Life In 19x19

It is an unfortunate, unnecessary traditional restriction to require thick shape and thickness to be on the outside only. When it has future potential to make territory somewhere, it was called thick(ness), but as soon as the potential is realised, suddenly the walls of thickness surrounding a territory region become, purely by traditional use of the term, weak and thin?! Quite contrarily, they become even thicker and stronger, when they are so strong to already protect territory.

Instead of traditionally ignoring all the inside thick(ness) and not having any word to describe it, I simply enhance the use to include also the thick(ness) on the inside.

This has further advantages: when perceiving inside thick(ness), we also know that there are little aji and few ko threats, and that there still will be thickness when the opponent executes a ko threat to turn territory into potential territory by removing a nearby string of contributing to surrounding the previous territory.

If one really wants a distinction betweeen outside thickness with future potential for additional territory and inside thickness with already protected territory, I call it active versus passive thickness. (Not outside versus inside thickness, because there can be useless outside thickness adjacent only to dame.)

BTW, there can be a honte and thick shape move on the dame inside connecting two previous one-eye walls on the outsides and so transforming them into thickness, even if they are loosely surrounded by opposing stones further on the outside.

topazg wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:This example move is thick: it creates thick shape and thickness (close to the edge, but thickness).

This could be a natural language issue. I don't think anyone I would discuss this move with would describe it as thick. Solid maybe? It's certainly removes a lot of aji, but I think for most people "thick" has an outwards facing connotation that this move does not?

It could be that many people perceive it as such, but it is not necessary, see e.g:
viewtopic.php?p=47758#p47758

It is an unfortunate, unnecessary traditional restriction to require thick shape and thickness to be on the outside only.

Since when? Give sources and explain away phrases like "the thickness of the two-stone handicap" (Kobayashi Koichi, using atsumi), or Cho Chikun calling his inside territories in josekis thick.

Instead of traditionally ignoring all the inside thick(ness) and not having any word to describe it, I simply enhance the use to include also the thick(ness) on the inside.

This is precisely what is meant by the use of atsui when e.g. evaluating endgames by counting. (A long tradition.)

John, I do not doubt that there are examples in the Asian literature, and thankfully recently you have cited a few. OTOH, in the English literature (AFA I have read it, excluding mine) there has been an emphasis of "on the outside", and I do not recall even one text mentioning thickness on the inside (other than mentioned by you, or mine). This has affected verbal talk in Europe: everybody mentioning a place of thickness emphasised the outside. I grew up in this knowledge environment and had to overcome its restriction. In the Asian books I have seen or read (i.e., its diagrams and sometimes references to intersections or regions denoted by letters), there has been, IIRC, no visual indication of thickness on the inside.