Go game commentary

[markeemark]

Hi all

I know this is probably a really stupid question but i have been looking at some pro games online and my query is when is says white by resignation does that mean white has won or resigned?

I looked at the board in a couple of games and don't see the reason for the resignation or (as yet) am able to work out who is better or worse?

I know it may be obvious to many, but i just need to clarify it.

Thanks

Mark

Mostly I was going through some games of cho chikun's, and wasn't clear.

[tchan001]

white by resignation means white won because black resigned

[daal]

Mostly I was going through some games of cho chikun's, and wasn't clear.

Same thing just happened to me. I thought Cho was behind, and his opponent resigned.

[markeemark]

Thanks folks

I know it sounded obvious, but like Daal said I was bemused when I went through one of Cho's games and didn't understand the point or position once the resignation came through.

Regards

Mark

[EdLee]

I know it sounded obvious, but like Daal said I was bemused...

This is a common experience.
As an exercise for fun, you can load up "resigned" games of random KGS users, at various levels --
e.g. 10k, 5k, 1k, 2d, 3d, etc. -- and notice how often, and around which levels, you are "bemused" the same way.
This may help fill in some gaps as you "work you way up" to pro games.

[tchan001]

Mostly I was going through some games of cho chikun's, and wasn't clear.

Same thing just happened to me. I thought Cho was behind, and his opponent resigned.

In the 2nd Round of the June 7th Chinese B League match, Cho was slightly ahead and resigned. If you didn't read the comment on the circumstances, you'd be befuddled as well.

[Uberdude]

Pro's will usually resign if they are clearly more than 5 points behind in the endgame, sometimes even less. So resigning doesn't mean you should expect to find something dramatic like a group dying.

I seem to recall the GoGoD team tried to categorise the moves preceding resignation and found the most common was the monkey jump. Sometimes this was a connection tesuji, but often it was simply a large sente yose and this signalled the beginning of a stage of the endgame at which point the opponent counts and resigns.

[markeemark]

Thanks folks

Useful information and advice, i'm coming from the chess world where I understand a little more why a resignation occurs.

I'll take the advice about working up to pro games and see if i can understand a bit better.

On a different note, I had an unexpected trip to London and managed to get some Go books!! now just need to settle down and slowly go through them.

Regards

Mark

[eoi]

On a perhaps related note, there is a quirk in translating (mainly by Chinese speakers, I think?) that sometimes shows up in gogameworld commented games, where the comment is that "White is DANGEROUS", but from context you see that the intended meaning is "White is IN DANGER" (my caps).

Since English is becoming more and more a world language, and I'm a big believer in usage determining correctness, I worry that eventually all English speakers will have to adopt this meaning.

[jts]

Somehow it seems more likely that the translator knows the definition of dangerous but doesn't understand the critical distinction between white= the player and white= white's position. We're very used to saying white is light, white is efficient, and so on... There there's no room for ambiguity. When you extend the metaphor to "dangerous" though, you can get the opposite meaning depending on which you mean.

[tchan001]

Dangerous for white