(Too) Agressive?

[sybob]

Recently, on 2 different occasions, one real life game, and one online game, my opponent (better than me) said afterwards that I played agressively.
I was baffled. I thought my playing style in those games was friendly and easy-going. No attacks or experiments.
I won both games. Yes, with handicap, but still. Both other players were several stones stronger than me (around 8k).

To try to better understand their comments, I want to ask for examples where a player was (too) aggressive. Either a complete game or a specific sequence.

As I am only around 8k, I am not looking for professional games or even dan games. I am just curious why/how/when a dan or stronger kyu player would describe their opponent as aggressive. What defines a certain type of play as agressive?

Sorry I don't have the sgf files of my own 2 games I referred to.

[Kirby]

What defines a certain type of play as agressive?

To me, "aggressive" means to play in a way that tries to take more than is possible, given the board position. For example, if you try to kill a group that cannot be killed, and end up losing points because of it - that's aggressive.

I suppose "aggressive" and "greedy" are closely related. When I think of "aggressive", I think more along the lines of plays that try to kill the opponent.

If you try to kill the opponent in a situation where it's possible to sufficiently profit from doing so, then I don't think it's aggressive - I think it's the correct way to play.

[EdLee]

Hi sybob,

Some thoughts:

• These terms are useful insofar as they help us improve.
  Otherwise, they seem to offer entertainment/amusement, or (worse), distractions.
• Your reviewer or commentator could be 100% correct, 50% correct, 75% wrong, or hopelessly wrong.
  ( No way to tell without the exact position. )
• Very useful (important) to have the exact board position at hand.
  Versus vague, nebulous, philosophical discussions. ( That may turn out to be empty; lack of substance.)
• Bottom line for a move or sequence: if it works, you can look for nice adjectives to describe it.
  If it fails, well, you use other terms.
• Reasonable and unreasonable are two common terms in Go discussions.
• The kind folks here can offer tens or hundreds of examples;
  they may or may not have anything to do with your moves !

For future reference, very useful to record your serious games;
so you can review the exact situation. And analyze if a move or sequence works or not.

To me, "aggressive" means to play in a way that tries to take more than is possible

Unreasonable would also apply here.

[mhlepore]

Aggression is an attitude. If you don't think your moves are aggressive, then you aren't being aggressive (at least not intentionally). You probably just don't understand why a more passive route is better than what you played.

I just went online and watched two 8 kyus finish a game on KGS.

White is "aggressive" from the very beginning.
- Move 6: there are many big points on the board, but white is either jealous or itching for a fight and dives right in at R9.
- Move 10: white creates two weak groups right next to each other. This is contrary to the proverb "try not to have more than one weak group at a time" but white wants to be everywhere at once. Many people would call this aggression.

Note that white actually wins this game because his opponent is unable to properly punish his aggressive moves.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2015/9/11/molonlabe-GatCaceres.sgf

[Bill Spight]

What defines a certain type of play as agressive?

To me, "aggressive" means to play in a way that tries to take more than is possible, given the board position.

No, that's an overplay. (As a rule.)

[Kirby]

No, that's an overplay. (As a rule.)

Sure, but I thought that "aggressive" is pretty close to "overplay". If it's not an overplay, then I'd think that it'd be the proper way to play, and not aggressive.

Maybe some people use the word "aggressive" for correct plays, too?

[Abyssinica]

If we use active to be the opposite of passive, what do we use for the opposite of aggressive?

[skydyr]

If we use active to be the opposite of passive, what do we use for the opposite of aggressive?

Calm or patient, I would assume.

As I see it, an aggressive player wants to settle things immediately or draw you into a large scale fight, while a calm player is looking to keep things quiet and win on points.

[Uberdude]

I do not think of aggressive as a criticism. A good move can be aggressive. So can a bad move. "Too aggressive" is how I would describe that, or "inappropriate aggression". In many positions there are multiple good moves and ways to continue, some being aggressive and others being calm/patient/defensive. Rui Naiwei for example likes to play aggressively. Also aggressive is different to fighting or confrontational as it implies one is trying to attack the opponent so I wouldn't call that attachment of 6 above and similar greedy invasions aggressive.

[schawipp]

I think an aggressive "attitude" is not that helpful in playing Go. What probably helps more is being able to see weaknesses in the positions and successfully reading out how to exploit them. If someone plays such way successfully it may look like an "aggressive style" on the board while the player in person might be just a kind and peaceful guy with a knack for diving into analytical complications.

[John Fairbairn]

I do not think of aggressive as a criticism. ... Also aggressive is different to fighting or confrontational as it implies one is trying to attack the opponent .

We get into very murky waters here. Different people have different notions, but so do different peoples.

For English speakers, if you do a google search on 'aggressive' and look at images associated with it, what you will see is a whole lot of images of people being confrontational - clenched fists, jabbing fingers, shouting. Now if you imagine yourself as a trained martial artist (i.e. a pro in go terms) being the subject of this attack, you would know that you have won already. Your angry opponent has given away far too much about his intentions. So that has to be criticised as a flaw in the attacker's stance, surely?

There is a recent usage of aggressive to mean 'bold and determined', as in an 'aggressive takeover', but it would be my sense that only MBA students would see that as totally without criticism. Most of us, I think, would feel a certain unease, even if we basically admire or envy the boldness. Go people who advocate aggression are probably thinking of this meaning.

But if we extend the discussion to see how (say) the Japanese see it, it becomes even murkier. The usual words for 'aggressive', if you believe the dictionaries, would probably be 攻撃的　or 侵略的. But if you copy and paste either of these words into google images, the result will be light years away from the images you get for 'aggressive' in English. I venture to say you wouldn't even think of aggression if you just saw the Japanese word's images. Neither of these terms is at all common in go, incidentally, and when a Japanese go player wants to talk about being 'too aggressive' he　will use variations on the theme of 'overplay'. Or may even occasionally borrow the English word 'aggressive' - ｱｸﾞﾚｯｼﾌﾞ - but if you images.google on that, again you won't get anything that really resembles what you get for the original 'aggressive'. You have to then start thinking whether there are even deeper cultural reasons for the differences. Is western aggression in go about being macho and having cojones? Is Japanese aggression in go about keeping attacking options open and worrying about stones of a different type?

If a Japanese go player wants to talk specifically about a 'bold and determined' attack, he will normally use phrases such as 力を発揮する。The central word there is 力 which the dictionaries tell you means 'power' or 'strength'. But again the dictionaries are misleading. It is instructive to google images for 'power' or 'strength' (in English) - you will get swelling biceps, punching fists, dumb-bells, and the like, but when you do this for 力, you will get something completely different, including scantily dressed girls and cute babies.

Part of the reason for this difference can be gleaned from how a pro talks. Take Yoda as an example, since we've mentioned his book recently. He mentions the problem that we have labelled as being 'too aggressive' and says the reason it is bad is that it indicates a mistake in one's feeling for the overall position (which, recall, is what is book is all about). Being caught up in the blood lust of the chase is not a good idea if the quarry leads into a deep quarry, for example. Yoda's remedy is again about attitude: consider the whole position and do things like making sure your thickness really is thick (there's an interesting new book on precisely this topic by O Rissei, incidentally).

More broadly Yoda advises us to '力をつける' - add 'power' to the position. But again this only really makes sense if you ignore the dictionaries. What he really means is 'latent power'. That is, things like adding a quiet honte. A passively submerged rock is probably much more dangerous to a boat than a rock of the same size aggressively lobbed at it from a catapult on shore - you can see it coming, can maybe dodge it, and it may only cause superficial damage if it hits. Or another way f looking at it: Highland charge attacks incur massive losses if they fail, and invite counter-attacks. Encircling attacks (the way of the surrounding game) frustrate the opponent as they give nothing away and leave few openings for counterattacks.

[mhlepore]

The original poster said s/he was interested in specific examples of overplays, and was not interested in pro or dan level games. While I'm not above hijacking a thread, I do wonder how useful the original poster is finding where this conversation has gone.

[Uberdude]

Well, white 2 here is a simple example of a move I would call aggressive, active, direct or confrontational. It's not a bad move, but is in-your-face move.

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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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Sybob, was your opponent's comment that you were aggressive a criticism with either an implied or explicit "too"?

[Kirby]

I guess I always thought of "aggressive" differently. Uberdude, I'd only personally call aggressive if it were wrong.

I always feel an implied "too" when the term is used in Go.

[Calvin Clark]

If we are to believe TV, it means you're a serial killer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyYyr9Cfxss