Software for visualizing influence and territory

[Bki]

$$B live stones behind live opposing stones
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B live stones behind live opposing stones
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Yes and? The zone on left is black territory since the "influence" or what I called aura of the black stones is projected near the edge of the board. The white stones project the power towards the right what we call thickness but since there is no white stones on the right it can't be called moyo or territory yet however if any fight breaks out on the right this white thickness will be useful.

What is there not to understand? Why are you trying to complicate everything?

Well, I'm not sure I would call white's influence thickness given its wall is eyeless and can be quite vulnerable to attack if B prevent him from extending.

[RobertJasiek]

The white stones project the power towards the right what we call thickness

See - you have exactly the misconception about influence I am pointing at. Also the black stones have (great) influence on the upper side. A visualisation may show a mostly neutral area there (except directly in front of the white wall).

It reminds me of a game I (then 4d) played against a 4d, in which I attacked such a white wall. My opponent was surprised: "But this is thickness!". I said: "It is not thickness but rubbish!" I killed the group several times also in post-game analysis. I had known what my opponent had not known: a simple wall requires an extension for its eyespace to represent thickness.

Why are you trying to complicate everything?

Why are you overlooking that things are not as simple as you wish? Influence does not equate radiation of black or white light. See http://senseis.xmp.net/?Influence

[Krama]

Yes white needs to play a move there in order to call it thickness and we can assume that it is white to move since the position in which it is black to move would make this wall stupid (which proves white is a total beginner). Again what is your point? We are just spinning in circles.

[RobertJasiek]

Influence exists in each position, after each move, and changes dynamically from move to move. The visualisation pictures show similar (although less drastic) misconceptions because connection and life status impacts on the intersections are not properly assessed.

[Krama]

Influence exists in each position, after each move, and changes dynamically from move to move. The visualisation pictures show similar (although less drastic) misconceptions because connection and life status impacts on the intersections are not properly assessed.

This is correct however remember that the video was made for someone who never played go and was supposed to show how it is played.

Yes it is wrong in many cases since the zones displayed in the fights were maybe wrong as you said but it doesn't matter since most of the zones displayed in the game were correct.

I would gladly show this to anyone who doesn't know what go is and I am pretty sure they would understand the game more easily than if you just tell them that we are placing stones on the board in order to get as many points as possible. You must also mention that this is the most basic thing what they are seeing since as you said a lot of things are hard to map since there are fights and ko fights and so on, but you just tell that person that it is a bit complex for their level of understanding so they don't get confused.

[agewisdom]

As an absolute beginner, a big thank you to both of you for your comments. Yes, I understand that the visualization will NOT be perfect, as there are many complications that can arise. Highlighting the correct areas of influence can ONLY be done manually.

Still, it is at least interesting to see this video to have some 'rudimentary' grasp of the concepts of territory, inter-relationship between each stone and how it strengthens one another to form an area of influence. Also, to see how the opponents' stone diminishes it.

Perhaps, one day, we could have just a EXHIBITION game where these areas of influence are shaded properly with comments, so as to get a beginner interested.

Robert, I understand your fear that it will give PRECONCEIVED and MISTAKEN notions to anyone watching, but as a beginner, at least it makes me more interested in the game, as per my above comments. Anyone interested would probably be able to rectify these misconceptions after they start playing the game more seriously, methinks?

[EdLee]

Anyone interested would probably be able to rectify these misconceptions after they start playing the game more seriously, methinks?

Hi agewisdom, this varies enormously from person to person.
My anecdotal evidence shows the range from a short time (a few years) to never.

[agewisdom]

Anyone interested would probably be able to rectify these misconceptions after they start playing the game more seriously, methinks?

Hi agewisdom, this varies enormously from person to person.
My anecdotal evidence shows the range from a short time (a few years) to never.

Haha... now I understand why you're so concerned about trying to prevent any misconceptions from the start.

Hopefully, I don't fall into the NEVER category.

[RobertJasiek]

Anyone interested would probably be able to rectify these misconceptions after they start playing the game more seriously

As a kyu player and maybe even as a low dan player, very much effort (30% ~ 70%) has to be spent on unlearning, correcting or completing wrong, partially wrong, inconsistent, confusing or very incomplete knowledge. The amount of interesting useful, good, correct knowledge is already so great that there is simply no point in wasting a similar amount of effort on bad knowledge. It is better spent on learning good knowledge immediately.

[agewisdom]

As a kyu player and maybe even as a low dan player, very much effort (30% ~ 70%) has to be spent on unlearning, correcting or completing wrong, partially wrong, inconsistent, confusing or very incomplete knowledge. The amount of interesting useful, good, correct knowledge is already so great that there is simply no point in wasting a similar amount of effort on bad knowledge. It is better spent on learning good knowledge immediately.

I do understand what you mean. Thank you for the sound advice. Appreciate it

[YeGO]

I think the video looks neat (and maybe that's useful in itself for generating more interest in the game), however, it seems to have significant shortcomings in actually visualizing influence.

I wonder how the visualization would look if you first set down four stones in a ponnuki shape, and then filled in its eye with a fifth stone. Any reasonable analysis would have to say that the influence of that group has gone down (since it has only become weaker in losing its eye), but I think the simple linear technique used in this video might actually suggest that the influence has increased.

The description on the youtube page states that it is based on "a simple linear driven metric exponential distribution influence function".

I'm not too sure exactly what that means, but if I had to guess, I think the keywords "simple", "linear", and "exponential distribution" suggest that the status of each point is simply computed as the sum of the exponentially scaled distances to each black stone minus the sum of the exponentially scaled distances to each white stone (so essentially a proximity-based method). Then, these values are normalized and colored, with the larger values being more orange and smaller values being more blue.

The way the colors change in this video seems to be in line with the above hypothesis. Note how each stone always seems to have at least a small effect every other point (even those on the other side of the board with many intervening groups in between).

I suspect that the video ends short since such a simple linear method would become absurd later in the game when closed borders and life/death come more into play.

[agewisdom]

Does anyone want to collaborate to do one professional game using the visualization principles? I'm an absolute beginner, but I prefer to have some visualization along these lines to get an idea.

The game should be reasonably simple but a professional one with a variety of techniques/principles/problems(???) involved, so that it can be a good example to be used to assist. It's quite a bit of work involved, so let's make it a good one.

I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but I will do my best to assist to finish one game. Here's a rough sample of what I'm talking about. Hope it makes sense. This is just MEANT to help beginners visualize how the stones affect the whole board and how the territories are affected by the placement of each stones. It's not meant to do anything else. Just to ease beginners into the game like the earlier Youtube video.

Everyone can chip it and instruct me, and I'll make the images accordingly, if they feel it's useful. If it's a bad idea, do forgive a newbie, ok!


upload pics

[RobertJasiek]

It is an idea of 1970s computer programs. Needless to say, they were very weak.

[djhbrown]

In game 5 of the alpha-Lee match, Redmond at one point mentioned a "black shadow" extending into white's moyo. Redmond pointed out that this black shadow only existed because the few black stones creating it were unequivocally alive (in that case, because they already had one eye and could make another).

[agewisdom]

Pardon me, if I'm mistaken but during the AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol matches, I heard remarks about AlphaGo having a heat map over the entire Go board, to visualise the entire situation.

Anyone have any idea whether this was correct? It would be interesting to see what this visual representation looked like.

After watching most of Redmond's commentary, I think automating a heat map would be an impossible task. Even a manual heat map would be only based on the highest probability assumption on what would occur, which may or may not be correct. I wonder whether stronger Go players actually do visualize the territorial influences of just intuitively 'know' it based on the patterns of the stones...