One more game to go before I post my conclusions of this study. I can only repeat that I have appreciated kvasir and others weighing in, while overall the experiment didn't catch a lot of buy-in. The original poster lamenting the lack of material on Takagawa couldn't bother to acknowledge or participate, except when being called out, so I infer the interest in the topic was never genuine.

I have enjoyed following the series of games.

A couple of quick observations:

- The person whose style jumps out most strongly to me is Go Seigen. In my subjective view, it so often feels that his opponents are unable to contain him. When pressed, he can break out into tactical complexity and flexibility in a way that seems to have been difficult to deal with.

- I do wonder if AI can give a misleading sense of certainty e.g. it's so easy to think 'this was clearly the mistake' (as identified by AI) that one can get locked into thinking there's only one option to play, and fail to explore the many possibilities and choices. (My own view is that of course you do have to take account of what AI says, but it could take hours to verify - and I probably only spend 15 minutes on a whole game review).

Thanks.

In my commentaries I try distinguishing "KataGo prefers A" from "KataGo thinks this is a mistake". The latter starts from a drop in point difference of 3-4 or more which is confirmed after longer analysis, playing out some of the variations. I also try understanding why. If I don't spend that time or don't get why, I usually refrain to "prefers".

In the game Go Seigen made a choice in dealing with that complex situation by stressing the weight of the ko in the lower left, rather than strengthening the corner. KataGo assessed that as a ~5 point mistake, by having Black sacrifice the corner, save the left side and then build a big moyo. I think Go Seigen saw those lines but may have had a different evaluation of the moyo versus the capture.

Of course, I'm an amateur evaluating Go Seigen using superhuman powers I can barely handle. I think readers know this and hope they make their own assessments, not blindly trust mine.

On Go Seigen: I agree. A long time ago I replayed many Go Seigen games. They were of a different kind. Very dynamic, unpredictable, uncanny ... Not that other pros are so easy to second guess but Go Seigen always appeared to be like thin air, escaping any attempt to be grabbed/grasped. Using AI I can get closer, probably seeing some lines he saw. I'm tempted to go there again.

I have a feeling that the waters got muddied a little.

The thread started (I infer) from a possibly unsupported claim that Takagawa was a good player to study if you are an amateur. The thread seems to have tried to assess that initially but later (and not necessarily because of Dieter's own comments) went down the rabbit holes of comparing Takagawa to AI and then Takagawa to Go Seigen.

So we are left with the still unsupported claim that Takagawa is the one most worth studying. Yet we can make progress with that, we'd still have to examine HOW we study him.

A possible approach is to start by eliminating those who are NOT worth studying.

I'd say Go Seigen is top of that list! Precisely because of all those magical qualities given above. By all means play over his games for enjoyment, and I know several people who have done that, some more than once. But you have to understand that watching Messi play does not lead you to play like Messi. Even Messi's team-mates train with him, work with him, can ask him questions, and are top pros themselves - but they still can't play like Messi. If you are more interested in playing football than watching it, and so go to a coaching class, the coaches won't even try to teach you Messi's tricks. The most they will say is that if you work as hard as him, you will improve.

And, as a sort of confirmation of that, I can't recall ever seeing any go pro advising anyone to study Go Seigen (in the stylistic sense we are talking about here).

But do you know something, it is very rare, in my experience, for pros to advise studying any one player's style. The nearest to that would be various comments lauding Shuei. But if you look at those carefully, you will more often than not find that the pro is saying something like, "I admire Shuei", which is far from saying, "You should study him."

Shusaku sometimes pops up, but he's a special case. For one thing, he died young and never made it to the top. For another, he was the object of an obsession by a fellow Hiroshima-ite, Ishigaya Kosaku, who published and actively promoted a large collection of his games. Since, at that time, there were no other large collections of one player's games readily available, it made sense to point to these games of Shusaku - not because he was the best but because he was available. Furthermore, he was recommended above all because of his style of playing that ensured that he never lost with Black, because there was no komi. That is now something of a lost art. So, again, play over his games for entertainment, by all means, but studying to improve probably means looking elsewhere.

There was a time when Takagawa was lauded to players in the West as the one to study. That was (being cynical about it, perhaps) because go was being pushed in the West by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, and Takagawa was the pure Japanese Honinbo (Go Seigen not being allowed to play in the Honinbo at crucial times). Truth to tell, western players were seen more as dogs who could almost walk on their hind legs, and so were given simplistic advice to learn some tricks. But's that's not necessarily a bad thing, even today. Almost all top pros are better than other top pros for reasons that even these other top pros haven't yet fathomed, so a much simpler model does seem called for.

And a model of what? A style??!!?? My own sense is that it is gigantic conceit for any amateur to try to affect a style. They just haven't got the technical mastery to employ any style consistently effectively.

Again just my gut feeling, but I strongly suspect that the best advice is to forget about even-game fuseki study and to play lots of high handicap games (preferably with stronger players but use big komis if necessary). Learn to use the handicap stones. That will teach you more than enough to deal with all sorts of fusekis. And those early Japanese writers in Go Monthly and so on, did recommend precisely that. But most Western players insist on playing only even games, and even those few who affect to enjoy them tend to be strong players who love flaunting their superiority (yes, I'm in a cynical mood, today!). So the result is that most dogs here still can't quite walk on their hind legs and still can't do any decent tricks. (But show us a tree and we can squirt on it!)

When I try to make sense of this situation, the best I can come up with is the notion that oriental players mostly learn from parents, siblings or schoolfellows, and in those situations, aided and abetted by the general culture, of course, they respect age differences and naturally play lots and lots of handicap games. Indeed, all the various biographies of pros I have read recount how they graduated from 9 stones to even games against, say a parent, and then were sent to a teacher, where the cycle of taking large handicaps started again (Takagawa falls into this category). In the West, however, we nearly always learn as individuals, and at an age and in a culture where we are disinclined to take handicaps as matter of false pride - I don't recall ever seeing a chess game at odds except in magazines, for example). That individualism makes us (unwisely, I think) reject handicap games in go, and even when we do play them, we are tolerating them, not embracing them.

The best place I can think of for examining how pros learn is the autobiographical book by Takemiya in which he details his progress (with games, at first with his father) from 9-stones upwards. The book is in Japanese but I put the games in the GoGoD database, myself, so I know they are available.

It is hard to find a collection of high-handicap (5 stones upwards) games by one player taking large handicaps apart from that one, but it is easy to put together a collection together with various pros. I know because I've done that as well.

One good example to start with here might have been Takagawa taking 9 stones against Honinbo Shusai (GoGoD 1925-04-03a), and there are several 9-stone games by Takemiya. At 5 stones, there are Shusai v Fujisawa Kuranosuke (1930-12-13a), Shusai v. Fujisawa Tamotsu=Hideyuki (1937-01-13a), Segoe v. Sugiuchi Masao (1935-00-00a), Ino Seiho v. Kato Masao (1958-12-14b), Gu Shuiru v. Chen Zude (1953-10-00a), various with Cho Chikun, etc etc.

I can recommend these games because I databased them myself and so am familiar with them. My recommendation is based on the observation that the young pro nearly always won, but always did well stylistically (as you'd expect because they were mostly trial games to become pro). For that reason, you don't really need commentaries. Again, I know that because I've read them. You just have to latch on to the young pro's line of thought (e.g. splitting attacks or any other strategy that shows using the handicap stones together - there is never, ever any praise for just taking four corners, even if you win!) and then follow it through. The quality most often praised is consistency. That ranks much higher than finding the occasional tesuji or even efficiency. In contrast, when a pro gives an amateur a large handicap, Black's play tends to be riddled with mistakes and is devoid of consistency. The commentary tends to be a sift through the garbage pail. But once you can grasp how a budding pro, rather then an amateur, can play with a high handicap, you can see how he transfers those skills to lower handicaps (again there is much material in the database).

Thanks John. First, I meant Ferran, not you, but I already regretted making a sour remark because Ferran is not responsible for the time I decide to spend. It's just that I tried to take a positive approach to his lament and was a little disappointed that it didn't spark any further engagement of his. Instead, I cherish - and should - the engagement from others, like kvasir, dust and now yourself.



Indeed, analysis by AI took over, and that's because I like to do that . I'm ambivalent about the usefulness of that myself. I'd prefer Michael Redmond being with me instead of KataGo, to help me understand the flow of the game, but KataGo it is and I'm immensely grateful for that.



The hypothesis I took from his style description is: "If you want to learn how to play for influence, avoid complex fights and then win in the endgame, then replay his games to learn how he, as a professional, does so". The ten games I studies only partly confirm that hypothesis. The biggest problem I encountered was unexpected: nearly all of the games I chose were no komi. "How to win a no komi game as Black" now seems a better idea for the study of those games.



Having formerly replayed many Go Seigen games, I agree, while I did take from those games the idea to play a high stake ko and win a game by winning it or losing it in a smart way.



Could you tell me again how T. Mark Hall gained two stones by "merely" transcribing them?




Oh, I think so too.



Someone on this forum advised me some time ago to play many high handicap games against KataGo or other AI, absence of strong amateurs willing to do so. I did that but I'm not sure if it was more useful than any other game. (not sure is no euphemism here, I mean not sure).



In my early days, before Internet or AI, I did play a lot of handicap games and eventually overcame the best player in our club. Sadly he was only 6 kyu. I'm forever grateful to him but it took me a while and a few kilometers to find the first dan who wanted to play me. Later, when even teaching beginners, I had to tolerate a lot of entitlement of "no handicap please, I want to play the real game".



Very useful. Thanks!

Final game in this thread, Takagawa's first against Segoe Kensaku.

I will highlight one move of this last game

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Moves 51 to 55
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | X . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X O . O . . . O O O O . X , X . . |
$$ | . O X O . . . . . O X X X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . . . . X . . . . 1 . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . X . X . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O O . . . 5 . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 2 . . O X O O . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . X X X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . X . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I though meant a failure for Black, since White's reduction of the moyo was successful and Black played a 2nd line gote. Takagawa and KataGo look at it differently. I can't speak for them but the move and KataGo's positive evaluation tell me that Black has two big strong groups now on each side, while White's group is still afloat. That's a positive outcome of a moyo I would not expect at first. Moyo is potential territory and the invader dies or half of the moyo persists as territory, or the invader gets small life with thickness all around. That's my intuition about moyos. This result is a new kind of positive outcome. Well, I must have seen it before but not articulated it so clearly for myself.

It's true enough, and he devised the phrase himself. But it's rather more nuanced than it seems.

Details of figures are now a bit fuzzy in my brain, but the background is that Mark started transcribing games of people like Takemiya in the days when floppy discs really were this large floppy squares. They had a limit of about 300 games, as I recall. And I think the early sets were in Ishi format, not sgf. But Mark couldn't read the names and metadata on games in the Japanese magazines and books he had brought with him from his stay as a Foreign Office official in Japan. That's where I came in.

He changed jobs within the Foreign Office, partly as a result of his experience with these floppy discs. He became an installer of computer systems, and trainer, which meant that instead of being posted to one country, he was sent for short periods to very many counties (I think he notched up over 90 countries). He managed to arrange it so that he had many visits to Japan, China and Korea, and he would come back laden with go books. Almost every one was a collection of game records but he didn't know what he had. Again that's where I came in. I worked within the House of Commons and Downing Street, and he would return from each CJK trip by coming straight to my office with his huge bag of books. I then told him what he had bought. He would go off and transcribe the games and I would top and tail them with all the metadata. It wasn't quite as straightforward as it sounds, as I would often have to write to pros in Japan to ask which of the 20 possible ways their names, or names of their teacher, could be read was correct. For example, even Hayashi Yutaka, the editor of Kido and the famous Go Encyclopaedia used the names Kogishi Soji and Ogishi Soji in different editions of his encyclopaedia. I write to a pupil of K/O Soji, Masubuchi Tatsuko, and asked her. She confirmed it was Kogishi.

Mark and I would also go on CJK book-shopping trips together, and we complemented each other perfectly. He bought the books with all the game records and I bought books with all text. That gave me lots more info about names plus data about tournaments or incidents that I could incorporate in the Ishi or sgf files Mark produced. That went on for a very long time, and Mark personally produced close to 40,000 sgf files before he died. These still pop up in what we might say are the unlikeliest of places, e.g. L19, even with the same original mistakes

But the Go Seigen files occupied a special place in that colossal output. They came in very early because Mark had found a 4-volume set of GSG complete games in Korea and bought every copy in the shop (you didn't have to worry about luggage if you had access to a diplomatic bag!). Apart from one set for me, that meant he had a few copies to sell. They were snapped up almost instantly. But for him it then became almost an obsession to transcribe all those games, and so this became the first set of one-player games that Mark did in that obsessive, focused, non-stop way. And it took him from 2-dan to 4-dan and to becoming British Open Champion.

I personally don't think that the fact that the games featured Go Seigen was a direct factor. It was the intense effort that counted most. I'm pretty sure he thought the same. We remained obsessives about collecting GSG games that were not in the "Collected Games" and certainly added very many over the years (close to 100?, but Mark went on to do complete sgf collections of the likes of Takagawa and Kitani and never got quite the same boost to his performance (though he did get some). I never got any boost at all because, while I did do a lot of transcriptions myself (for example, those in Chinese numerals, which Mark found slowed him down too much), I never did them in his obsessive, focused way. In fact, whenever I did transcriptions I found they made me fall sound asleep at my desk. I had the same experience again earlier this week!

As to what Mark got out of these transcriptions, it was an ability to predict candidate moves quickly. In other words, he was building up his intuition. That meant he could look at a dense diagram and laser in to the right area of the board for the next move (right area but not necessarily right move) to transcribe. The result was that he went down from about an hour a game to more like 20 minutes. For much of his go career, he was transcribing 5 or 6 games daily. This ability to spot candidate moves made him excel at lightning play (I think it's fair to say he was about 6-dan in that format). But he became a lightning player even in longer formats where opponents had time to think, and that blemished his overall results. Still, I think he was really 5-dan before he became ill. He was also able to talk very knowledgeably about games without having read any commentaries. I know he was accurate, because a common scenario is that I would write a book and he would be the main proof-reader. I had close knowledge of the pro commentaries, but he didn't (until he finished the book) but he would say things about the games that married very, very well with what the pros said.

I'm not at all sure where he got that insight from. It may be that many of my books were on GSG's ten-game matches, and he had transcribed those games so intently in a crucial part of his go career that they were seared into his brain. It wasn't all pure science, though. There were some tricks. For example, he soon learned that if he couldn't find a GSG move quickly on a diagram, look for a weird contact play. It's amazing how often that works. It was also him who noticed how often GSG seemed to say "White 8 is bad." We would joke that that was where the opponent first went wrong and Go had already won. It was also that that led, by a circuitous route, to my theory of Go Seigen Groups. It was meant, too, as a joke but it seemed to end up making sense. (It has also ended up tying in with the 10-9 point theories of ancient China go, which of course influenced Go himself.)

Another element Mark learned is something a bit to tenuous to label but it had to to do with following the flow of a game. He noticed this because whenever he transcribed games by an amateur, or even weak pros, he found transcription time would double from about 20 to 40 minutes, because he couldn't predict the bad moves played by the weak players. What an asset that was!

I think he could have made very significant progress even if he had started by transcribing, say, Kitani instead of GSG, but that leaves out the passion he felt about GSG. That passion gave him the drive to put in the intense work. A lack of passion for other players may also explain why he didn't make huge progress after his huge initial spurt. although I think the law of diminishing returns explains that at least as well. He also was resolute in not studying commentaries in books or doing L&D problems. He'd dome all that in his youth, and to do it in his later career would just take away time from transcribing games, he said.

Pros recommend playing over pro games on a real board more than any other form of practice. This is a form of transcription. But from the many pro biographies I've read, that only really works if you are obsessive about it as Mark was.

This December will see the 10th anniversary of his death, incidentally. I believe the BGA (in the new London Go Centre he largely funded) runs a memorial tournament and it is very appropriately a lightning tournament.



I think this is accurate enough (and very useful), but you may care to note that Matthew Macfadyen used the term "virtual territory" rather than "potential territory" for the same ideas, and I think he was the first to express the concept in English (someone had to take the trouble: for reasons I won't go into, there's not much need to have the concept spelt out in quite the same way in Japanese because the word 'moyo' itself alerts you well enough to the inherent vagueness). I suspect Matthew chose 'virtual' because at the time it was becoming a bit of a buzz-word in computer circles. But FWIW I think, as a native speaker, that it does indeed have a slight edge over 'potential'. The specific portion of the concept that encompasses the idea of 'entice the opponent to invade your moyo and let him live small' came from a lecture I gave at the old London Go Centre. It opened a lot of eyes very wide. No credit to me. I basically just read out what Takemiya said in a go magazine. In general, I think Matthew is the one to credit. He was/is a lot more active (and talented) than most strong players in sharing his insights into go.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

I like this move. Black basically makes his group as strong as it possibly could be, while not allowing white to do the same.

I recall looking at this game a few years ago and trying to understand this move. It is not the best move but it undermines white and makes black strong. It is also some territory. I think it is AI-esque, there are many moves like this that the AI prefers in pincher josekis.

If you play differently...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | X . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X O . O . . . O O O O . X , X . . |
$$ | . O X O . . . . . O X X X . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O O X . . . . X . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . X . X . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . O . . O X O O 2 . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . X X X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . a . X . X . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . O . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

White blocks (of course other moves are possible but at least KataGo over here prefers or a) and now white's group is also strengthened. Note that this is more than slightly better for black than the game according to KataGo; an entire whole point better! That is hard to ignore when there is nothing happening in the game.

I think the move is style, a particular way in which Takagawa approached the game (or rather this position). I think most Go players would be able to mimic this approach and learn something about when it is a good approach and when not.

Of course there are so many other things to study. For example one's own games, studying those is more difficult and more essential if the goal is to play better.

Hypotheses:

1 - "thick plays that enabled a constant flow of exchanges around the board"
2 - "preferred peaceful exchanges rather than head-on confrontations"
3 - "steadily squeeze his opponent's groups for small advantages" leading often to a "crop of center territory emerging in the late game"
4 - "emphasises balance based on counting"
5 - "drawn out games, confident in his endgame skills"

Test results:

1 - how often did Takagawa choose a influence oriented move (high, connecting) over a territory oriented move (low, invading); how often did he reinforce a group rather than playing elsewhere. Somewhat confirmed.
2 - how often did he choose a softer play instead of the sharpest play (AI will be needed here). Confirmed
3 - how often did crops of center territory emerge (in the late game). Not confirmed.
4 - here I'll attempt to make regular quantified positional judgments, which are expected to be close; AI will confirm (or not). Somewhat confirmed.
5 - are Takagawa's games indeed long(-er than average); are Takagawa's moves closer to "the best move" in the endgame (AI needed). Not confirmed tobe longer than average. Winning more of the longer (point decision) games than the shorter (resign) games: confirmed.

Other conclusions:

- Takagawa likes ko, like Go Seigen.
- Is it a good idea to study Takagawa? I don't think any more so than another pro.
- Is it a good idea trying to play like Takagawa (or possible at all)? Yes, if it's a conceptual training on playing for influence and win in the endgame. No if it's about emulating a style.
- Anything else? Yes, this was rather fun and interesting to do. See you next time.

I was both intrigued and baffled by this the first time I saw it. I just assumed a typo for 'outcrop', but even that seemed strange. But now it's repeated....

So, what meaning of 'crop' is intended?

If the idea is to use it as a kind of measure word (maybe the commonest usage outside of farming), it needs an adjective of some sort - heavy crop of fruit, thick crop of hair, current crop of top players, latest crop of dog attacks, etc etc. And then it's the adjective that carries the main meaning.

There is of course the cropping of images and so on. Is a curtailed or cut-down territory the meaning?

Or is the idea merely a (too?) vague horticultural one? Why not 'area' or just 'territory?

Outcrop still seems the likeliest concept to me - territory that emerges unexpectedly in the remote centre, like a solitary rock rising unexpectedly alone out of the ground. But if so, that is a devastatingly new and exciting concept in go theory and so we NEED to know more!

Please, please de-baffle me!

As it happens, it was ez4u who added the big section to SL, containing the word.

Then it is time for the critical review

A preconcieved understanding of Takagawa

Takagawa is something of a synonym for a certain style that is called 平明流. I doubt it is easy give complete definition, it probably has too strong connection to Takagawa to allow anyone to come later and say "here is a definition of what this way of playing is". Yet the study attempts to do just that and presents hypothesis about Takagawa's style without much discussion.

The study's hypothesis appears to relay on Sensei's library for a description of Takagawa's style. That is a weak foundation. I'm not sure what is the best way to improve on that (I don't expect a literature survey) but other approaches would be to seek out competing hypothesis and test which fits best, or to start without preconceptions and try to formulate a description by exploring the games and try to avoid preconceived descriptions.

Here is a recent attempt at describing Takagawa's style to show how the (Sensei's inspired?) hypothesis might not be a commonly accepted starting point:

(Machine translated from https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/etc/writer/column20220902.html)


I think this gives a rather different impression of Takagawa, there is for one thing no mention of "influence", "center" or "counting".

Elsewhere he is said to have played like a "tanuki". That is interesting but I can't say I understand the reference. Maybe his opponents meant that he didn't reveal his true form on the Go board. It is probably meant as humor but maybe it is a hint that his way defied description by his contemporaries?

Possibly the study's conclusions are undermined by starting out from a single understanding of Takagawa. It could have been possible to consider multiple understandings of Takagawa or to simply start with a clean sheet and allowing and understanding to form after exploration.

At any rate only one understanding of Takagawa's style was explored, which is a weakness.


The form of exploration

Something that was not always clear was if the discussion was about style and how it related to the hypothesis. It is also not clear how the conclusion were drawn or if the hypothesis are accepted or rejected. Not that the discussion was uninteresting

It is also not clear if the method is to look for positive examples or negative examples. There would also appear to be a need to contrast any example with what other players would have done in the same situation, of course KataGo does offer insight but I think it can just as well reject a Takagawa move as it can accept one that would have been ridiculed by his opponent's.


The selection of the games

The games are all early games of Takagawa, from the 30s and 40s, from before he became 9 dan or the Honinbo title holder. Takagawa seems to have been a late bloomer, so these games are not when he was at the peak.


My suggestions

A more exploratory study, where there are less preconceptions, would have been more interesting.

The hypothesis and other preconceptions in the formulation of the plan could be one a reason why there was less contributions from others. What I am trying to say is that maybe it wasn't clear to other than the OP that the hypothesis were important for understanding Takagawa's style. It is harder to contribute anything when you are unsure what the discussion is about.

Time is also a factor, maybe more people would have gotten involved if the thread didn't move along so fast. Possibly posting one topic per-game and not creating more than one topic per week would leave more room for contributions. It also could be made clearer that discussion on the games is welcome.

I hope the critical review isn't too scathing.

First and foremost, the study was an attempt to answer the question "is it particularly helpful to study Takagawa('s games)". That presupposes there's anything particular about his games, which we can call his style. If SL provides a weak description of his style, then improving on the page itself is always a good option. In my view there's no "them and us" when it comes to SL, only us.




I found none






No but the "avoid complex fighting" is on SL as well. And it's the aspect I could confirm least of all.



At least you have participated and are now offering your view on how it could have been done.



I thought I did. How conclusive or convincing it was ... I'm sure it could have been much more elaborate in all directions.



If not impossible, this approach is way beyond my reach.




I agree. I should have made a better selection. I wanted it to be unbiased so I chose a selection mechanism that couldn't bias me, but it ended up being biased towards his early days.




I see. Yes, I can see why the exercise was a priori collaborative but how I narrowed the scope for interaction.



On a forum about Go, moreover where I think by now most know my personality, I would not think it's necessary to repeat that. I don't want to be fishing too much for approval or debate either. If people are genuinely interested, I expect they join in.

I could see you were, like John and a few others who have jumped in. Thank you very much.

I don't think I'll repeat the exercise but if someone picks it up from here, I'll be happy to join in.

I personally have never seen heimei used in any special connection with Takagawa, but I can see how a writer might choose that description about his play. There is nothing special about the word itself nowadays, though. It just means plain, simple, transparent. Historically it has some nuances (apart from meaning 'dawn') in Chinese philosophy where it was used for a recommended way of governing that was fair/just and clear (i.e. deconstructed as 公平で明か). Xunzi, one of the great Confucianists was attached to this notion.

However, in go terms the most interesting reference might be when it was used to describe how Sakai Yuki beat Otake Yu in last year's Shinjin-O final. The headlines were something like "Sakai wins the title with his Plain Style'". The games were in fact rather interesting in that respect, but I can't say I'd say "Takagawa" if I saw the games without player names, and I also can't recall any reference to Takagawa in the commentaries on these games.



I wouldn't say he was said to play like a tanuki. It's more that he himself was likened to a tanuki (or more specifically a bake-danuki, the mythological version). The name comes from the 8th Honinbo Tournament in 1953, when he was defending for the first time, against Kitani. In those days, the Mainichi used to run a pre-match readers' poll as to who would win (Kitani was the 65% favourite) and Kido also ran a pre-match round-table interview with top players. It was at the latter that Maeda Nobuaki 7-dan was one of those bucking the poll and was lending support to Takagawa. To explain why, Maeda said that although Takagawa had not been doing so well in ordinary games just then, he did win the games that mattered, such as in the Honinbo and Oteai. He was a wily man, like a tanuki, he joked. I could imagine the alliteration (Tanuki no Takagawa) played a part in the public latching on to the name, as no doubt did the fact that he did defy the odds and win (this was also the match where Kitani collapsed afterwards from blood pressure problems and so lost his place at the top table). However, the reason above all that the name stuck, I am sure, is that Takagawa was known as a jolly, fun-loving guy, who laughed at himself when he got into scrapes. A reasonably close equivalent of the tanuki in this sense in modern terms may be Paddington Bear - or, at a pinch and if you are old enough to remember, Winnie the Pooh.

As to style, Game 4 of that match exemplifies why it is so hard to talk about Takagawa in stylistic terms. This game is regarded as a classic of the kurai no takai style (not quite the same as influence style - more to do with getting the high strategic points and the fact that he gave up three corners in the opening might convey the idea well enough).

The connection with Shuei's style is relevant there. Many writers just lazily point to a Shuei-like style that can be likened to flowing water not fighting directly against what lies in its way (流水不争先), but more careful and discerning writers about Shuei point to things like his love of the L-shape in the centre - and that of course is an example of kurai no takai style. Add to that, Takagawa's lifelong love of hoshi stones (and caps!) once he had experienced New Fuseki. A further comment by Maeda confirms that aspect of Takagawa's play: "He may look like he's losing, but he is winning in all the right places." Takagawa himself illustrated this by saying that he liked to use his built-up power to strike at the vital point.

Building up power is often best done with a simple moves, hence the other nicknames for Takagawa: Boshi no Takagawa and Ikken no Takagawa, referring to his liking for caps and one-space jumps. But at some point, he needs to enter the lion's den, and his skill at surviving there gave rise to yet another nickname: Shinogi Takagawa.

His skill also at delivering an unexpected but decisive punch in such situations gave rise to the famous anecdote in which Takagawa harked back to a remark by Hashimoto Utaro that playing Takagawa was like having to endure a bath in lukewarm water. In the 14th Honinbo final, again against Kitani as it happens, he flicked his fan and killed an annoying fly. Then he beamed and said: "I can kill flies, too."

Game 5 of that series is a famous one that is worth looking at in researching Takagawa's style.

He had made a large moyo (again the high-flying theme - and it included a very signifci9ant Shue L-shape) in Game 4 and Kitani had to try all sorts of tricks to reduce it. But he succeeded, and tied the match 1t 2-2. In Game 5, Takagawa defiantly began again with another moyo, giving Black (Kitani) all four corners to boot. On top of that, he allowed a weak group of his own to develop in the centre as payback for stopping Kitani from erasing his moyo too much. On move 113, Kitani made what looked like an aji-dissolving turtleshell ponnuki. But there was a barely perceptible defect there, and Takagawa had spotted it. He exposed it with White 122. That may be worthy of a "!!!!" marking. It probably decided the game instantly, but Kitani, under time pressure, played on, made some more mistakes and lost large, by 15.5 points.

All of the facets of Takagawa's style can probably be said to be on shown in that game. Try and emulate that style, if you like. But do let us all know when you find out how to make a !!!! move.

But you also have to explain why Takagawa and Go Seigen differered (apparently) so often when commenting on the same position. Go would say the usual move was on the fourth line, and Takagawa would say it was on the third line. That appears to go against his kurai no takai credo. Maybe the explanation is that he was saying it "the usual move" - not "the move I would play."

At the risk of derailing this topic even further, I would like to say thank you to John and the others for the fascinating meta-discussion. The internet today contains so much parroted advice. I consider stories about T Mark, as well as discussions of study by Knotwilg and others, to be like gold dust compared to the endless, rote "do your tsumego" and "lose 100 games quickly". As a beginner, I probably need to start there, but it is encouraging to see other ideas being discussed beyond (to paraphrase Nick Sibicky) "ask the robot".

I am resolved to embrace handicap games!