The traditional and modern approach of go evaluations

[tapir]

I can't resist quoting:

This strikes me as a typical amateur discussion of fuseki. AFAIK it is pretty much all unsupported by actual practice.

Go Seigen likes the invasion. He's not an amateur. One may dismiss his thoughts as the idle pontifications of an old man as he doesn't have to back them up in practice in tournament play, but I still think Go Seigen's insights are worth taking note of.

It is quite hard to claim that Go Seigen represents modernity as opposed to traditional thinking in Go. At least I am pretty sure that this was not the intention of lovelove, because as far as I know Go Seigen cares very much about "traditional concepts" such as efficiency, speed of development, whole board thinking that the modern professional doesn't need anymore according to lovelove. So modernity = tradition after all?

[Bill Spight]

About the "traditional" approach to go

Much that is called traditional in this discussion is also modern, in the sense that the concepts are well developed, and have not been refuted. That said, I do think that, for various reasons, modern pro thinking has become less abstract and more creative. I hope that my disagreements with lovelove about what "traditional" thinking is have not discouraged him from at least presenting modern ideas.

Dosaku understood efficiency better than anyone before him, and developed the heuristic of tewari for assessing it. As for whole board thinking, according to Korschelt Murase Shuho understood it like no one else of his time. Not to disparage Shuei and Shusaku, of course. And whole board thinking continues to develop.

Perhaps the prototypical representative of "traditional" abstract go thinking is Takagawa. He reached his peak in the mid-twentieth century and was considered, along with Fujisawa Hideyuki and, of course, Go Seigen, to be one of very best players at the fuseki. Fujisawa was more creative, and Go Seigen is in a class by himself. In his play and his writings Takagawa comes across as the embodiment of reason. Go Seigen and Takagawa were the main influences on my own fuseki, Go Seigen for inspiration, Takagawa for concepts. That is one reason I think I understand "traditional" thinking in go pretty well.

[SmoothOper]

I think we are observing a new modernism in Go, due to technology, specifically the Internet, as opposed to the previous modern period, which was associated with changes in the rules making less aggressive openings feasible for white, paired with the post war Japanese society, which was learning about the fruits of war.

The new reality is that go isn't isolated by clubs or dojos, and time constraints on casual Internet play have a distinct impact on style of play. My opinion is that handicap go will whither on the vine due to the accessibility of equal strength players and fast openings, and trick plays will flourish with said time constraints.

[Kaya.gs]

Although i didnt read the thread thorougly, and i think Jasiek mentions this point, Joseki is not an even result.

Tsuke nobi is joseki, and its been known to be a non-equal result ever. San san invasion is also a joseki, and its also an obviously non-equal result.

Its true that the joseki love love shows has fallen in disfavour. Pros find out which josekis lose by actually playing them in tournaments and losing games. They "guess" a situation based on the results, and hence you get results like the shusaku kosumi, being in favour, disfavour, and then favour again.

After a certain thresshold, even pros do a lot of guesswork. You can see this in books and magazines, when pros disagree about common patterns, picking one color or the other.