Do you eventually run out of strategic concepts?

[jts]

So the proof is only "weak" (without explanation of strategy).

That seems like a pretty strong proof to me... Strategy is not meaningful when talking about solving checkers.

There's a technical distinction in game theory between "weak" and "strong" solutions of a game.

[speedchase]

There's a technical distinction in game theory between "weak" and "strong" solutions of a game.

Yes, but it has nothing to do with being able to explain the strategy behind perfect play.

super weak: we know there is a perfect play
medium: We know perfect play
Super strong: an algorithm can from any position, with mistakes already made play the rest of the game perfectly.

nothing about strategy

[Loons]

I can't actually remember Otake Hideo's opening principles any more, and many other useful things. Fuseki for me is now about:

1. Specific knowledge, I know in this sort of fuseki these are sorts of joseki options.

2. Joey's spin on the direction rule: approach corners, try to get the 3-3 point, try to get the wider side.

[RobertJasiek]

Consider the following demanding definition of usefulness: A truly useful theoretic concept is one that, if learned by a strong professional, would further improve his play.

Such a definition makes the wrong assumption that there would be concepts useful ONLY for strong professionals. Every player has the principle possibility to learn and apply!

If a concept helps weak players but has no effect on professionals, it means that, while useful to these weak players, the concept is replaceable by other kinds of go knowledge or skill, which professionals already have from other sources. In a sense, such a concept is redundant.

Such as the "concept" of imagining alive stones as green and dead stones as red?

Such concepts may help weaker players get stronger faster than with traditional instruction, but they don't go past what can be achieved with traditional instruction.

This makes several assumptions, of which I do not discuss all now. Just to mention one: You assume that all weaker players could learn well from traditional instruction, a wrong assumption.

Under this definition, I suspect very strongly that none your theory is useful.

Under which "this" definition? Your second one, the "replaceable" one? And you are "suspecting very strongly" that none of my theory would "be useful", i.e., "provide professionals with new insight that they would not already have achieved in other ways"? Is this what you are claiming? If not, then please explain very carefully what you mean, so that I do not need to waste arguing against something you might not mean!

What's more, it may actually be harmful.

You are suspecting that my theory might be harmful?

1) How can any correct go theory be ever harmful? (Wrong theory can.)

2) The average(!) comment on my books by customers in personal communication is: "very good". This is not a degree one would associate with "harmful" at all.

3) E.g., about three books of the kind of Joseki 1 Fundamentals (i.e. also two similar, still non-existing ones on the middle game) would have saved me ca. 16 months delay from 3 to 4 dan. During that time, almost all of my learning was related to studying simple fundamentals, which were not in English books but which I had to extract by overinterpreting a tiny percentage of (for me) interesting moves in diagrams of - during that period - ca. 200 of Asian teaching only by examples books. I.e., the theory in books like Joseki 1 Fundamentals is the opposite of harmful: it can be extremely helpful. I do not call all those example books harmful - I call them extremely inefficient (but at that time more efficient books were not available for the kind of knowledge I needed).

4) Yang Yilun's Fundamental Principles' joseki chapter teaches a small fraction of principles of the kind to be found in Joseki 1 Fundamentals. To maintain your claim, you would need to apply it also to his book.

5) [Detailed explanations why each aspect of my theory in my books is not harmful are omitted at the moment. You want great amounts of free teaching, don't you?;)]

To quote Kageyama:

When the ladder becomes slightly difficult like this, there is a widespread tendency to give up, and wonder if there is not something like a triangle theorem, some mechanism one can apply and get the answer instantly. If you want to create such a thing it is not much trouble to do so, but having it will only prove destructive to your game.
[...]
Occasinally some periodical proudly announces that it has discovered a shortcut to reading ladders - some worthless white elephant with four or five dotted diagonals and heavy black lines. Even if you could understand it, it would not do your game the least good. Such things are ridiculous.

Kageyama is absolutely right that ladders must be read out and that there is (essentially) no shortcut to determining if a ladder works (well, unless there is a solid opposing wall in the right direction; then a visual approximation is a valid shortcut to reading out the ladder explicitly).

I suspect that your ideas such as the formula to estimate the influence in joseki are exactly this kind of white elephant, and may actually be harmful in the long run.

You have no understanding what you are talking about when comparing ladders with influence.

1) When Kageyama wrote his book, everybody knew what was a "ladder". The "influence" concept was pretty nebulous, so nebulous that information about influence and thickness reaching Europe made it very hard to understand well the differences between the two concepts. I needed years to work out that by myself. This extra difficulty slowed down my (nevertheless fast) improvement from 10k to 5d.

2) What you are trying to say with your ladder reference appears to be: instead of understanding and applying influence conceptually, one must understand and apply it by reading. Have you even noticed that my influence definition RELIES ON READING? It requires reading to assess the degrees of influence!

3) [For example applications how knowing degrees of influence are useful, see Joseki 2 Strategy. You don't get vast amounts of free teaching just by provoking me and playing the devil's grandma.]

I will be delighted if I'm proven wrong by seeing a wave of Jasiek-school professionals demolish the current greats.

Me too. Let us be patient so that I can research in and write a sufficient amount of knowledge for that purpose. You know, go has more topics than josekis and their related strategy.

[Loons]

@Jasiek, you should organise some kind of informal or semi-formal study of online go players and their modes/sources for learning.

[jts]

There's a technical distinction in game theory between "weak" and "strong" solutions of a game.

Yes, but it has nothing to do with being able to explain the strategy behind perfect play.

super weak: we know there is a perfect play
medium: We know perfect play
Super strong: an algorithm can from any position, with mistakes already made play the rest of the game perfectly.

nothing about strategy

Yes, I take it that any algorithm is what people mean by "strategy" in game theory (rather than something more literary like "I'm going to follow an influence oriented strategy"). Peering down the game tree, on the other hand, doesn't count as a strategy.

[illluck]

There's a technical distinction in game theory between "weak" and "strong" solutions of a game.

Yes, but it has nothing to do with being able to explain the strategy behind perfect play.

super weak: we know there is a perfect play
medium: We know perfect play
Super strong: an algorithm can from any position, with mistakes already made play the rest of the game perfectly.

nothing about strategy

Yes, I take it that any algorithm is what people mean by "strategy" in game theory (rather than something more literary like "I'm going to follow an influence oriented strategy"). Peering down the game tree, on the other hand, doesn't count as a strategy.

Is that true? I would think that a completely solved game tree of every possible position would qualify as super strong.

[speedchase]

Is that true? I would think that a completely solved game tree of every possible position would qualify as super strong.

A game tree would count, and practically is probably the only way to do it.

[RobertJasiek]

There is something stronger than that "super-strong": an explanation of the solution to human beings in their terms of understanding.

[daal]

I can't actually remember Otake Hideo's opening principles any more, and many other useful things. Fuseki for me is now about:

1. Specific knowledge, I know in this sort of fuseki these are sorts of joseki options.

2. Joey's spin on the direction rule: approach corners, try to get the 3-3 point, try to get the wider side.

Seems like a reasonable assumption that at different phases of one's development one can, and in fact needs, to refocus. Strategies lose their value when one's opponents know what you're up to and even worse, know the countermeasures.

[Loons]

Seems like a reasonable assumption that at different phases of one's development one can, and in fact needs, to refocus. Strategies lose their value when one's opponents know what you're up to and even worse, know the countermeasures.

My experience of go isn't so much that one is trying to blindside your opponent so much as just trying to keep playing normal moves (including the normal responses to your opponents' strange plan).

[oren]

My experience of go isn't so much that one is trying to blindside your opponent so much as just trying to keep playing normal moves (including the normal responses to your opponents' strange plan).

Even pros have played unusual moves for the sake of doing something different though. They're not trying to trick their opponent but not all moves are "normal".