Game 4

[Bill Spight]

Uberdude, after move 27, the W wall has only ca. 4 significant influence stones.

Interesting. Put in those terms, I would guess that the White wall is worth between 3.5 and 4 stones.

[Bill Spight]

Well, professional players have played thousands of games throughout their life; they must have a strong intuition about the 'tendency' of the game. If An Younggil thinks the position was even, it is likely to be, and also pros talk with each other about such big matches, so what An has written is based on not only his own opinion but also other pros'. If there had been disagreement he would have said that some pros have different thoughts rather than clearly stating 'the game is even'.

Well, he did not so clearly state that the game is even. He said it was "playable" for both sides. Only later did he say that it was still even.

Also, we should keep in mind professional courtesy and saving face. While American football sportscasters may criticize their peers or betters loudly and roundly, real time go commentary is rather more polite. Perhaps with the exception of people like Kajiwara, who had a sharp tongue. It is hard to believe that, when he played , Lee Sedol had not anticipated something like the position after . Thus, without taking the time to do a thorough analysis, it would hardly do for a commentator to say that Lee played like a professional shodan.

[Bill Spight]

Well, having had time for further consideration, An sticks with his assessment of an equal game. In a comment on the gogameguru site he states:

The result looks better for Black, but his lower side area is still a bit weak even after Black 27. White can also reduce the lower right corner in the endgame (for example, White 156 was sente in the game). In addition, Black spent more moves in this area, so he got a better result. However, White got sente, and played somewhere else, so the result was still even.

Emphasis added.

[skydyr]

The Redmond anecdote suggests that pros don't really calculate but rather feel who is ahead, by merely looking at the disposition of the stones. They cancel out certain structures which they recognize, even across the board, by having played and analysed hundreds, even thousands of games. Or rather, they keep track of the exchanges done, in an almost physical way. Since the "badness" of their moves never accounts for more than 2 points, the accumulated difference will rarely go beyond 10 points, or they will resign. That means they need to callibrate the difference between 10 and -10 and probably between -5 and +5, which is a colour palette that can be maintained easily. So I would think they rather think in these terms, like "quite ahead", than calculating the actual difference by assigning counts to each group or territory. That would be the reason why Redmond needed to think about the actual difference, while he felt very clearly that one player was "quite ahead".

I seem to recall reading a quotation from a Japanese professional somewhere about counting, where he stated that he would figure out the count by looking at the position, feeling who was ahead, and trying to decide how many points he would want extra to take the losing side. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I got this idea from, so it's probably hard to verify unless someone else can recall it.

[uPWarrior]

Are we getting to the conclusion that counting is like teenage sex?

everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone things everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it

[Splatted]

Re move 20: black isn't forced to atari and let white capture the cutting stone

Thanks for the correction Uberdude; that was a poor choice of words on my part. I meant induces rather than forces and didn't really mean to comment on the viability of any possible resistances black might have.

[Knotwilg]

The discussion about the result up to 27, which is also carried at gogameguru is very interesting and could lead to a paradigm shift in amateur positional judgment.

It is also interesting that Robert maintains his opinion on that position, holding his judgment devoid of flaws. I prefer critically assessing my own judgment: what can be wrong with it if, it is so apparently different from the pro's ? The gap between a pro and a ama 5d may not be that big and of course anyone is entitled to their opinion but it does shed a light on previous encounters between Robert and the community. The masses are not always right and expert individuals may also be found wrong sometimes but there appears to be a constant here.

[RobertJasiek]

It is also interesting that Robert maintains his opinion on that position, holding his judgment devoid of flaws.

My judgement, as far as described so far, has been elliptical. Therefore, it is premature to claim it to be without flaws.

I prefer critically assessing my own judgment: what can be wrong with it if, it is so apparently different from the pro's ?

If you are as critical as you claim, ask yourself also what can be wrong with the professionals' judgements. To start with, as long as professionals, in their stated comments, do not even distinguish influence stones with greater versus smaller influence and development potential, their comments are incomplete concerning a very important point.

there appears to be a constant here.

Indeed. I have still to see professionals start assessing values of influence and relating them to amounts of territories. (Takagawa's way described by Ishida in GoWorld 41 is not really a counter-example.)

Quotations from http://gogameguru.com/gu-li-vs-lee-sedo ... go-game-4/

Younggil An: "The result looks better for Black, but his lower side area is still a bit weak even after Black 27."

I agree to "his lower side area is still a bit weak even after Black 27" and have pointed out this before.

"White can also reduce the lower right corner in the endgame (for example, White 156 was sente in the game)."

Of course; therefore I do not count what can be reduced in sente as territory.

"Black spent more moves in this area, so he got a better result."

This argument is not convincing, because one does not need to restrict counting stones to "this area". Instead, one can count the stone difference on the whole board. After move 28, the stone difference is 0, and so "more moves" is not any problem of judgement here.

"However, White got sente, and played somewhere else, so the result was still even."

As before. After move 28, White lost sente, and the stone difference is 0. Therefore, An's argument "White got sente, and played somewhere else" is void and the conclusion "so the result was still even" lacks justification.

Dieter: "Up to amateur 5d people are convinced the three stones at the bottom negate White’s influence"

Which amateur 5d has this opinion? I do not have it; I have not said "negate", but I have said "preventing efficient W extensions from the W walls" and indicated that the lower part of the (not: the whole) W wall does not have significant outside influence stones. "Negate" would imply "the W wall does not have any (useful) influence at all"; this would be very wrong.

"later on the thick group makes small territory in front of it."

Indeed. You do not suggest that any professional would claim the opposite, don't you?

"It seems there is a substantial gap in amateur positional judgment to cover here."

Which gap? Who has to cover it? Why do you, Dieter, suggest that all amateurs would have the same positional judgement?

[Knotwilg]

Answers to your questions:

1) I'm critical of my own judgment, a bit less critical of your judgment and not critical at all of a professional's judgment. I think it is a very reliable heuristic to say that when I disagree with a pro's positional judgment, I'm wrong and have something to learn. And I think that is only marginally less true for you.
2) I agree with you though that not all arguments are equally convincing to explain the pro's judgment. I think a pro's ability to explain a situation will always be lower than his ability to assess it. An Younggil does very well overall though.
3) I'm sorry for not quoting you literally. It's a habit of mine to reword concepts and thoughts from conversations, while it's a habit of yours to deny any of those representations if they are not literal. So indeed, you haven't said "negate". It may be due to my not being a native speaker but I think of "negate" as a strong variant of "reduce" but not to the extent of "reduce to zero". Your "preventing efficient W extensions from the W walls" is much more precise. It may however reveal exactly the difference in thinking between you and the pros: White's group is not just a wall. It's a thick group. It doesn't need an extension. It is powerful in itself. I always thaught thickness needed to be used for attack, eventually. Now I also understand it can be used as a negative force, disallowing the opponent to do anything meaningful in the vicinity, as in "don't play close to thickness".
4) Returning the favor, I did not literally say that all amateurs would have the same positional judgment. However, if even a ama 5d disagrees, just like the rest of us, with the pros about the position at move 27 being equal, there seems to be at least a substantial minimal gap. And yes, I still believe you are wrong, and yes mine is a miserable argument of authority.

Incidentally, David Ormerod is ama 5d too and he has been struggling to understand the pros' positional judgment just as much.

[RobertJasiek]

White's group is not just a wall. It's a thick group. It doesn't need an extension. It is powerful in itself.

The W group is strong enough not to need any extension soon. I have mentioned extensions for a different purpose: constructive development.

[mitsun]

To add to this, I'm not even sure that pros have a definitive count in their own mind. I remember watching Michael Redmond do a game commentary and he commented that one side was ahead. Someone asked by how much and got a fairly generic answer in response ('quite ahead', or some such).
I piped up and asked Michael how many points komi he would want to switch sides and that stopped him in his tracks. He looked at the board for a good minute before coming up with a number.

Even then, it is not clear that he actually counted the board, in the sense we are thinking about here. Instead, it is quite likely that he thought something like "hmm, there was one slack move here, probably cost 2 points, and another move there that did not turn out so well, maybe lost another 3 points".

[trout]

Commentary of 4th game by An Younggil at GOGAMEGURU.


http://gogameguru.com/go-commentary-gu- ... go-game-4/

[MJK]

Commentary of 4th game by An Younggil at GOGAMEGURU.


http://gogameguru.com/go-commentary-gu- ... go-game-4/

I am very curious about Robert Jasiek's opinion.
Below, An Younggil's commentary after move 27 from the link above.

When White created a thick shape with White 26, reinforcing the bottom area with Black 27 became necessary. The result up to here was even.

After the game, readers at Go Game Guru discussed this position on our website and many people thought that the result was better for Black. The result does look good for Black at first glance, but most professionals, including me, concluded that the result was even.

There are a number of subtle factors to consider in this position:

1. Black has to defend at Black 27, so White takes sente.

2. Black started out with four stones in this area, whereas White had only one. So we should expect Black to profit more than White does in this part of the board.

3. Even after Black 27, Black's position at the bottom is still weak, because of the power of White's thick group. For example, it will be easy for White to invade at A later.

4. Because Black's still weak at the bottom, White's lower left corner is actually much bigger than it looks. Black can't expect to be able to invade at B without provoking a severe counter-attack. And White can enlarge the corner in sente, by harassing Black later (see the variation for one example).

5. Because White's lower right group has good eye potential, it's much more powerful than a simple wall would be. It's more than a wall - it's thickness. Extending along the bottom is less important for this kind of group, because there's no urgency to create a base (think eyespace) for it.

6. Even though Black 27 reduces the potential of White's thickness, Black doesn't have much potential to speak of either. White's thickness turns the bottom into a no man's land, where neither player can expect to make many points. And the lower right corner is settled, mostly along the third line. Black's stone at C is slightly over-concentrated.

7. White has potential on the left side and at the top, which he can develop with sente.

8. Both players exchanged one stone (D and E), but White D still has some endgame aji, as we'll see later, so Black's lower right corner is a bit smaller than it looks.

[John Fairbairn]

6. Even though Black 27 reduces the potential of White's thickness, Black doesn't have much potential to speak of either. White's thickness turns the bottom into a no man's land, where neither player can expect to make many points. And the lower right corner is settled, mostly along the third line. Black's stone at C is slightly over-concentrated.

It has just occurred to me that White's group is actually a kind of "Go Seigen group" and this is a Chernobyl area (see "The Mystic Emperor, Go Seigen" in The Go Companion p. 93). So the theory for Yi Se-tol's play exists already!!!

[ez4u]

6. Even though Black 27 reduces the potential of White's thickness, Black doesn't have much potential to speak of either. White's thickness turns the bottom into a no man's land, where neither player can expect to make many points. And the lower right corner is settled, mostly along the third line. Black's stone at C is slightly over-concentrated.

It has just occurred to me that White's group is actually a kind of "Go Seigen group" and this is a Chernobyl area (see "The Mystic Emperor, Go Seigen" in The Go Companion p. 93). So the theory for Yi Se-tol's play exists already!!!

[emphasis added]

LOL! The first (only) thought I had about this position when I saw it was, "Well at least White got that radioactive stuff that JF's always whining about". You're a better teacher than you realize John!