before, I agree the middlegame has more effect on the outcome of the game.
often wrote:
Yes the opening matters, but i don't think it is the reason you will "lose" a game.
Finally! You acknowledge the opening matters. Does this mean you also agree having a good opening might increase your chances to win? Although I agree there are few games that are lost in the opening and there will usually be plenty of chances to turn around a game you are losing in the middlegame, as the level of play increases that becomes harder and if your opening mistakes are sufficiently large and your opponent is sufficiently skilled at controlling the game then there are some games that can indeed be lost in the opening*.
* Pretty rare in pro games, but this is perhaps an example, feature the large avalanche as luck would have it:
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