Redmond's got a YouTube channel

[Ferran]

Check here.

Take care.

[Charles Matthews]

Two episodes have now appeared in the series "AlphaGo vs. the World". These refer to the 60-game streak by the Master/Magister AI against online pros.

This is great, concise stuff from Redmond, isolating the initial mistake.

[Uberdude]

This series kinda spoils a vague plan I had to revisit Redmond's initial reviews of some of these games, using LZ and KataGo to answer the questions he had about the strange new things AlphaGo was doing they aren't so strange now.

[Charles Matthews]

Shame. We'll just have to put up with Redmond's efforts.

[Uberdude]

[Charles Matthews]

You may laugh. The videos are highly recommended, especially for dan players like me who need to catch up with AI fuseki.

[Uberdude]

Charles, I was laughing at your sarcasm. I've been enjoying Redmond's series and have watched all of them. My comment was poorly phrased: I'm glad not upset he's making this series. Better phrased it would be:

For a while now I've thought making video reviews of the Master games using the superhuman AIs we now have available would be an excellent idea, but I've never got round to it. It's great Redmond is doing them, rather than me just thinking about doing it, and he'll do a better job than me. Now I'll have to think of something else to make videos on if I do get the time.

And indeed I did with my Leela Zero Opening Gospel which seems to have gone down well, plus a few totally unoriginal "comment as you play online" videos. Watching Redmond's Master series it's interesting to see how so many of the human pros would have delayed falling behind to perhaps move 15-20 instead of move 5-10 if they followed the gospel (e.g. white 6 should shimari not split the black side in Master's Favourite Opening).

[Charles Matthews]

Charles, I was laughing at your sarcasm.

Did get that. Another case for the emoji for deadpan humour.

I've been enjoying Redmond's series and have watched all of them.

The least we can do! I'm trying to get rid of go books now, rather than accumulate them, but I'd like to make room for Redmond&Garlock, as well as some of John Fairbairn's.

[Charles Matthews]

Speaking of books, in a way. Michael gave a pushing battle variation for game 25.

One of the very early games available in the West was in Falkener's Games ancient and oriental of 1892:

https://archive.org/details/gamesancien ... 4/mode/2up

Clearly Chinese because of the cross star point set opening. Notation is the points numbered 1 to 361.

I did play through this, many years ago. I was struck by a pushing battle in the style "extend once, then play hane at the head of two". Like much of traditional Chinese go, very sharp indeed and out of my reading by far.

Anyone know more about this game, supplied to Falkener by Herbert Giles? It would be interesting to find out who the players were, for sure. Is there an SGF anywhere?

[John Fairbairn]

Charles:

This is a game between Qian Gongnan and Li Haimen - not players of the first rank. Qian may even be significantly weaker. Li played mainly aristocrats and so may be best considered what we call a lesson pro. Qian, who is only known from a couple of games, may have been one of his aristocratic pupils.

Falkener reverses the colours and omits the names. Furthermore, the Chinese source gives only 225 moves and no result. It is not clear whether Falkener added the extra moves and result himself or whether he got them from Giles. On the board the score is W+10 by Japanese scoring, but W has five groups to Black's two and so deducts group tax {removes three stones = 6 points}.

The date of the game is not known but would probably be late Qing (think Honinbo Shuwa) when Zhou Xiaosong would have been king of the castle (and on a par with Shuwa BTW).

[Charles Matthews]

This is a game between Qian Gongnan and Li Haimen - not players of the first rank.

Thanks, John - interesting. I was thinking strongish amateurs.

The date of the game is not known but would probably be late Qing (think Honinbo Shuwa) when Zhou Xiaosong would have been king of the castle (and on a par with Shuwa BTW).

So probably a bit earlier than the period when Giles was in China, then?

Anyway, speaking of "extend one and then play hane", there is another theory, which Seong-June Kim told me about, "extend two and then play double hane". This was in relation to a game Cann-Macfadyen in the British Championship match 2000.

That is a simple bit of shape, and pushing battles are far from simple. The paternalistic approach to teaching go suggests we amateurs should worry more about things we can understand. The bot era means that some such matters get back on the agenda.

[gaius]

Just today, another new game review video appeared (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7WOjTEFw28). As usual, it's a brilliant review, this time of a recent pro-game. Anyone interested in recent pro play should check it out, not only is Michael Redmond the strongest native English-speaking go player by far, he is also an amazing teacher and his analysis is crystal clear. Highly recommended.