Life In 19x19

often wrote:liang wei tang 9p once told me that for amateurs, a 10-20 point loss in the joseki/opening might as well not really be a loss. his reasoning was that so much happens in the middle game (swings/deaths/etc) that you can easily make it back.

It is true that amateur plays are worth less than pro plays, on average. But the difference is not that great. If the correct komi for pros is 6.5, then maybe correct komi for amateur shodan vs. amateur shodan is 5.5. The reason for the difference in komi is that amateurs make more and larger mistakes than pros. Even so, the difference is small.

So, to simulate the 10-20 pt. loss that Liang talks about, let shodan play shodan where White gives 7.5 komi. What are the odds that Black will win? My guess is around 2:1. But we actually have some statistics on similar mismatches, because a lot of tournament games pit unequal opponents in even games. If nidan plays shodan even, what are the odds that the nidan will win? Does anybody think that the nidan does not "really" have an advantage, because the shodan can easily make up the difference?

I do not think that Liang has thought his remark through. Perhaps he observes the large and frequent errors in amateur games and thinks that there will be opportunities for a player who is behind by 10-20 points to make up the difference. That is so. But the player trying to make up the difference is also an amateur. Liang could surely make up a 20 pt. loss in the opening of an even game against an amateur shodan, but the question is whether another amateur shodan could do so. Not likely.

Bill Spight wrote:Liang could surely make up a 20 pt. loss in the opening of an even game against an amateur shodan, but the question is whether another amateur shodan could do so. Not likely.

It happens, and has happened to me.

It's not hard to lose a game when leading 20 points or even more. One careless move is enough.

SmoothOper wrote:Its like Lee Changho, sure he touts his end game, but he knows if he doesn't play his standard baduk he is gonna get it handed to him. In theory he should be able to play the mini-Chinese because the beginning doesn't matter and he has superior end game abilities, but when he does play the mini-Chinese he gets demolished. So yeah, his opening doesn't matter, but he better play that one opening that he knows well.

Since when is 75% win-rate equivalent to "getting demolished"???

Sverre wrote:

SmoothOper wrote:Its like Lee Changho, sure he touts his end game, but he knows if he doesn't play his standard baduk he is gonna get it handed to him. In theory he should be able to play the mini-Chinese because the beginning doesn't matter and he has superior end game abilities, but when he does play the mini-Chinese he gets demolished. So yeah, his opening doesn't matter, but he better play that one opening that he knows well.

Since when is 75% win-rate equivalent to "getting demolished"???

http://haengma.net/kuksu/return-of-the-king/

His mini-chinese end game didn't look all that great that time, maybe he was practicing on beginners.

SmoothOper wrote:
His mini-chinese end game didn't look all that great that time, maybe he was practicing on beginners.

So by "getting demolished" you mean "won" . Care to explain what Lee's major mistakes were, since obviously his 4 dan professional ("beginner"? Seriously?) opponent was too weak to demonstrate?

Sverre wrote:

SmoothOper wrote:
His mini-chinese end game didn't look all that great that time, maybe he was practicing on beginners.

So by "getting demolished" you mean "won" . Care to explain what Lee's major mistakes were, since obviously his 4 dan professional ("beginner"? Seriously?) opponent was too weak to demonstrate?

He resigned the second game at move 172.

SmoothOper wrote:He resigned the second game at move 172.

The second game didn't have the mini-chinese.

It's not hard to lose a game when leading 20 points or even more. One careless move is enough.

I wish I could make only one careless move per game. Then again, a lot of my moves that I put care into are pretty bad, too.

Sverre wrote:

SmoothOper wrote:He resigned the second game at move 172.

The second game didn't have the mini-chinese.

Like I was saying maybe if he had played a Fuseki he knew, like the mini-Chinese, he wouldn't have had to resign.

topazg wrote:Either way, I find it hard to argue cohesively against someone's desire to study something in depth when they're clearly interested in it and it isn't valueless.

Since the topic of this thread was How do you choose your opening (and why), I answered I choose my opening at random, since I don't care about the opening. I still think it's not as important as middle- and endgame, but this isn't exactly arguing cohesively against studying opening. Of course you have to study it sooner or later.

It's not even a big matter if this is done sooner or later. But the thing I wanted to say is that it can be done later.

It is also possible to reach strong shodan level with nothing else than simply playing. A friend of mine has done that.

Smoothoper: do you actually know anything about how often Lee plays different fuseki or his success with them? You appear to be just pulling all of these claims out of thin air.

hyperpape wrote:Smoothoper: do you actually know anything about how often Lee plays different fuseki or his success with them? You appear to be just pulling all of these claims out of thin air.

Yep, pulling things out of thin air.

Eerika Norvio wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:Liang could surely make up a 20 pt. loss in the opening of an even game against an amateur shodan, but the question is whether another amateur shodan could do so. Not likely.

It happens, and has happened to me.

It's not hard to lose a game when leading 20 points or even more. One careless move is enough.

Oh, I once made a horrific blunder that cost 80 points. So I only won by 1 point.

Marcel Grünauer wrote:Amateurs make so many strategic and reading mistakes during the middle game and end game that the opening pales in comparison.

If they understood the opening better, they would not make so many strategic mistakes later on.

Bill Spight wrote:

Marcel Grünauer wrote:Amateurs make so many strategic and reading mistakes during the middle game and end game that the opening pales in comparison.

If they understood the opening better, they would not make so many strategic mistakes later on.

Sure, but to understand the opening better, you need to understand how the midgame flows from the opening and in general, so we're back to pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.