There have been a few discussions here recently where I've noticed the way people think about many moves as being an 'attack' for example here and here.

I thought I'd bring this up for discussion and see what people think about it. If people think it's interesting I might write more here or on GGG.

I had the pleasure of meeting the late Wu Songsheng (9p) and seeing his lectures several times. I also had the privilege to speak with him about Go at length just once. You can read more about him on the Sensei's Library page. A lot of that text was written by me, so I won't repeat it here.

A number of years ago when I ran a Go tournament in Australia, I took Mr Wu to a restaurant for lunch with a small group of Go players (after picking him up from the airport) and he spoke in great detail about his ideas about Go. Later that day he gave a public lecture at the University of Melbourne on "How to think about Go", which unfortunately wasn't that well attended by Go players. (Possibly because he didn't speak English that well and needed a translator, but I was disappointed and thought people missed a great opportunity).

His way of thinking about the game was (I think) quite unique and he had a refreshingly idiosyncratic style of playing and teaching, much like Kajiwara, Takemiya or Yilun Yang. He viewed every sequence of moves as a sort of 1-2 exchange or trade. Because of his way of thinking he had a penchant for large scale trades (furikawari) and mutual damage - even where he often allowed his stones to die. I think this is how he got the reputation of having a 'Tai Chi style' of Go.

Something he talked about a lot were the concepts of balance and sharing. It's maybe something that we don't think about enough when we talk about Go in English. Here's a position he showed:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Sharing the corner
$$ ------------
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . 2 .
$$ | . . 1 , . .
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . .[/go]

He'd ask people how they'd describe white . Most people replied with something like 'approach' or 'attack', but Mr Wu rejected these descriptions as 'rubbish'. He preferred to call this 'sharing' the corner. He seemed to prefer to not go into complicated examples from games (I think he thought understanding the idea was the most important thing and that specific examples were distracting). Here's something he said about an opening position though:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Eating a cream cake
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . a . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . b c . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

When you play in the opening there are lots of moves to choose from. If you're black, at this point in the game black could choose to 'eat' the whole corner with 'a' or share white's corner with 'b' (and obviously there are other similar moves like 'c' - my addition to avoid going off topic later). Locally speaking the moves at 'a' and 'b' are equivalent.

Mr Wu said that it's like you're a child with a cake. You can eat the whole cake for yourself by playing 'a' or you can share another cake with white by playing 'b'. Either way, you still get to eat some cake, so it doesn't matter.

After this, white or black might play other moves locally and eat more or less of one cake or the other, but this is just a series of trades rather than an outright gain for anyone in particular. After you play a move, it's the other player's turn to move.

When two good players understand this and play together, they can create a work of art. Of the four ancient Chinese arts, Go is unique because it requires a partner. Because of that, you should respect and appreciate your partner.

I've thought about what he said a lot over the years and it's gradually made more and more sense to me. Respect is fundamental to playing the best moves that you are capable of. Also, most moves that people describe as attacks - things like approach moves and pincers - are just the next exchange in an ongoing negotiation. There's no point in attaching yourself too strongly to any particular move, because everything can be managed if you keep an open mind.

I will point out that Mr Wu is talking about Go at an abstract level and he probably assumes good play from both sides. Obviously if you make several blunders and your group dies, this way of thinking doesn't necessarily apply.

That's enough rambling from me though. I hope other people find Mr Wu's ideas to be interesting and worth some consideration.

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . l e t s . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . m y . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 1 , . s h a r e . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | c a k e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

When Wu Songsheng calls "sharing" there is only one conclusion I can draw.

Chinese kids have a different relationship to their cake.

The kids I know who have cake generally are not at all thrilled when someone suggests that they share it. I think most of them view the suggestion as an attack. Probably you are not wrong if you surmise that manners are not the focus of their upbringing.

I'm not just saying this tongue in cheek. For me, it's another piece of evidence that not everybody views the world in the same way, and that some ways are advantageous for go players.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Interesting observation Daal. Perhaps that's part of the point? Your comments read in an interesting way if you substitute the word 'kids' with 'Go players'.

Also, eating some of white's cake with implicitly says you're OK with white having some of your cake, at . Wouldn't getting upset about after having already played be a bit like behaving like a spoilt child?

Perhaps adults and children aren't really as different as we like to think they are.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

That is a very interesting way of looking at it, thanks for sharing it with us! My question is: how does that perpective make you better at go? I suppose it allows you to be relaxed when your opponent takes some of your cake - that means they are inviting you to have some of theirs. hmmm...

There is an important lesson in that: When the opponent "takes some of your cake", and therefore "invites you to have some of theirs", you have to accept the invitation.

Many players, when their opponents "takes some of their cake", respond locally and then proceed to letting the opponents secure their own cake as well

One aspect of this issue is that if you try to take more than your fair share of cake you might be punished later by losing more than you should. The Japanese pro Izumitani Masanori 7p at the 1987 US Go Congress gave a lecture on the topic of this thread, saying pretty much what has been said in the first post here. Assuming your opponent hasn't made a mistake things should be balanced and trying to take more than you are entitled to disturbs the balance, inviting a bigger loss for yourself. An unreasonable play or a greedy play are examples of disturbing the balance. Izumitani also said that most go games last between 200 and 240 moves. That leaves about 120 to 160 empty points on the board for territory. His advice was that if you have made around 60 points of territory you shouldn't try very hard to make more because that may be greedy or unreasonable. Of course your opponent may give you more ...

Well, let me say something about my own development as a go player. I started out fighting like hell. (I still think that's a pretty good approach for a beginner.) Next, I strove for rapid development. My opponent would invade my framework, and I would attack like hell. Gradually -- and I am not sure how this happened -- I developed a thick style. Thickness prepares to attack. Now my play has become very miai-ish. I often make plays that offer my opponent a choice. He may get a lot, I think that I can get a little more.

Miai-ish play sometimes has unexpected dividends, when the options are not equal. As the witty bridge writer Victor Mollo said, "When faced with a 50-50 choice, a bad player will make the wrong choice 75% of the time." (Quote not exact. ) Miai-ish play depends upon having good judgement -- or at least, better judgement than the other bad player. You also have to be able to back up your judgement. That's where learning how to fight pays off.

Everybody is different, but I think that for a beginner to try a miai-ish approach would lead to disappointment. Not only has he not developed judgement yet, but he could make an offer where he gets a slightly larger piece of cake, only to have his opponent take it away, too. At a higher level, his opponent may nibble away a good part of his cake.

At your level, you have developed both judgement and the skill to back it up. A miai-ish approach may be just the thing to take you to the next level. There is an apparent chicken-and-egg problem. A miai-ish approach requires judgement. How do you know if your judgement is good enough? But that is a mirage. A miai-ish approach can help you to develop your judgement. There is something of throwing you into the river to teach you how to swim, but, IMO, that is unavoidable for just about any aspect of the game.

There is a connection between thick play and miai. When you play thickly, you often strengthen yourself in gote, thereby giving your opponent the choice of where to play next. If you cannot handle thickness, your opponent may have his cake and eat yours, too. Perhaps that is why, in my case, the thickness came first.

If you cannot handle thickness well, my inclination would be to start there, to develop both your judgement and the skills to back it up. Years ago, for their New Year's issue, Kido magazine asked all of the Japanese pros to offer one piece of advice to amateurs. The most frequent pieces of advice were to play a lot, to play people three stones stronger than you, and to play thickly.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

this is all nice and i personally admire such peaceful style, when you make miais and let opponent take whatever he wants, only to end up with few more points than him and win without a fight. but unfortunately i think it is not the only one and best approach to become strong. maybe it is like taichi even in one other aspect - it can be extremely effective, but you have to train for ten years before you can use it.

you know, it reminds me a quote... "Violence. If it doesn't work, you are not using enough."

or i am just not strong enough to truly appreciate the wisdom

_________________
Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

Thanks Bill. I've been thinking recently that I'm ok (level-based disclaimers of course) at dealing with my thickness, but where I've been losing lately has often been when I've had to deal with a situation in which the other guy is thick. Any pointers for developing miaish play? Is it really just as simple as "those moves are about the same so if they take one I have the other"?

Laman, that tends to be my philosophy. I've been having a lot of success with the Great Wall fuseki, people often just end up dying.

Do not approach thickness. This proverb applies in a surprising number of situations.



If it were that simple, everybody would be doing it. It really takes judgement. You want to play here, you want to play there, but maybe there is a play that does not look so big, but will give me a profit regardless of which of the two options I get, even if the opponent gets to choose between them.

Example: I would like to take a corner, but to do so in the obvious way would give the opponent good thickness. But if I just give up the corner, that would be big. Aha! Maybe I can offer the opponent the chance to take the corner, but then I would get good thickness, or he could choose to give up the corner, but it would be bigger than I would get otherwise. Suppose that I find a play that offers such a miai. It is still a judgement call whether I should play it or not.

Now, some players like territory, and others like thickness, and that decides the matter for them. The miai-ish player has other options.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Yilun Yang 7p sometimes gets irritated when students call an approach an "attack." After all, how can you be attacking when you are playing second in a corner? You can call it an approach, or in many cases a reduction, but not an attack.

As for pincers, I'm not sure what he would say but he'll say "put some pressure on" sometimes. But IHMO, you usually can't really attack a single stone.

Whether something is sharing kind of depends on later moves. Sometimes from your position it may wind up that territory in the corner is shared (divided). A trade for influence vs. territory isn't really sharing, though.

I think sometimes we get too much attached to early moves, though. I was once surprised at how many pro games I could find where a player plays a 3-3 in an empty corner and then winds up sacrificing it! I had previously assumed that if a player played the 3-3 in the empty corner, they were pretty much committed to taking territory there, but that turns out to be limited thinking.

I know what you mean. On the other hand, for a beginner (and maybe for all players), all strategies oscillate between exhiliration and disappointment. Should you fight when you can't yet read? Of course. Should you offer trades when you cannot yet count? Certainly! Is there a choice? Not really, if one wants to improve.

I like Tei Meiko 9p's attitude from this interview:

So there is no such thing as "Don't learn joseki too early", or "Don't read go theory books too early"?

The person who says "don't......" is just showing he doesn't know Go at all, I think.

Bill's already provided an excellent answer, so I'll just add some other thoughts. And let me say upfront that I don't think there's one 'correct' way in Go. Rather there are different approaches and mental models that work better than others or favour different personalities. Just look at the contrasting styles of some of Japan's greatest players from the 20th century. If an idea helps you, if it enhances your life, then there's value in that.

Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to ask Mr Wu about this, but I think the next step is to realise that there's really only one cake and you're sharing it whether you believe so or not. Sharing can be both global and local. It's a bit like the (Korean?) Go proverb, "It's not my land, it's our land".

There's a lot of value in the relaxed attitude you mentioned (even on its own), because it helps you think clearly and not get upset or make emotional moves.

Off the top of my head, here are some related concepts that might be enhanced by this general view of things. I might be throwing some ideas in that you think aren't that relevant, but it's all kind of connected.

• A broader view of miai, which is a very efficient way of making decisions (as Bill discussed in detail).
• Understanding that every good move takes into account all the other moves on the board, including the previous one. Tenuki doesn't really mean ignore. You can tenuki more often than you think, but really there is no such thing as tenuki, except in a strictly local context (there is no spoon ).
• Related to this is that fact that move order is irrelevant (except as an analytical tool e.g. tewari). Once individual stones are on the board they can't be moved (but groups can), so you need to be in the present moment and realise that what happened before could have happened in any order. The possible next moves would be the same regardless.
• A more open mind about all kinds of local and global trades, including using ko as a weapon.
• A more global view of the board in general, especially in the opening and middle game.
• Heavy vs light isn't solely a local shape or number of stones concept. It's also about the whole board and fundamentally about whether stones can be allowed to die. You can force the other player into a passive position just by threatening to eat one or two important stones on a large scale (rather than attacking directly). It's basically the same as forcing them to make an unreasonable invasion.
• If there's no particularly profitable way respond to an invasion locally and your groups are not threatened by it, you can respond indirectly. This could be either an indirect offer to trade with a severe local followup (e.g. their invading stones will eventually die if they don't accept a trade somewhere). It could also be just playing another important move and waiting for a possible opportunity to attack profitably later. Meanwhile, your partner still has the liability of the weak group to deal with and sometimes adding one or two more moves still doesn't make it completely safe.
• Realising the full value of a move and using it wisely.
• An overall lighter feeling towards the game, which should help you experiment more, be more creative and consequently learn more.

I understand how you feel, because I used to think the more or less the same thing. The reality is that abstract ideas about the game and improving your mental model for Go are not a substitute for the fundamentals. Learning and understanding technique, strategy and principles is always going to be necessary and the higher level ideas only enhance competency in the basics, they can't replace it. I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts though.

Don't make the mistake (I made) of imagining that this kind of peaceful thinking is in any way weak. It also doesn't have much to do with with the outward appearance of peace on the board. Even in the most complicated and severe middle game, there is still balance and fundamental ideas like miai are just as relevant. It's like the calm in the eye of the storm.

Speaking personally, my favourite aspects of Go are running battles, tesuji and middle game strategy in general. I really enjoy feeling the flow and finding the subtle but critical points in a good fight. Younggil has told me several times that I should try to create more complications starting in the early opening, instead of playing a more normal fuseki, because that would play to my strengths better (that doesn't mean everyone should do that though). Does that mean my thoughts are violent? I don't believe so. A peaceful mind is valuable, but a peaceful board is irrelevant. It's just an artifact of your own perception of the game.

Also, as Bill has hinted (I think), playing a genuinely peaceful game isn't possible unless you have a strong game to back it up. Especially if you want to develop a strong fighting game, you need to learn how to defend patiently and efficiently. Because you can't enter a serious fight with one arm tied behind your back. The outward appearance of peaceful, but powerful, moves is mostly related to this, I think. Then there are slack moves, which are something else entirely. (What you do to learn and understand this for yourself is a slightly different matter, you may have to fight recklessly for awhile to discover the limits.)

Look at Shusaku or Lee Changho for example. Both of them often gave the outward appearance of peace and letting the opponent do what they wanted in their games. However, if you study their games, you'll see many examples where amazing power was suddenly unleashed after their partner played a slack or unreasonable move. The velvet gloves come off in an instant to reveal an iron fist, and the game is over. Not seeking complications at every step isn't a kind of laziness or weakness, it's rather a form of patience, judgement and respect for your opponent.

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

How do you continually keep track of

A) reading out each fight
B) making sure weak groups aren't getting disconnected off to get killed
C) your opponent isn't getting a better share of the local area than you
D) all the possible invasions
e) the way the battle is changing your ability to access large swaths of undeveloped area due to ending up on the wrong side of a battle line
f) balancing all these things out to try to figure out which thing is more important at which moment

and still think of the game as a peaceful process? I get completely lost in the balancing act/battle and go into full on battle mode. How do you guys juggle these things and still keep that sharing mindset? I guess I'm not really asking anything that hasn't already been sort of asked.

Also the cake is a lie. Had to say it.

Partly the fact that, as you get stronger, unreasonable moves happen less often unless you know you're behind to the point where they are necessary. At DDK, most games seem to be bloodbaths or giant half board moyos (I know that's an unreasonable generalisation, but it is common). In general, if someone starts a crazy unreasonable fight in Go, you still have to fight, or the other person's move often ends up being profitable. It's learning which fights to pick that's hard

Reminds me of a quote attributed to Cho Chikun that I heard: "This side of the board is mine, that side is negotiable"

David, I just looked at your latest excellent game + commentary between Iyama and Yamashita, and I don't think the Japanese have got the whole cake thing.

What you described:



What they were doing:

Related fact: the Agon is faster than the other Japanese titles, though it's not a quickplay event per se (90 minutes main time for the final).

_________________
Occupy Babel!

Well, speaking as a guy, you've kind of sold me on the second situation... Your pictures are biased though!

The interesting thing about Younggil's (not my ) commentary was that he thought white only made one overplay and then black just played superbly and crushed him. White was the one who was unreasonable. And white lost.


I don't really understand what you mean, but you can't expect a single idea to give you instant experience and technical expertise, can you? Otherwise we'd just read the magic sentence and we'd all be 9 dan. Anyway, all of that stuff you describe will get easier with practise, especially if you become more fluent in tesuji and shape.

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

That makes sense.