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BadHabits

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SlamTheStoneDown
SevenDeadlySins
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Sliding Stones On The Board
Path: BadHabits   · Prev: SingingWhenPlaying   · Next: SpeculativeInvasion
   

To the extent that you cannot slide a stone around on the board unless you are actually playing it and considering that you should not disturb the already played stones, this cannot be much of a bad habit, no?

Actually, when the goban is starting to be filled up, I quite like to SlamTheStoneDown and then slide it into place. Since I do like to SlamTheStoneDown, at least I don't upset the other stones if my aim is off - but I do sometimes have to slide it 2-3 places to get it into the desired spot.

Then again, my SlamTheStoneDown force and frequency is inversely proportional to the strength of my opponent :-)

-- MortenPahle


The problem is that there are two kinds of sliding stones, one good (or at least unobjectionable), the other really bad behaviour. To choose an intersection, let the stone come down on some nearby point (perhaps more in the open) and move it to that place is not bad behaviour. But it is bad behaviour to make a decision as to what to play, or change one's mind, after the stone has hit the board. One should not be moving the stone back and forth, or have it touch the board, stay at a spot for a while, then go somewhere else.

-- AndreEngels

Does anyone do this? I can see how it'd be annoying, but I've never seen it done. BTW, I just thought of yet another Go variant: SlidingGo ;^)

-- MortenPahle

It is not very common, but there are players who do this - they decide on a move, put the stone on the board, and with their finger still on the stone but the stone already on the board they start doubting again.

-- AndreEngels

I find this habit, of keeping a finger on the stone and seeing if one still likes the move, to be common among newbies who have a memory of playing Chess in childhood. There seems to be a common convention with teaching Chess that "once your finger leaves the piece, it is played". This leads, of course, to young players trying out a move on the board, then weaving their hand about with a finger still attached to the piece to see if the move is any good. I find that placing my own stone immediately, while their hand is still on the board, is a good way of demonstrating that their efforts at amnesty-through-continued-contact are fruitless :-)

This is not just a common convention in chess but a rule that is enforced in all tournaments. Once you touch a piece, you must move that piece, and once you release the piece, that is your move.

Actually that rule exists in go too, it is once your fingers leave the stone that it can be considered as played, and as such even if sliding the stones i a bad habit, playing before someone lets his fingers leave the stone is considered by many as an even worse one (and additionally I think that the japanese consider it as a form of forfeiting, could someone confirm this ?)

Actually, this seems to manifest as a set of BadHabits, which must be stripped away in layers:

Some of these habits tend to stick for the rest of the player's career; my hypothesis is that they weren't taught not to do it early enough :-)

-- BenFinney

Scartol: My guess is that the KiseidoGoServer isn't helping this matter any. The KGS client shows a ghost image of the stone to be played while the mouse is moving around (the java client JaGo does this too). This is helpful in visualizing and learning how to read, but players probably rely on it and then transfer the practice into real life.


I went to a go club for the first time a week and a half ago and I had a weird problem with an opponent who had an extremely loose shirt. Every time he reached across the board to play near where I was sitting, he would end up disturbing the stones on the board, but he never seemed to notice.

--BlueWyvern

I have just come back from my Go Association, after playing a game where I have to keep reminding my opponent about his shirt disturbing the stones on my upper-right corner. :-)

--unkx80


It's not completely off-topic I suppose since it involves moving stones around. Is it impolite to take a moment and reposition the stones if someone was a little less than careful with putting their stone down (or while removing captives)? I ask because I don't often play "live" folks, and the board I have is rather dinky (12"x12" roughly) with rather dinky stones, and it's VERY easy to have the best of intentions and mess things up. If things are just a bit wobbly, I can live with that, but if they start moving over to different intersections, then something has to be done. -- Remillard

Alex Weldon: The guy I play face-to-face most often has the annoying habit of often playing halfway between two intersections, forcing me to guess which one he actually played. Of course, I don't just continue playing on the assumption that I know where he played - I reach over and move his stone to the intersection I think it's at. Usually I'm right, but sometimes he moves it back to the other intersection and looks at me like I was trying to cheat by changing his move.

Hu: One can simply say "I will be unable even to begin to think about my move until you complete your move."

Stefan: I don't know whether it's polite or not, but I most certainly do this. Not that they need to be 100% regularly placed, but if they get a bit too loose it seems to disturb my thinking. In tournaments I try to avoid adjusting stones in an area where my opponent is looking/thinking, since that would be disturbing to him. In club games I don't even care about that. I did notice during tournaments that the players on Center Court usually don't care. It particularly strikes me every time I see Guo Juan play - goodness me she plays sloppily!

DaveSigaty: I live in Japan and most Sundays I watch both the Channel 12 Haya Go Championship and the NHK Tournament on television. To this amateur eye the pros do this often - both their own stones and their opponent's, regardless of whose turn it is. In clubs here everyone does it (I am an inveterate fiddler myself). I have never had or heard a complaint (of course in Japan one wouldn't ;-)

Jenny Radcliffe: I play teaching games sometimes with Alan Scarff (would it be more accurate to say he plays teaching games with me?). At any rate, he says he saw some professionals and discussed with some high-level amateurs, in Japan, and if someone moves a stone more accurately on to the intersection after it's been played, the better players will "tut tut" in disapproval. In fact, he says, the pros prefer it if the stones aren't too accurately laid, because if they are, it means you're relying on the board for visualisation, instead of seeing it in your head, and that leads to sloppy thinking. Personally, I go with the sloppy thinking. :)



Path: BadHabits   · Prev: SingingWhenPlaying   · Next: SpeculativeInvasion
This is a copy of the living page "Sliding Stones On The Board" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.