Uberdude wrote:RobertJasiek wrote:"the optimal compromise between safety and speed of local movement".
Your definition misses the key point of efficiency [...] in that you are achieving as much as possible using limited resources, i.e. each stone is working well and isn't wasted.
Efficiency is not about achieving as much as possible with the given stones. Instead, the go concept describing this is, what I call, 'best usage' (of one's stones). There are times when one's stones' best usage is their efficient placement (optimal compromise between safety and speed of local movement) and other times when one's stones' best usage is their safe (e.g., honte) placement (e.g., when one defends one's shape against possible later ko threat material).
The property "each stone is working well and isn't wasted" is a property of the strategic concepts 'best usage', 'efficiency' and 'haengma'. As a property of efficiency, it is a local property; as a property of haengma, it is a local to global property; as a property of best usage, it is an all-inclusive property, which in particular summarises inhowfar / how well efficiency and haengma are achieved.
Your definition sounds as though you are trying to use it to describe somewhere between fast-paced yet thin and leaving weakness play, and more solid but slower development.
Yes.
But there is no unique optimum on this scale,
Exactly. That's why my definition speaks of compromise.
Takemiya can make a big loose moyo and Kitani some small solid territory and both be efficient.
Exactly. Efficiency is a strategic concept without absolute quality. Values of efficiency are assumed, at particular moments of the game / a sequence, in contexts of positional context, playing style etc. This context-embedding is not stated explicitly by my definition, and further research should be made to provide explicit embedding of such context. My definition is a working definition to identify the aspects of efficiency that can already be identified well. I encourage everybody to refine the definition, however, it must not be confused with haengma or best usage.
gogameguru wrote:Like Uberdude, I also find that definition surprising
It has surprised also me because
1) it is surprisingly simple when seeking a balance between safety and movement speed,
2) it avoids improper confusion with other strategic concepts (i.e., efficiency is something that can be studied and, in some respects, expressed as values such as 'territory efficiency' without having to determine the ultimate winning move, the haengma's possibly global scale and the best usage's broader goals).
and his definition seems to be better.
Uberdude's definition is not better for the reasons stated above. In particular, he confuses efficiency with or with aspects of haengma and best usage. This makes his definition mightier and so "more attractive" at first glance. It would be even mightier and yet more "attractive" to say "most efficient for a player is what leads to his best score at the game end". I dislike such overkills. Strategic concepts must have practical meaning. My definition has practical meaning: it is so practical that already important aspects of it can be expressed by values. Uberdude's definition is not practical because it wants to assess too much together including haengma and best usage.
To start with,
If you have further objections, please state them! Only by discussing all we can find out or verify the best possible definition or description of the concept.
why did you decide it was necessary to include the word 'local' in the definition you gave in your book?
Because efficiency is best understood as a local concept. If relative best relation and placement at a global scale is the issue, then the concepts to be considered are called 'haengma' and 'best usage'. Suppose you would want to exclude the 'local' condition from efficiency, then which strategic concept at all and instead do you still have for studying local, in some sense optimal stone development? Efficiency is the concept on the local scale. There is no need to remove this great property from the concept, quite like you do not remove "local" when considering "currently surrounded safe territory of a group". There are concepts for local considerations (territory) and concepts for global considerations (influence, implication of potential future territory on the global scale). Similarly, there is local optimal stone development (efficiency, short time scale) and there is global optimal stone development (haengma for asssing what is or will be in a short time scale; best usage for considering development over the time of a whole game's progress).
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Joaz, IMO, a factual discussion about strategic concepts and references to (book or other) sources do not need an admin hint.