From the Segoe/Go Seigen tesuji dictionary:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc19 White to play
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . X O O . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . O X . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . X . O . X . O . O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

The first six moves seem straightforward enough:

but then there's an interesting choice:


So what's going on here? What are the good points of variation 'a' for white which make up for the extra captures in variation 'b'?

I think it is a combination of a few things.

- Tesuji books will most of the time show answers that are knock out blows.
- There isn't enough context in the diagram to really decide how much aji is OK and when to play away.
- The book wasn't written by Segoe and Go.

The net result is that many of the problems raise a lot of questions once you have found the tesuji. I think that is part of what makes them feel like real game problems. Having half the board in the diagrams is much better than the usual tesuji book but I'd prefer to have whole board problems. Still, even with whole board problems it is probably too much of an ask to have unambiguous solutions.

In this one I'd say there is too much aji left if black goes for the alternative solution. Moves in the early opening are very big so maybe sente can in some sense trump that aji but it is a burden for black. If black plays away, leaving so much aji, then he has to carry this burden while white is playing a normal game. It is a possible time bomb.

Hidden diagrams:

Some points:

1. It is hanazuke, not hana-tsuke.

2. The book here (as per the text) is specifically about the hanazuke, in this case further specified as a tool for winning capturing races. All the cases given are described as the hanazuke no suji, not tesuji - a subtle point but highlighting the fact that a technique is being inculcated rather than asking you to find a brilliant move.

3. If you wish to treat it as part of a wider game, you might find that bots prefer E2 as the first move, not the nose contact.

4. The book was really by Segoe, with Go named as a helper (see the preface). Segoe had a good record of doing his own writing (see Eminence Grise).

I was watching a programme last night about Brian Clough, being interviewed for the job of England soccer manager after taking a team from the lower divisions to winning the European Cup twice (and many other medals on the way). The interviewing panel was headed by a professor of history and a company secretary. Brian didn't get the job. He wondered wryly on the programme why it was thought to be appropriate for two non-footballing amateurs to be interviewing a successful professional for a top football job. I could imagine Segoe sympathising with Brian.

If it is written by Segoe then there is at least couple of people who think that it wasn't. I showed this book to a Kansai Kiin professional, there was a problem I wanted his opinion on, he was very curious about the book and said that it was definitely not by Segoe and Go. I also recall reading, maybe here or on sensei's, that someone else had the same experience, that is of Japanese professionals categorically denying that the book was by the stated authors. In my case I had not even asked if it was written by someone else and he literally read the introduction an checked the volume front and back (I'm not sure which volume). At least this is how I remember this.

I think I have to believe what I was told until I may have better evidence. It is in many ways a collection of much higher quality than the typical ghostwriting madness. Originality comes to mind as one of the qualities that this collection has over other. The thought of Segoe spending over 10 years collecting the problems is an attractive idea but I also like to believe that certain people would have that collection if it was really true.

Many, many years ago I encountered a statement by the great sinologue Bernhard Karlgren in which he castigated the many who found it fashionable to pour scorn on the antiquity of Chinese texts. He wrote: "It looks very scholarly and critical. But with few exceptions such condemnations are based on flimsy, insufficient and subjective arguments." (Bernhard Karlgren, "Excursions in Chinese Grammar", Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 23, pp. 107-133, Stockholm, 1951).

I believe there are many go players who like to sound very scholarly and critical, especially on topics where it can be difficult to contradict them. But if a morally upright person like Segoe writes a preface and puts his name to it, and the name of the equally distinguished Go Seigen, I think we should expect rather more than unsupported opinions before becoming nay-sayers. Again, I also point to evidence in Eminence Grise.

It is well known, of course, that more than a few books are ghostwritten, but this is often noted by the person who puts his name to the book and the typical procedure then has been for the ghostwriter to sit with the pro and take notes. In pre-war days, it was not uncommon for a relatively uneducated pro to have an amanuensis among his pupils, simply because the number of characters in use then was about three or four times what it is now, and the written language normally used classical grammar. Pros had to write/dictate their own commentaries. (Go journalists were still thin on the ground.)

But there were also plenty of pros who were well educated and who wrote the books entirely by themselves. Today, the character burden is small and more go players have a good education. I translated a couple of big books by a shogi pro (a Meijin) in the days before Japanese typewriters or word processors (or even home photocopiers) were a thing. The text and all the many diagrams I had to work from were handwritten by him, and I had the still unpublished original MS in front of me. It was the only copy. I was terrified I might spill coffee on it or something. When I had finished, the books were published in a bilingual edition.

I have seen other evidence of go and shogi pros who write their own texts, or who have a family member write it under their control. And I know personally several chess grandmasters or masters who write their own books.

I bestirred myself enough to dig out the book. In the preface, Segoe said the tesujis were collected from the game records of players past and present, from all sorts of go books, from his own professional games, from countless teaching games he has played over many, many years, and some positions were his own creations. It took him over ten years to compile the collection, He then enlisted the help of Go Seigen and together they studied the positions. In addition, Go provided positions from old Chinese books.

He also thanked Haijima Michio, his editor at the Seibundo Shinkosha publishing company, for collaboration. This was in 1971, about a year and a half before Segoe died, meaning he was retired and had time on his hands.

After his death, the Kido editor recalled how he used to come in regularly with handwritten articles, so that they always had a large stock of material to fall back on.

If you still think Segoe was a gigantic fibber, you are of course entitled to your opinion.

Earlier today you seemed to be telling us what is written in the book.



Of course, this isn't true. For example, the chapter header is hanazuki no tesuji. This was before you found the book?

It is difficult to take this discussion seriously. It is a great collection that I was told wasn't really authored by Segoe and Go. If you want to convince me that it was then you can look for real evidence of some sort but saying that Segoe would be a big fibber because of something written in the book is a non sequitur. Same with claiming other people have written books. Then there is that you were telling us what the book says before having looked for the book. I hope you can see that I find your argument hard to accept.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist butting in.

This part I can agree with. Let's not let it get too "loud".


I have to smile at this. I just wonder, have you read "Eminence Grise", JF's biography of Segoe? You want to put up a casual statement from an anonymous Kansai Kiin pro as authoritative. Who was it actually? Are they old enough to have known Segoe back in 1971 when the book was published?

My own experience with pros in Tokyo is that they are generally not well acquainted with books published on Go for sale to the general public. We may think that these are wonderful books. However, most pros have studied other materials instead. This is especially true of the young "AI-generation" pros, but even middle-aged pros are surprisingly uninformed in this regard.


I am not sure how much effort you think goes into writing a book like this.

But I think it is reasonable to believe that JF has a pretty good grasp of Segoe's work and if he then wants to pull the book off his shelf to "double check", he should be thanked rather than mocked for doing so.

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

Kvasir

When I wrote that I bestirred myself to get the book, I was referring privately to the fact that I thought it important enough to go upstairs again to get it, despite my aching back.

I have done so a third time, back still aching, to point out to you that, as I said, each of the 12 specific cases is described as suji:

Problem 1, page 134: 黒１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 2, page 134: 黒１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 3, page 135: 黒１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 4, page 136: 白１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 5, page 136: 黒１がハナヅケの筋。
Problem 6, page 136: 黒１がハナヅケの筋。
Problem 7, page 136: 黒１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 8, page 137: 白１3がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 9, page 137: 黒１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 10, page 137: 黒5がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 11, page 138: 白１がハナヅケの筋である。
Problem 12, page 139: 白33がハナヅケの筋である。

I was aware that the heading on page 130 is ハナヅケの手筋 but I didn't want to get into the murky waters of pointing out that tesuji in Japanese does not usually mean what many western players think it means (brilliant move - a usage we sometimes have to go along with , unfortunately). I still won't, but if you wish to ponder it, I refer you to Hayashi's Go Encyclopaedia, for example. The dominant use of just suji in Segoe's book can be seen in the other sections of the book. The point I was making, and will make again, is that the emphasis is on learning the technique (the flow = suji) rather than finding brilliant moves.

If you wish to study further example of the ハナヅケの筋 I will refer you to the 7 problems in Encyclopedia of Classical Go Problems, Volunme 1 and the 12 problems in Volume 2.

Thanks. My Japanese is pretty sketchy, but I should have remembered this much. I've edited the thread title.

I already explained why I think the book might not be written by Segoe and now you put that back to me in a very distorted way and you seem to be telling me what I want and think. It is hard to understand how we then go from this to questioning if the pro was old enough. Maybe you are gaslighting? That is how this appears to me, especially when considering your message as a whole.

It is a good thing I didn't name the pro since you appear to be willing to put them down due to their age, ignorance and so on.



OK

What you quote is from the answer section and what is being described is not what I think of as the "case", it is the move itself that is described. Maybe that can be sort of the same thing.

Well, I tried to start a conversation about an actual go position...

I also tried the position with AI at zbaduk.com. It prefers E2 instead of D2.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc19
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . X O O . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . O X 3 . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . X 4 O O X O O . O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . 2 X 1 X . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . X . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

So in variation a white has less points and is not 100% alive but finishes in sente. Variation b gives more points but gote. Which is better depends on the whole board.

xela:

But don't you find conversations more stimulating when they lead to things you'd forgotten about or perhaps didn't know - perhaps didn't even suspect? Most conversations are at the best when you learn something new, I find.

Your position aroused enough interest for some people to comment, but the end result of what they said was "depends on the position, really". Not wrong but not very useful, no?

But if you read the book in the way intended by Segoe, and spark a conversation about that, I would suggest we would all find it useful.

Over half of Volume 1 is devoted to tsuke tesujis. He gives five categories: tsuke, hasamitsuke, tobitsuke, hanazuke and tsukekoshi. Tsuke is common to them all. In other words, we are being taught to learn the suji 'tsuke'. But in usual go English we wouldn't necessarily see the connection. Tsukekoshi might be rendered as 'cutting at the waist', hanazuke has been rendered as 'nose tesuji', and I would imagine that one reaction to tobitsuke would be "What on earth is that?".

But Segoe shows the connections, and sees value specifically in using the right names. He says so. In one part of the book he shows some positions where there is no name (i.e. technical term) for a tesuji. He laments the fact and even suggests a new name.

Further, although he uses the word tesuji in his headings, in the text he uses suji. Tesuji can be analysed as te = moves + suji = flow (or, perhaps better, technique). It can thus be viewed as a catch all phrase for move sujis of different types of move: tsuke no suji, hanazuke no suji, warikomi no suji, and so on. In other words, what is most important (and not just in his book) is acquiring the suji or the technique. Or filling the tool-box with useful tools, if you will.

This is reinforced by a short essay before the hanazuke section. It is entitled 心眼 or 'mind's eye'. My own favorite association with that phrase is the one in Wordsworth's poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud". I'm sure that, as a native speaker, you will be familiar with it, too ('they' referring to a 'host of golden daffodils'):

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Segoe makes the point (in prose, but almost as poetically as Wordsworth, as it happens) that we, like all animals, need to acquire skills within our heads so that we can react instinctively. In other words, we need to build up our intuition. He quotes a Zen-like phrase by Inoue Genan Inseki - 局前無人、局上無石 - which tells us that the desirable state is to sit before the board and see no opponent, and to gaze at the board and see no stones. We just respond intuitively. Obviously, that intuition has to be built up accurately by constant practice, i.e. doing 170 pages of tsuke problems in this case, not one of this and two of t'other, as if choosing only the fruit creams and avoiding the toffees in a box of chocolates.

If you view his book that way, it is irrelevant whether variations a or b exist. It is irrelevant what AI thinks.

Of course, we here are all plagued by being adults. It would be so much more efficient if we could go back to being infants again, absorbing suji like blotting paper - just as oriental pros did. Instead, we all try to show how "very scholarly" we can be.

If this conversation could end up showing us how to learn like children again, it would be truly worthwhile.