leichtloeslich wrote:You said "once you've seen a ladder you've seen them all", and I disagree, that's all.
Yes, I did say that.
And yes, in isolation it's quite clearly a false statement. You don't even have to disagree, it's just factually wrong.
So I suppose there was a misunderstanding and bad wording on my part. What I meant to say was
"Once you have seen one repetitive diagonal zig-zag pattern spawned by a series of ataris spanning half of the board, you've seen them all."
Good we got that cleared up.
Okay, but you're begging the question. If you're following out a ziggy zaggy all the way across the board and it runs into one or zero stones, then it is easy to read out, it always works the same way, and you can just trace the diagonal. If, on the other hand, there is a cluster of stones in the path of the ladder, a change in direction, or an interaction between a ladder and another reading problem, it's not nearly so easy. But here's the thing - when people say that they can read out a ladder fifty moves ahead, they're not talking about the easy kind of ladder, they're talking about the latter ladder too. And they didn't get to the point where they could read out fifty moves in a complex ladder by tracing their hand over a diagonal - you start by reading out easy ladders, even though you know the answer, then you read out broken ladders, then you keep adding more and more complexity.
Cherry hill. If you search the forum for a post like "share your ladders" you'll find a collection of ladder problems.
)
It's hard to imagine someone not seeing this, but my explanation is that I was preoccupied with the effect on the one group, and simply allowed myself to feel overwhelmed. Seeing does make knowing easier.