Life In 19x19

Just played an ASR League game where my opponent opened with tengen and double 3-3 as black, and I went with a sanrensei. When I asked about his opening afterwards, he said that Yilun Yang recommended it, and that I had handled it wrong because my sanrensei didn't have room to develop a moyo. I understand the logic, but I was curious about what others here think about playing/countering this sort of opening.

I don't know if Yang recommends it - I've got all his books and he doesn't say anything about it - but I had a game against someone a while back and crushed him. He tried too hard to make a moyo and it was easy to prevent.

There is only one pro example in the GoGoD database, when it was played against Go Seigen in 1933. Go won. What is characteristic of that game is that (1) Go played nirensei and got two largish corner areas around them - enemy stones too far away to affect them? and (2) Black got small territories around his 3-3 stones but on the rest of the board, while he made several safe groups, none had much more than the bare two eyes. Again, I surmise that Black's initial stones were placed in a way that meant none of his groups could ever work together easily. At any rate, no other pro has deemed this opening worth copying in pro play.

On a separate topic, I noted the "I crushed him" comment and had a wry smile. I thought of the paradigm:

PERCEPTION
Amateur: I crushed him. Pro: I was lucky.

REALITY
Amateur: I was lucky. Pro: I crushed him.

Nothing new in that, of course, but it also brought to mind Yamashita Keigo's recent comment that he was surprised that amateurs remembered the games they won whereas he felt they should remember the games they lost. That in turn got me to musing whether there is rather more in this than a mere joke. Does it signify a profound difference in attitude? After all, we get countless examples here of amateurs asking "how do I punish this mistake", which is something pros very rarely say.

I've long assumed that we amateurs, as regards go development, are to be regarded as children. When we are weak/young we expect beginner/childish mistakes but hope we will grow out of them. Recently, however, I've been leaning towards the conclusion that amateurs, even the best, never grow out of their mistaken attitudes. They will always talk about crushing, punishing, hamete, invading and a quick result. Real pros (not amateurs who reach a pro rank but those who've been groomed as pros) seem, whether they have an aggressive style or a patient one, to prefer talking about things like efficiency, restraint and safe groups (and only then attack). In other words they worry more about their own moves rather than the opponent's. Which brings us back to Yamashita...

John Fairbairn wrote:we get countless examples here of amateurs asking "how do I punish this mistake", which is something pros very rarely say.

Well, attitude aside, don't forget that they can find the answer themselves.

John Fairbairn wrote:I've long assumed that we amateurs, as regards go development, are to be regarded as children. When we are weak/young we expect beginner/childish mistakes but hope we will grow out of them. Recently, however, I've been leaning towards the conclusion that amateurs, even the best, never grow out of their mistaken attitudes. They will always talk about crushing, punishing, hamete, invading and a quick result. Real pros (not amateurs who reach a pro rank but those who've been groomed as pros) seem, whether they have an aggressive style or a patient one, to prefer talking about things like efficiency, restraint and safe groups (and only then attack). In other words they worry more about their own moves rather than the opponent's. Which brings us back to Yamashita...

Thanks. I have now re-read this paragraph three times and it makes more sense every time. It is indeed a difference in attitude.

Well, when I say I crushed the person, it's because he was too wedded to his opening and too focused on what he expected of it. When I flouted his plans, he didn't change and try and adapt to a fluid situation, but kept trying to build up influence based on those three stones.

John Fairbairn wrote:
I've long assumed that we amateurs, as regards go development, are to be regarded as children. When we are weak/young we expect beginner/childish mistakes but hope we will grow out of them. Recently, however, I've been leaning towards the conclusion that amateurs, even the best, never grow out of their mistaken attitudes. They will always talk about crushing, punishing, hamete, invading and a quick result. Real pros (not amateurs who reach a pro rank but those who've been groomed as pros) seem, whether they have an aggressive style or a patient one, to prefer talking about things like efficiency, restraint and safe groups (and only then attack). In other words they worry more about their own moves rather than the opponent's. Which brings us back to Yamashita...

When you think about it, our play, especially at my feeble level, is all about mistakes: those that we make, which are exploited by our opponents, and those our opponents make, which we exploit. We don't have the ability yet - at least those who are kyu players - to think about efficiency, restraint, and safe groups. But the reason the pros think this way is _because they know that if they don't they will be punished_. It's foolish to think that pros aren't fully conscious of the consequences of their every move, and know that if they were to play the slack moves that amateurs play, that _they would be punished_. They may not say so, because they know that they simply don't play the same moves.

Do you ever hear of a pro playing an "overplay"? No, it's a "probe" because you know his opponent will know how to respond. While you're right about the terms we use, I think you're mistaken in thinking that the pros aren't aware of the consequences of the type of moves us "children" play; they've just moved beyond those moves.

My guess - though this is just a guess - is that inseis probably play in ways similar to the way amateurs play, with the same concepts and strong competitiveness. I wouldn't be surprised if they use terms like "crush," "overplay," etc.

This thread confused me at first. Then I realized that the title meant "playing against a pro-recommended opening" and not "playing against a pro, recommended opening".

As far as playing against it is concerned I think you have to understand the meaning of it then the answer will become clear. The two sansan are designed to grab secure territory but the tengen is purely for influence. These two are inconsistent. Black will be unable to use the tengen to for a moyo and so obviously its only purpose is to prevent white from creating one. Once you realize that then the answer becomes clear: do not play a moyo game, which is what sanrensei is. I think a combination of a 4-4 and 4-5 might work well.

Well, attitude aside, don't forget that they can find the answer themselves.

No, that's not it at all. I am talking about pro attitude even when the (future) pro is still of low amateur strength. Also, I'm including in those who have amateur attitudes even pros who've come up as strong amateurs (as opposed to being trained). They probably know more than a few hamete - indeed, that's my point. Yasunaga Hajime was a famous amateur of 4-dan pro strength who could, and did, trap young pros with hametes. But Go Seigen beat him down to a four-stone handicap.

The real point is that you can't just push attitude aside. It is (I postulate) the crucial difference.

If you want another way to look at it, the pro attitude is to say: If all my moves are perfect, I don't need to worry about my opponent's moves. The amateur attitude is to look for imperfections in the opponent's moves and to try to punish them.

Or, the amateur wants to get rich quick, preferably without making any investment. The pro is prepared to invest and live off an annuity.

The amateur, like the American lady who said, "God grant me patience - and I want it NOW", importunes, "Teacher, tell me..." The pro waits and studies until his teacher has something to say.

Or, we may dream of being like the Man who Talked to Goats and having powers to make them explode, but in reality it's best not to show off even in front of goats. As one wise goat gruffly said to the amateur who protested that another goat had just eaten his fancy headgear: "I don't like your hat he chewed."

Nothing wrong with being an amateur, of course, or with wearing something fancy on the head instead of worrying about what's inside the head. It's just that I don't think people have much hope of being a proper pro with amateur attitudes.

Do you ever hear of a pro playing an "overplay"?

Yes, very often. Just a few hours ago I read a comment by Go Seigen that a move by Honinbo Shusai (ok, just a mere Japanese 9-dan, again) was an overplay (when he was ahead, to boot).

I repeat and stress that when I say pro in this context I am not referring to a fully fledged 9-dan, but to pro chicks - the ex ovo stage when getting the right attitude is the key to survival. A chick in a nest that sees a worm on the ground and tumbles down to punish it by eating it is less likely to survive than a chick that lets mum feed it so as to concentrate on building up wing strength and learning to fly well first.

Pros don't just make overplays. They make slack moves and all other kinds of mistakes. Quite a lot in one game. Any commentary will show you that, even for 9-dans. But there are also dozens of games by ex ovo future pros taking large handicaps in their early days. As the commentaries on these show, established pros can see even then that one 6-kyu has the right attitude to be a pro whereas another 6-kyu does not. More specifically, where they differ, I suggest, is in the attitude behind the mistakes. If the youngster is trying to defend when it is time to defend but gets the wrong point, he may be crushed but at least he had the right idea, and is marked down as "promising". If he attacks when he should defend, he still gets crushed but also gets his report card marked, "Suggest he takes up something easier like brain surgery."

There was a good article in Go World about, I think, Kaku Kyushin, when he was very young and was playing his teacher, Tomita Tadao, the author of the article. Tomita said, as I recall, that if his pupil did not play a move in a certain area (whether or not it was on a precise point) he was prepared to send him home at once. (The GoGoD disc tells me it was in Go World 17, 18, 20 or 21 but I'm afraid I'm too lazy to look it up.)

I have been surprised that quite a few amateurs on the forums have bristled when someone (usually me, I know) suggests there may be an attitude problem behind their play, but I don't see why even low kyus can't think about restraint and defence as priorities. For heaven's sake, how many amateurs here cross the road by rushing straight out? 99.9% look first, because we were taught that by pros in the art of life - parents. You might argue that this was ingrained at a young and impressionable age, and that older people find it harder to learn. But I remember when I went to live in France as a student at Strasbourg University. I was used to cars driving on the right side of the road. When I first stepped out of Strasbourg station I was almost run over by cars driving on the wrong side of the road. I was a low-kyu pedestrian in France. I suppose I could have bought a hammer and tried to "punish" all those drivers by smashing their cars, but it seemed more natural to follow the policy of "efficiency, restraint and safe groups (i.e. me)" by learning to look left first instead of right. I had a sore neck for a few days as I belatedly jerked my neck the (for me) other way. But I soon learned.

If people don't want to learn, there's nothing wrong in that for a mere game like go. But surely people asking how to punish something do, ostensibly, want to learn. Is it really the case that these people are all the "if I had a hammer" type and just want to learn to pound away at their opponents? Surely some want to know whether there's another way.

Ok, let's assume that you're right. (And I bow to both your strength and experience.) How does a kyu player like me learn the correct "attitude"? Perhaps there's a book for you to write, John...

lindentree wrote:Just played an ASR League game where my opponent opened with tengen and double 3-3 as black, and I went with a sanrensei. When I asked about his opening afterwards, he said that Yilun Yang recommended it, and that I had handled it wrong because my sanrensei didn't have room to develop a moyo. I understand the logic, but I was curious about what others here think about playing/countering this sort of opening.

I don't think it's logical at all. The 3-3 is a territorial move, so when you play two 3-3s it is very difficult to utilize the tengen effectively. I think the best way to handle it is to play high like you did, but also prioritize the wedge between the 3-3s to break up the weak moyo that Black is trying to create. Dinerchtein actually covered this opening in a video where he says pretty much the same thing, I'll try to find it if I can.

edit: Video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ23ajhg0Bo

Araban wrote:

lindentree wrote:Just played an ASR League game where my opponent opened with tengen and double 3-3 as black, and I went with a sanrensei. When I asked about his opening afterwards, he said that Yilun Yang recommended it, and that I had handled it wrong because my sanrensei didn't have room to develop a moyo. I understand the logic, but I was curious about what others here think about playing/countering this sort of opening.

I don't think it's logical at all. The 3-3 is a territorial move, so when you play two 3-3s it is very difficult to utilize the tengen effectively. I think the best way to handle it is to play high like you did, but also prioritize the wedge between the 3-3s to break up the weak moyo that Black is trying to create. Dinerchtein actually covered this opening in a video where he says pretty much the same thing, I'll try to find it if I can.

I'd actually be surprised that Yang would have recommended it, and it's more likely that the player was mistaken and was thinking of Dinerchtein. I've taken lessons with Yang, and his approach is much more classical than Dinerchtein, who's always looking for the unexpected.

Observing ones own results, i.e. both results of individual fights within a game, and the overall win/lose ratio, might give an idea.

From my recent tournament games, I come to the conclusion that the most dangerous situation for me is when I am way ahead. For a new driver, the most dangerous period is between the moments when he says "OK now I became a good driver" and his first accident.

Last weekend in a tournament game, I had an extremely embarassing loss. I was ahead one million points. I had killed two big (more than 12 stones) groups of my opponent without him getting a proper compensation. After 100 moves or so, I would certainly resign if I was my opponent. But he continued.

I managed to lose that game, the main reason being my wrong attitude. Of course he tried to use the aji of dead stones to grab back at least some of the territory. I would usually allow him to take it because I got something much bigger anyway. But no, I was so overconfident, I said no, you cannot even have that... The result of the fight, he took away the second eye of my surrounding group and we both lived in seki (about 40 points of loss for me, instead of the 5 points I refused to compromise). Ok that was still not too bad, I was still ahead.

What happened then, I got angry and made emotional moves leading to his other "dead" group to kill several of my stones. Consequence: big embarassement and resign.

He was a very nice old guy and sincerely apologized for stealing my game. He was indeed sorry to see my disappointment But after all, go is all about stealing each others (or noones) territory, isn't it?

The game was in my two hands, and slipped away so easily. That was a huge lesson for me about attidue.

kirkmc wrote:I'd actually be surprised that Yang would have recommended it, and it's more likely that the player was mistaken and was thinking of Dinerchtein.

I saw this particular KGS+ lecture, and the player is indeed mistaken.

the double san-san was recommended against the tengen is my memory serves well.