Incipit: I won't be embedding SGF or videos, but linking them. This monstruosity is long enough without that.
Also, sorry for the delay.
@Bill, Hyper,
I was trying to avoid mentioning specific people, but the game that prompted me to write (and there are score others) is the
second game between Artem and Tanguy, last week [+]. The previous League also had examples, and so did the Transatlantic, IIRC. So far, this 2nd league, the one that has this feeling
less is the one with Ryan. Still kinda local, but it has breathing space. And I'll note that, basically, he has a kenkyuukai 24/7 right home.
@John F. I sort of recall, without specifics, some of that. And it might be a perfect storm between shorter time limits and the sportslike competitive character of Go outside of Japan, plus AI influence (which is weird; back when I was training Leela, I don't recall it playing so tight). AFAIK, the main of kendo, in Japan, is veering this way as it keeps shedding the martial art off itself and veering towards competition sport. What I've heard some practitioners say about modern Japanese karate can't be printed. And so on. And I know that martial artists who go down that road pay a price for it (in injuries and long term effects, in loss of efectiveness outside tournament conditions, in understanding of their art...); I have to wonder if the similarities hold through that and, if so, what's the price for Go players.
But the first that comes to my mind is Power & Fairbairn's
400 years of Go in Japan and the "corners, sides, centre" mantra. A bunch of modern Western games "visit" the corner, drop the first stone there, sometimes an enclosure, and then proceed to wrestle for a single one of them and duck it out until they destroy the tavern [*].
As much as I dislike some, mostly physical, characteristics of that book, it's a good collection of snapshots of Japanese Go. Now, without particularly trying,
Game 5 ( Y. Sanchi vs. H. Doetsu 1670). It does have a certain locality, but nothing near as close.
Game 6, same book, same idea.
Game 7, even more locality, but still breathing space.
Less antique Go, Mizutani Nuiji vs Takahashi Kinesaburo,
here. Go Seigen vs. Shusai,
here. The Atomic Bomb
Game.
Even the most... "local" of those games has breathing space between stones. As far as I understood my first readings of Go history back when, one of the characteristics of old Go was its locality, its lack of use and perception of the whole board. I saw a video, very recently, of one of the early Honinbo (Dosaku?), being the first to use an approach to the corner that was near the mid-side hoshi, because it helped him influence the board better. And yet, a lot of modern go is quite local. But even so, when I've checked the NHK, which has similar time limits to the Transatlantic or the Euro Online League, they have this same Japanese "breathing space".
Asami Ueno, So Yokoku,
66th NHK. Sometimes that breathing space ends up cramped
like here (65th NHK, So Yokoku vs. Cho Chikun), but it doesnt
start that way.
Does this help visualize what I meant back then?
Take care.
[+] Sorry, ,I tried lining to the post itself, but it behaved erratically
[*] Incidentally, I liked Garlock's recent comment comparing go enclosures with bar brawl tactics.