Life In 19x19

My attention was caught by something Garry Kasparov said on what makes a top chess player. This was a radio interview and so he could not elaborate in the same way that he could on paper, so I was forced to think for myself a bit more than usual - one of the virtues of radio. Naturally I tried to see through the prism of go. By way of offering a thought for the day as your coffee break for today, I toss out some rather unformed thoughts that came to me in bed as I struggled to find an excuse to lie in even longer than usual.

Kasparaov said there were three dimensions in chess: material, time and quality. They apparently apply at each stage of one's career but in different ways and in different degrees.

A chess beginner will learn about material using numbers to value the pieces. The go equivalent might be concentrating on the corners and josekis, striving to see the difference between territory and thickness. Some will attach numbers to this, too, but either way the beginner will think go - the surrounding game - is all about surrounding territories like those in the corner. Thickness is too easily confused with influence, so he will generally ignore that.

Time as a Kasparovian dimension referred to the ability to use tempi to mount an attack but we can easily how a go beginner learns about sente as a time concept and uses it to attack, at this stage mainly by simply chasing the opponent - somewhere, anywhere, just so long as he answers!

Quality does not apply at this stage. The beginner lives in a chiaroscuro world (my choice of metaphor), and the concept of quality lies in a large plane of shadow. In chess, material and the Greek sacrifice shine too bright. In go, territory and sente shine too bright.

At a higher level a go player will understand material (territory) differently. He will have begun to acquire some mastery of the sides - pincers and extensions. He will see that territory can be made there, too. As regards time, he will be learning that attacks can be more than about chasing. It is possible (usually with a lot of luck at this stage) to capture an enemy group and he will start to see that go - the surrounding game - is all about surrounding enemy groups. He may also see that, on the basis of what goes on on the sides it is possible to make deliciously large territories encroaching even on the centre. He will start to see that go - the surrounding game - is, er, all about surrounding moyos. But the confusion is easily resolved at this stage. The player deludes himself into thinking he can carry off a "style" and so he decides to become an attacking player or a moyo player. Still, at this stage, the first pinpricks of light will also start to dot the umbral plane, and he will discern that attacks don't need to end in slaughter. They can end in a transformation - strength of one kind can turn into strength of a more durable kind: e.g. atsumi becomes atsusa. He will discover too that moyos don't need to form territories: like a Venus fly trap they can invite the enemy inside to be digested at leisure, likewise transforming into durable outside strength. He may even begin to understand dimly that time in go means patience and will proudly dot his games with honte.

At a yet higher stage, let's say strong amateur/junior pro, he will be materialist in that he is keen to extract the last drop of value from every move. He will be able to rattle off tewari analyses to show that this way is one point better than that way, and may be obsessed with trick moves and power plays. As Kasparov says, in total bafflement, he wants to know the latest move in the Dragon variation but he doesn't care about understanding chess/go. As regards time - tenuki is the wave of the future! He will by then dismissively think he knows all the right corner and side plays and that true skill is being able to make a group live on the head of pin. The shadows that cover quality of play will still be there, however. It will not just be a case of not caring about quality. By this time he will have understood that go - the surrounding game - is not about surrounding at all. That was the big con that held him back. Go is not about quality. It is all about POWER!!!

It seems that in the chess world some would add a fourth dimension to Kasparov's analysis, and that is also time, but of a different kind. They mean the need to play against the clock. Perhaps we can call this practicality. In a world of rapid chess, blitz chess and bullet chess, not to mention the fact that even in classical chess time often becomes a pressing factor at the moment of greatest complexity in the game, it is easy to see that trick moves and power plays can win lots of games and so be worth preparing and practising, and we can see the same depressing trend in modern go, but I refer to leave that side of the games where it belongs - in the gutter.

I prefer a loftier plane. Of course, few - maybe none - of us here will have much clue about what the next stage involves. But I think it is possible - in the same way that astronomers understand the cosmos by listening to radio pings - to get a sense of it by listening to what top pros have said. I list some things that have struck me.

Material: Shimamura Toshihiro said the way to judge josekis is by the fighting shapes produced. This is material turned into energy, a concept that seems to exercise top chess coaches at present.

Time: You have to be patient much longer than you might think. Understanding honte is all very well, but it's a pretty amateurish level. True patience is understanding that the endgame depends on the joseki chosen.

Quality: Since this is the stage at which the shadows lift, for a top pro this dimension becomes much more important than time or material. And it is remarkable how often the centre - the cosmos - features in this dimension, even though it is often unspoken. For example, we see Takagawa's love of caps and jumps - qunitessential centre plays. We see Sakata's amazing second line plays which are really all about a beater flushing pheasants into the centre to be peppered with shot. We see Go Seigen's mind-boggling ability to see aji in every nook and cranny, leading to a kaleidoscopic fight that often resembles tossing numerous unknown elements into a blender then trying to work out what was in the mixture. We see Shuei's love of centre-facing L-shapes, and the same sort of centre strength in Yi Ch'ang-ho.

But best of all, for me, was the realisation that came just recently, as I worked on Shuei's commentaries on games by his pupils. It dawned on me that what he highlights most of all are defects in the results of his pupils' play in the corners and on the sides, and that these defects stem from the pupils thinking only about the corners and sides. Within that scope their plays are efficient and tactically aware. But what Shuei spots is that they show no care for the centre.

Spurred on by a chess player, I am beginning to believe that what Meijins like Shuei finally understand about go - the surrounding game - is that it is all about surrounding the centre, but not letting on!

Fantastic post!

I went through the stages in my mind as I've played this game over the years. Some have come in a different order, but I remember going through most of them. The higher levels I have a theoretical understanding of, but theory without practice is what keeps me from piercing through.

I love the part about tenuki. Thank god I went through my tenuki phase and came to the other side. I see this phase as akin to the rebellious temperament of a teenager, based on a territorial and mathematical outlook on the game. Tenuki is important, but it has changed along with the game. To me Go is currently about power (like you said), flexibility and timing. And the more understanding the better.

I'm also in love with honte, of course.

I remember reading an article on the AGA website with Michael Redmond. There he talks about how the endgame must be read out a hundred moves ahead in every variation, and how there are subtle and complex ways of getting or losing a point through the course of these hundred moves. The first quote in the interview is about how his study of yose has transformed his opening game!

Honte has beauty, and is the periphery of my own realm of patience. Perhaps once I become much stronger, I will begin to see the beauty inherent in this kind of yose. Until then my patience has very real limits.

Beautiful post.

John Fairbairn wrote:the beginner [...] Thickness is too easily confused with influence, so he will generally ignore that.

Usually, beginners ignore thickness and influence because they do not or only hardly know what they are. Usually, SDKs and 1d-3d ignore or else underestimate them because they do not know or not well enough how to use them. Confusing the two concepts contributes to the difficulty but is not its core.

material (territory)

Why should chess material be equated with territory? It might as well be equated with, e.g., territory and stones.

It is all about POWER!!!

With which meaning do you use power here?

Shimamura Toshihiro said the way to judge josekis is by the fighting shapes produced.

This is obviously insufficient. In particular, the already existing territory is not meaningless! The more interesting question is whether "fighting shapes" is just a metaphor for thickness, influence, options, choices, aji, development directions.

This is material turned into energy

Natural flow, beauty of shapes and energy are terms designed to hide rather than teach concepts. Instead of speaking of energy, one should rather express the things one means. Maybe 'future potential of the kinds X, Y, Z'.

True patience is understanding that the endgame depends on the joseki chosen.

This understanding does not need patience. Patience is good, but not needed for this particular understanding.

what Meijins [...] finally understand [...] is that it is all about surrounding the centre

It is all about ALSO the center.

It does not require meijins to understand this. IMO, most 4d+ amateurs understand it, although to varying degrees.

Phoenix wrote:the endgame must be read out a hundred moves ahead in every variation

Depending on how the sequences are constructed, 100 might not be an exaggeration. When creating reduction sequences for positional judgement during the middle game (as for the book I am currently writing), it is more like roughly 60, but every sequence is for determining either Black's or White's territory. If two such sequences are combined (maybe Redmond prefers to construct expected endgame-like sequences rather than positional judgement's reduction sequences), then about 100 endgame moves should be expected.

The number seems high, but many moves of such sequences are straightforward. Those are depth first search sequences.

RobertJasiek wrote:

Phoenix wrote:the endgame must be read out a hundred moves ahead in every variation

Depending on how the sequences are constructed, 100 might not be an exaggeration. When creating reduction sequences for positional judgement during the middle game (as for the book I am currently writing), it is more like roughly 60, but every sequence is for determining either Black's or White's territory. If two such sequences are combined (maybe Redmond prefers to construct expected endgame-like sequences rather than positional judgement's reduction sequences), then about 100 endgame moves should be expected.

The number seems high, but many moves of such sequences are straightforward. Those are depth first search sequences.

One hundred was the exact number mentioned in the article.

And it's quite a feat, unlike what you seem to think.

If you see the endgame as a series of sequences one can pick, going from biggest double-sente play all the way down to tiny gote plays in one, unbranched variations then yes, a 100-move yose would be a piece of cake.

As it turns out, there are different plays which end in different positions which end in different possibilities for yose. And things can easily be muddled up when one of the players refuses to respond, and launches a yose combination of his own. Then you have to keep in mind the timing, sequencing and resulting positions of every variation. These, in turn, end up forming a slightly different yose.

For a pro, this is calculated about a hundred moves ahead, as mentioned. This means just about as soon as they can decide (again, with good reading depth) the final status of each group. Undecided groups (possible ko, etc.) and their use/abuse have to be taken into account as you work out the yose. That's quite a load!

Despite everything, I feel the need to point out that there are other things to consider in people's ideas aside from semantics and logical fallacies. There are ways to appreciate people's opinions other than quantifying and evaluating each and every word.

It's a matter of appreciating the purpose and spirit behind the written words.

I believe what John wanted to achieve here was to puzzle and inspire, and give his thoughts, so that we can take what we feel enriches us as people as well as Go players. It's a story about personal development, namely how he perceives that a player normally progresses towards his own Go.

And I'm sure he understands everyone is different.

Take a moment to soak in meaning and take and reject what ideas you will, instead of clashing with definitions and counterpoints.

Phoenix wrote:Then you have to keep in mind the timing, sequencing and resulting positions of every variation. These, in turn, end up forming a slightly different yose. [...meta-discussion skipped]

Here the breadth comes in. If, during a 100 moves long sequence, we have about 20 decision moments and (only!) 2 alternatives for each, we already speak of reading 2^20 variations:)

I would add another stage sort of a crystallized stage where as a professional ages they are able to get by on efficiency of play and lose flexibility and under estimate novel plays, then they start self reflecting sort of like a diamond. Though they still win a good number of games, they aren't necessarily in their prime any longer, these are the most interesting to me since they know what the minimal they can get by with with their particular style, and eliminate many of the nonsense moves.

John Fairbairn wrote:A chess beginner will learn about material using numbers to value the pieces. The go equivalent might be concentrating on the corners and josekis, striving to see the difference between territory and thickness.

A chess beginner uses conventional number values for pieces to be able to quickly determine if certain exchanges are equivalent. Of course, this is a simple evaluation that is quite often ignoring the larger picture. For example, exchanging a bishop for a knight is a very different thing in a closed position versus an open one, and the number system ignores this. As chess players get better they begin to understand this and revalue the situation based on more fluid considerations.

I see the Go equivalent as determining the value of different areas/groups and their possible expansions. A beginner Go player when threatened might decide to defend a corner because he knows that it is easier to make life and territory in the corner, and he knows the joseki for defending the corner. As that player gets better he may see that defending the corner gives his opponent influence in the center and that board position favors his opponent if he cedes the center, while he can destroy much potential territory if he plays towards the center.

I don't agree with Kasparov there... Actually I'm really surprised by this statement. In my opinion, this is even a quite reductive vision of the games.

In a way, there are as many criteria as dimensions but at the end (particularly for him) there is only one : "the good move in a context"

It must be quite the same for Go.