Life In 19x19

SpongeBob wrote:...
You seem to insist on a viewpoint like: reading ability is all that matters, take care about it and everything else will fall into place.

...

Yes, I have this viewpoint. And I think that it is what makes go interesting.

SpongeBob wrote:...You can read out a local situation which has only a few branches, but you cannot read out a global situation.
...

And why, exactly, can you not read out a global situation? I believe that you can with enough practice.

Mef wrote:

Kirby wrote:I'm all for whole board problems. I just don't feel like I get much from the "strategy books" that you reference. I'd rather do more problems, and learn that way.

When you do a full board problem, do you look at the solution afterwards?

Yep. I don't always agree with the solution, but if my answer differs from the solution, I try to double check my analysis.

Kirby, how would your views change regarding the self-sufficiency of reading (not the necessity of reading, which no one would deny) for Go played on a larger board, say 37x37 or even larger?

No, I think reading is enough.

I think you can get reasonably strong with just reading, probably at least 6d. After that everybody reads well, so you have to work on strategy.

It could be that my thoughts on reading are due to the fact that I still have a lot of room to improve with reading. I guess my opinion could change in the future. Until that time, I want to focus my energy on improving my reading, though.

Tabemasu wrote:I think you can get reasonably strong with just reading, probably at least 6d. After that everybody reads well, so you have to work on strategy.

Certainly something like Mogo running on a really fast computer has gotten in to at least the low dans with strong "reading" and really no strategic thought (since it just isn't programmed for it).

I'm just speaking from personal experience. I didn't study anything but reading until I was around 6d AGA. But I suppose I picked up direction of play from game reviews, which would be strategy. Anyway, I think most people should worry less about theory and more on reading until they are at least mid dan level.

Kirby wrote:

SpongeBob wrote:...You can read out a local situation which has only a few branches, but you cannot read out a global situation.
...

And why, exactly, can you not read out a global situation? I believe that you can with enough practice.

You'd have to grow a second brain, and it still won't be enough for the reading required.

From http://www.usgo.org/resources/topten.html

Why is go so hard for computers? Because go is much, much more complicated than chess. There are many more possible games of go -- as much as 10 with more than 700 zeroes! -- than there are sub-atomic particles in the known universe

CarlJung wrote:

Kirby wrote:

SpongeBob wrote:...You can read out a local situation which has only a few branches, but you cannot read out a global situation.
...

And why, exactly, can you not read out a global situation? I believe that you can with enough practice.

You'd have to grow a second brain, and it still won't be enough for the reading required.

From http://www.usgo.org/resources/topten.html

Why is go so hard for computers? Because go is much, much more complicated than chess. There are many more possible games of go -- as much as 10 with more than 700 zeroes! -- than there are sub-atomic particles in the known universe

The brain is good at chunking. Learn fundamental pieces of information, and you'd be surprised at what it can put together.

Kirby wrote:The brain is good at chunking. Learn fundamental pieces of information, and you'd be surprised at what it can put together.

I assume we use the word "read" differently. I use it in the tsumego sense, where you know you have the answer to a problem because you have tried all possible combinations, or at least found a path that can't be refuted. I don't believe that kind of reading can be done on global situations. If you could, you'd only have to play through some 30 stones (I just made that figure up) and then either resign or wait for the opponent to resign since you both could read out what the result will be. Not even the strongest pros can do that.

CarlJung wrote:[...]you'd only have to play through some 30 stones (I just made that figure up) and then either resign or wait for the opponent to resign since you both could read out what the result will be.

Yes, it will be like the chess-playing robots in Futurama.

"'Mate, in 143 moves."
"Oh poo, you win again!"

No need to actually play out those pesky moves.

Kirby wrote:Calling it more sophisticated seems like a bit of a stretch to me (I actually think it's the opposite), but I don't think I have anything to add that I haven't said already.

You seem to think that "strategy" is trivial. Reading is the only thing that's hard, all that thickness, direction, aji and so on is actually too easy to bother. Nothing sophisticated at all. Yet the pros say exactly the opposite...

Has it ever occured to you that you actually have no idea about strategy? Couldn't it be that what you think you know about go strategy is actually completely wrong? There is a reason why the pros can give us kyu players nine stones without breaking a sweat...

flOvermind wrote:You seem to think that "strategy" is trivial. Reading is the only thing that's hard, all that thickness, direction, aji and so on is actually too easy to bother. Nothing sophisticated at all. Yet the pros say exactly the opposite..

They do?

(and "aji", at least, is 100% reading...)

palapiku wrote:

flOvermind wrote:You seem to think that "strategy" is trivial. Reading is the only thing that's hard, all that thickness, direction, aji and so on is actually too easy to bother. Nothing sophisticated at all. Yet the pros say exactly the opposite..

They do?

(and "aji", at least, is 100% reading...)

Strategy is 100% reading too, I'd have said, just expressed in a notably different way to tactics. But it's still fair to draw a line between the different reading types, and 'reading' usually is used to refer to the tactics side.