Greed (3-3 invasion as first move)

Dusk Eagle · Post by **Dusk Eagle** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:13 am

If you had players repeatedly doing that against you, and you easily demolish them, then it seems to me that you were underranked. Perhaps that was the main problem - the players you were playing were weaker than you, so it was obvious to you the moves were bad but not to them. (Do you play on an Asian server perchance? Because I could see how these players might actually not be 3k, but just using an Internet cafe where the customers share accounts.) Either way, if you beat these people enough you should rank up and get to a level where you're facing opponents that give you more of a challenge.

Li Kao · Post by **Li Kao** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:33 am

kwhyte wrote:I guess at the bottom what I find rude is the attitude that anything that helps win is ok, even if it makes the game less enjoyable for the opponent.

You assume they play that way because they want to win at all costs. They might play that way because they think fighting is fun. I consider a go game without at least thirty dead stones a dull affair.

I could say that players who back down from any fight once they're ahead trying to maintain their lead are rude. They want to win so much that they they play smaller safer moves and deprive me of my fight. They certainly make the game less enjoyable for me that way. But I accept that they just play a different style.

daniel_the_smith · Post by **daniel_the_smith** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:52 am

I don't see how trading potential for cash in blitz can be thought of as rude. It seems like a perfectly valid strategy under short time constraints. Cash is something you have now, but your opponent will have to work to make the potential pay off. The clock is part of the game, too.

That said, I don't think I would try that.

crux · Post by **crux** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 9:21 am

While I can't really get worked up over the original example (my opinion is if you play blitz you deserve what you get), here's a 3-3 point move that always annoys me when I'm playing White:

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Nothing says "I'm really not interested in playing a game with you" quite like this.

illluck · Post by **illluck** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:09 am

@Crux: I've always seen these moves as challenges for positional assessment/efficiency of moves - white just have to make sure his/her judgement of the biggest points is better

tapir · Post by **tapir** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:37 am

Note to myself: I should stop playing blitz games.

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 10:52 am

daniel_the_smith wrote:That said, I don't think I would try that.

Why not?

More generally, how many people have (with any regularity) played that 3-3 move in blitz games?

balmung · Post by **balmung** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 11:29 am

tapir wrote:Note to myself: Maybe I should just stop playing blitz games.

blitz is purely for kicks and giggles, you don't play at your best, and partly because your not reading. I consider blitz low quality games(this is coming from the same guy who 5 months ago never took his time to read, and took 10 or less seconds a move in 30 min 5x:30 games.) Reading is a valuable asset to improving; I have a friend who is having trouble getting past 6 kyu on kgs, because he doesn't have a good reading ability (before he used to not take time to read, now he is taking his time and learning to read efficently.)

jts · Post by **jts** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:07 pm

daniel_the_smith wrote:The clock is part of the game, too.

So... people keep saying this. Not just in this thread, but in many similar threads. My response is: yes and no.

We play timed games because we have a specific amount of time that we want to devote to go. Past that time we need to do something else, or we'll lose focus, or whatever. (Timed games also build character by preventing us from self-indulgently thinking in circles.) Once you have a timed game, you need to use every second you've got thoroughly, effectively, and flexibly. In that sense, the clock is definitely part of the game.

But that doesn't mean that any possible way in which having a clock affects the possibility of winning or losing is part of the game. This is as true of long games as short games. Annoying long game timesuji: you make a nasty mistake with twenty minutes left on the clock. You quickly play three or four poorly thought-out moves trying to salvage things, and then you... wait out the clock, and don't start playing again until you enter byo-yomi.

Now, this is using the clock to the max. I'm sure RJ would heartily approve of this strategy. If your opponent wants the win, he has to keep his eyes on the game for twenty minutes. If he doesn't want to do that, he shouldn't have chosen long time settings, huh? And there might even be some self-serving justification you could offer - "I needed that 20 minutes to calm down". Whatever. The purpose of the clock is to set the length of the game, not to waste your opponent's time and ruin his focus with miserable shenanigans.

The same goes with blitz tactics. Playing weird moves to get your opponent out of his comfort zone is a perfectly valid strategy, but playing weird moves because you already know how to play and you doubt your opponent can come up with a reasonable response quickly enough under blitz conditions is kinda sad. There's a continuum to this sort of behavior, of course, that goes somewhere from "pointless but tricky invasions at the bitter end of sudden death" at one end to "playing really complex joseki just because you've memorized them" at the other end. We can argue about where on the continuum an ultra-territorial game falls, but just because a tactic works well with the clock doesn't make it fun, interesting, sporting, or anything other a cheap way to win.

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:10 pm

Tournament games would prohibit this, but most of our informal games have no "rules" against blowing an airhorn during the opponent's thinking time. We rely on a shared sense of what is decent and what is shameful for that.

Edit: "opponent's", not "opponents'". Me and apostrophes haven't been getting along lately.

daniel_the_smith · Post by **daniel_the_smith** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:50 pm

jts wrote:We can argue about where on the continuum an ultra-territorial game falls, but just because a tactic works well with the clock doesn't make it fun, interesting, sporting, or anything other a cheap way to win.

I think we basically agree. My point is just that different people draw the line in different places, and one should not be surprised when one's opponent seems oblivious of one's own line.

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:34 pm

hyperpape wrote:Tournament games would prohibit this, but most of our informal games have no "rules" against blowing an airhorn during the opponent's thinking time.

Hmmmmm. I lost my last game at EGC 2010 because my opponent shouted "Woo hoo!" and punched the air, so I believed that his tesuji worked when it didn't really and resigned by leaving the board in a huff and letting my byo yomi run out.

crux · Post by **crux** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:47 am

I was reminded of this thread by a professional game that was broadcast on IGS last night. Black ignores pretty much everything we "know" about fuseki and joseki, and wins by a few points. C16 in particular is something that would make me cringe if an opponent played it against me.

jts · Post by **jts** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 11:17 am

Weird.

oren · Post by **oren** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 11:38 am

Thanks for the game. I'm glad to see there is still some crazy stuff out there that people are playing.

Life In 19x19

Greed (3-3 invasion as first move)

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