I don't know, I think "All moves must have purpose, don't let stones become meaningless" is a pretty good over-arching theme.

_________________
Tactics yes, Tact no...

If there is one person for whom go was easy, it was Go Seigen. At his prime, he not only trounced his opponents, he did so while using much less time. One reason that so many joseki of 100 years ago look strange to us now has to do with the influence of Go Seigen. Even such a simple play as in the following diagram was his idea.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Small Knight's Response
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . 1 . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 2 . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .[/go]

Ironically, many people advise against studying Go Seigen's games. Too hard to understand, they say.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

No, it wasn't his idea, though it was an artefact of the New Fuseki era. Go actually came to it rather late (c. 1938) and it was only in the 50s that he declared it the best response, so presumably until then everyone found it a bit difficult.



But, yes, it seems senseless to deprive yourself of the best model to follow. However, is it not even stranger that those who turn to other players claim to do so because they can understand them. An amateur kyu or even dan can understand the play of a pro? Which mushrooms do the rest of need to buy?

Thanks, John. As I recall, Takagawa credited Go Seigen with the following argument that the Small Knight's response was good, despite the fact that it had been considered inferior to the Large Knight's response for well over 1,000 years.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . B . .
$$ | . . . 1 . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . W . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .[/go]

The argument is that, starting from the position with and , an obviously equal position, is a good move.



Psilocybin is good, I hear. And fly agaric in moderation, as long as it does not kill you.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

OK, the last example we have been looking at is one where a general principle of go analysis is involved. Determine the value of a play by considering "suppose the moves had been made in a different order".

And yes, when presented on that basis (by a top pro) even us lesser mortals can often then "see it". I'm not sure just looking at the choice of move made by the top pro helps weaker players as much ..... the why is important. Another strong player seeing the move (that he or she didn't consider) might be able to just see "of course".

Joseki do not influence the course of a game of Go as much as opening patterns do in Chess. Even if a joseki is correctly played, subsequent tactical developments can determine whether it was useful or not. Still, it pays to memorize and analyze some basic joseki patterns. They do arise in games of Go frequently, so you should be able to recognize when one can arise. This will allow you to control the outcome of a joseki exchange.

Joseki variations are played according to the board environment. That is, the relative positions of groups on the board at the time that the joseki is initiated. Sometimes, even non-joseki moves are played, if these are determined to lead to a better result.

To begin understanding joseki, you need to have a good command of tesuji and life & death. A joseki is basically an exchange that results in, say, corner territory for Black and outward influence for White, with either side having sente (since the side without sente has a defect in his formation that, unless repaired beforehand, his opponent can exploit later on in the game). Tesuji moves are often applied in joseki and, since the group of one side often ends up being surrounded and without any way of escape, life & death also applies.

I cannot stress enough replaying pro games. Even if a beginner cannot understand the reasoning behind the moves, he can watch and subconsciously memorize what happens in these games. Each replayed game is a bit of background information to help the beginner make educated guesses about any question pertaining to Go technique; game records are where it all comes together.

That being said, I have been mulling taking up Chess again after several years of hiatus. Will replaying, say, a collection of games by Paul Morphy and Alexander Alekhine be of any benefit, apart from playing games and doing puzzles?

All of the 20 listed "first important topics" in viewtopic.php?p=178241#p178241 are more important than tesuji when beginning to understand joseki. (Tesujis are more useful for other purposes or for intermediate and advanced joseki study.)

Being able to understand a play you see, versus coming to that idea yourself, are two very different things. If no one could ever understand the plays of those stronger than them, they would never improve.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ----------------
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . B .
$$ | . . . 1 . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . W . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .[/go]

While 1 is a 'less good' play here because the original stones are not balanced? Remembering Go's dictum to 'give a little and take a lot', I have to say that indeed the master's lessons can be inscrutable at times.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

"The play of a pro" and "a play" by a pro are very different things in English. All plays versus one play. If you truly understand all his plays you are surely a pro yourself. If you just think you understand them, well, commiserations may be in order...

Actually, it's obvious that even pros don't always understand all the plays of other pros, or even of themselves, otherwise we wouldn't get regular winners and losers.

I don't think that is what Go Seigen argued. I can speculate as to why the ogeima response has fallen out of favor these days. But, IIUC, Go Seigen simply argued that the kogeima response is fine.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Perhaps in a different thread, but speculate away? I'm very curious about the zeitgeist of the ogeima response.

I think the first advice I would give you is: don't.
The second advice, and more important one: stop thinking of Go as chess. You seem to want to keep doing it.

The differences between the two games are huge, although not apparent to a beginner. One of the most important ones is, in the context of this discussion - the way chess and Go handles ideas. In both games ideas and creativity are important, but...

In chess, you would learn sequences/openings/variations/whatever to eventually arrive at the ideas. As you said yourself, you can show a beginner the philidor opening, and even if he does not have the understanding or ideas, it will provide him with a skeleton and eventually he will begin to understand the ideas.

In Go it is the opposite - you learn ideas to eventually arrive at sequences/joseki/fuseki/whatever. This is very important, and a crucial point for you, I think. It means that you should start your journey by studying ideas rather than specific sequences or "openings". These ideas will eventually allow you to understand better sequences and play them yourself.

It really has nothing to do with the quality of either game. Go is simply much more complex. Not necessarily in terms of strategy, but the sheer size of the game tree. Game of Go takes 200 moves rather than 40, you can start with almost 300 first moves rather than some 20, and there are many more viably responses to each of the first few moves in Go than in chess... In chess, players stay "within the book" most of the time, and usually throughout the whole opening (which can take half of the game or more) - while in Go being "out of the book" is every Go player's bread and butter on move 5 or earlier. At least - at our level.

This, and more, is why you absolutely cannot approach learning Go the way you would learn chess.

So I think that the question you should be asking is not which or how should you study jokes (don't, its a waste of time for you now), but which basic ideas you should think about and observe in games.

If you need a practical example:

1. You might start with the simple idea: corners, sides, center. This means you start your plays in corners to ge a base, then develop to the sides to get points and influence, and eventually move out into the center for attack and defense. Replay pro games (or any games) and pay attention how players adhere to this idea, and when they abandon it.
2. After you have some basic understanding of that, look at the idea of influence and replay some more games while observing how this works.
3. Then maybe look at the idea of thickness... and then weak and strong groups... and so on.

All the while play games yourself, and pay attantion how you and your opponents apply these ideas, and especially when you violate them.

Do not worry about systematically studying specific sequences. Maybe look something up now and then, after your game, when you realize you misplayed something really badly but have no clue why.

PS>
My more "friendly" advice is - don't worry about studying, play games, talk to other players, lose a bunch of games, and eventually it will become clear what you need to learn - and then sudy that. A month later you will realize you need to learn something else - then study that. Rinse, repeat. And most of all: have fun!

And trust me - you cannot approach Go and chess the same way, not even similar way. They are completely different games. Chess is about grinding down your opponent, about destruction, about starting with two full armies and battling and killing until somebody yells "mama!". The strategy revolves around killing enemy pieces and forcing them into bad positions. Go is almost the exact oposite - it is about building, not destruction. You start with an empty board, empty field, and you need to build a castle. The strategy revolves around building a structure which is bigger than that your opponent is building - given the limited resources you both share (=the empty intersections on the board.)

You have to think about each game completely differently.
And I speak as somebody who played both games for decades.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Bantari, a 5d and chess / shogi / xiangqi player told me that he could be strong at the chess variants because he could apply tactical reading from go. I do not know because I am not chess player, but from a game theoretical POV he might be right. Otherwise, I mostly agree to your remarks and jokes <sic>.

I agree with everyone telling you not to get caught up in josekis yet.

However if you absolutely must learn some josekis to feel better, I suggest to start with these:
The 4-4 invasion at 3-3 (http://senseis.xmp.net/?33PointInvasion) Every beginner seems to know this one. I remember this was the first one I learned. Probably because beginners like to start on star points and once they learn that there is an invasion point at 3-3 they overuse that invasion.
The 3-4 point high approach (http://senseis.xmp.net/?34PointHighApproachInsideContactSolidConnection). This one is fairly simple and comes up a lot in single digit kyu games.

Those pages might be confusing regarding where the joseki ends and where possible continuations / variations start. Maybe a joseki dictionary could be more straightforward (http://eidogo.com/)

DISCLAIMER: Learning these will not improve your game! I feel somewhat bad about pointing them out to you, but you seem to be stuck on this idea, so maybe checking out these will allow you to move forward and leave this obsession behind.

Maybe some chess principle which is even similar to Go is to control the majority of the fields on the board (Of course central fields or fields near the opposing king tend to be are more important than others). For an example, white can have a big advantage if he "controls" the field e5 (i. e. a central field on the opponent's side) which could mean that e5 is protected by a pawn (e.g. on d4) and white could place a bishop or knight (even more annoying than a bishop) on e5 which cannot be easily attacked by black. In most cases, this would strongly limit the options of black.

In the endgame if you have one bishop left, it is good if this bishop e.g. controls the black fields while the pawns are controlling the white fields or vice versa. If you have a bishop on the same color as most of your pawns and your opponent has not, this could be already a decisive imbalance (because your opponent would then control more fields).

However this is just a step stone, if you make a big blunder and let your opponent mate your king the percentage of board control does not matter anymore.

FWIW, I think that a major reason that the ogeima lost favor is that it gives White too many options. Generally, you want to restrict the opponent's options unless he is a weaker player. The ogeima is territory oriented, but so is the kogeima. And it is even more likely to actually make territory. For most of go history the kogeima was considered inferior. Once it became OK, it actually became preferable as a territorial option, as a rule.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

From my experience, there are 2 sets of skills which are transferable between the games:
1. the personal skills like staying calm under pressure, not panicking, resisting the urge to go pee during fast games, stuff like that, and
2. the generic game-related skills like ability to concentrate and stamina, visualization, memory, and so on.

There might be other transferable skills, for example the ideas about reading you were talking about recently. But they will be all of generic nature, I guess.

So I would say that if you want to have a break from Go and still keep some of your mind sharp, play chess for a while. And vice versa. This is what I have been doing a lot during the past few decades and it served me well. Not that my mind is very sharp, but at least it did not rot completely. Yet.

However, while there are some skills which are transferable between the two games, there are huge differences in ways the games have to be approached and learned, especially when somebody is just starting out. It is my strong opinion that thinking of Go as "just another chess" and trying to force chess learning methodology on Go will do more damage than good and slow down the progress a lot, maybe even stall it altogether.

Same could be said to somebody who tries to learn chess as if it was Go.

This is why I say what I say here.

_________________
- Bantari
______________________________________________
WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!