Zen-style

HISTORY

Zen-style is influenced by the strategies of computer programs of AlphaGo and Leela, as well the ideas of a currently anonymous American mathematician. The first recorded game of Go in which Zen-style is played occurred on June 24th, 2018 in an online match between KGS accounts “Awesomeman” (the account of Cullen Mott) and “dunedin,” with Awesomeman taking Black, starting with the tengen, and winning by resignation. The name comes from its parallels to Zen itself–a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty. Like Zen, the fuseki is a technique of detachment to cause singularity. Mott admits that the name “sounds a little pretentious,” but “strongly {sees} the commonalities between the fuseki and the religious practices {sic.}” Mott postulates that the fuseki of AlphaGo Zero and Leela Zero will look more and more like Zen-style with time.

MORE TECHNICAL DISCUSSION

The player playing Zen-style tries to assess the focal point of a position and then play it. This is drastically different from all other fuseki–which are all characterized by specific distributions of stones and common patterns of development.

Focal point: a unique critical point that enables the largest number of possible paradigm-shifts. With every move before the endgame, a new focal point is created, and so a player may play almost an entire game exclusively trying to find and play them. In this way Zen-style is a purely responsive fuseki.

Paradigm shifts: a variation where one or (usually) both players change their local or global strategies.