A series of comments on uberdude's diagrams
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$B
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$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]
Note that alphago did play the above kosumi against Fan Hui I think
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Wcm16
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$$ | . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . b . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . 3 . . , . . . . . X . . . |
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$$ | . O O X X X X X . , . . . . . O . . . |
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That does look so bizarre, and will take me a while to understand before I use it. The first instinct is that it is so submissive that it can't be good for B (but I suppose that is the fault of the pincer). But I suppose it is no more submissive than many more familiar kosumis. But it still feels particularly bizarre and doesn't feature in my intuition at all. I guess I'm just overly influenced by standard joseki shapes.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$W
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$$ | . . W . . . . . . . . . . X . . W . . |
$$ | . . . O . X . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
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$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]
But it did remind me of a Lee Changho Kong Jie LG cup final game which maybe demonstrates why keeping a solid hold on the corner is important:
https://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/23079
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bcm5
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$$ | . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 O . . . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . 3 4 . 1 . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]
I struggle to understand this one: without the 5-6 exchange, it is a standard shape, but how can the 5-6 exchange be good for B? Given that alphago rarely pincers, surely this is meant to be good for B? My previous understanding of the narrow pincer is that B can easily tenuki and W can't get much profit here. But I think I need to update that judgement. I may remain confused until someone else can explain how to treat these pincer variations.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bcm5
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$$ | . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 5 O . . . . 2 , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . 3 4 . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 9 7 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]
also note that alphago tends to tenuki the above at this point. Crawling on the 2nd line would induce a jump, and connecting leaves very bad aji, so ...
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Wc AG's recommendation
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$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 X O . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X 5 . |
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$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . a . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . b X . . . . . . . . X . . . . |
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$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]
This doesn't feel strange to me anymore. I use the bump in one of the 3-3 joseki quite a lot. My analysis of these bumps (including tewari, comparisons) that locally the efficiency is best. But that for a handicap game when you would need to invade the other side of the wall more deeply, then you shouldn't bump so crudely, and should play submissive locally (such as just connect), but aim at enemy weaknesses. I would be very tempted to use the bump in this joseki, though I'd be nervous that the right side and centre is pretty wide here. Though I don't know if I'll play the knight's move into the corner rather than attaching anytime soon.
Uberdude wrote:
That kosumi and the (old/special-purpose) joseki of 3 below are the kind of move where I think the pupil says "that looks kinda slow" but the teacher says "trust me young padawan, when you reach the level of master you too will learn to appreciate the latent power of such strong moves" and pupil may then accept the move into their Go vocabulary on trust.
There is that point, but I think it was nearly impossible pre-alphago to judge and analyse positions as accurately as we can now, so we had to just keep exploring variations (the magic of the unknown) and follow in other's footsteps. I would often try to use logic/tewari/direction of play to analyse openings but gave up around 1d, following the standard pro saying "the opening is irrelevant, you can play anything and it doesn't matter" (i.e. it isn't worth analysing it). There are so many different openings/variations, and I would try to analyse them, but couldn't find solid logic to base conclusions on, and there are too few games to base conclusions around statistics.
Back then, when deciding a move,
consistency and
coherence of a plan (frequently fighting spirit) was emphasised far more than judgement, or whether one move was known to be better than another.
Only post-alphago, when we have so many "correct answers" to compare to, do I feel we can much more confidently and accurately judge positions and explain clearly why certain moves are better than others, and hence more importantly how to use them. And it isn't that we are just listening to alphago's moves, but 1) we can extrapolate from correct answers, intuitively finding the threads and themes that link good moves, and analysing where the most persistent flaws in our own thinking lie. and 2) use logic/analysis on that intuition to work out how to follow up play. (I feel like my human brain is a good neural network that trains well on "correct moves" in certain positions and can extrapolate, just as the early alphago learnt off human moves).
Uberdude wrote:
Interesting Schachus, it didn't do that exchange in the parallel opening I looked at first, but does in the 2nd if white 3-3 afterwards (they have many choices for white next move, if approach black does s6 instead, what's the relationship?!)
In my opinion, you shouldn't read too much into the fine details of winning percentages/only move/logical relationships that are implied by the alphago numbers. I used to overvalue alphago's answers, but now I don't think alphago is close enough to perfect for some of this to be accurate. We can easily rely on something if it says one move is better than another by 3%, but inferring things from anything closer seems risky, let alone subtle/precise concepts such as these logical relationships. I also don't know how long alphago was allowed to think to create these numbers, what positions were not included, etc. And deeper down the tree, presumably the numbers get less and less accurate.