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DieterVerhofstadt

 

Dieter's ideas on Go Theory
   

To whom this may concern.

Sensei's library is a place where I read other people's contributions with the highest interest. It is also my stronghold for studying the game. Therefore I'd like to keep a page here with my ideas on Go Theory, how I have been applying it in my games and how these ideas evolve over time. It is probably only of interest to me. If SL is not the place where such a page should be kept, I will remove it.


On KGS I have been experimenting with a new account, playing moves that comply with Go Theory. When choosing a move, I awkwardly play the theoretical move, even if my emotions are crying to do otherwise. Emotions are surely key for human intelligence, but emotions are also responsible for the majority of our bad habits. Those bad habits mostly fall into two categories: attacking/defending worthless stones and fear of losing territory.

The experiment also teaches me the reasons why I play moves that I did not include in my list of theoretical principles. Thus I can decide whether these reasons are good principles themselves, or stubborn remainders of bad habits.

I started this experiment, contradictorily, after Guo Juan's lecture to the BGF. She showed different examples of rules that are overthrown by pros nowadays, typically by the Koreans. Japanese have been relying on proverbs and formulas too much. The Koreans have replaced old joseki with new ones and constantly defy common sense with sharp reading. A second reason were the articles by Denis Feldmann on [ext] http://jeudego.org, where he urges us amateurs to obey Go Theory and not fool ourselves into the thought that our reading is sharp enough to outplay theory. I thought it would be interesting, in my quest to become a really good player, to first immerse myself in a bath of Go Theory and then add the sharp reading.

When applying Go theory, I must of course establish what Go Theory means. Go theory essentially boils down to a list of proverbs. Currently, the list of proverbs I find trustworthy is the following.

1. Technical proverbs

1.1. Close combat (basic instinct)

  1. Hane the contact play
  2. Extend from atari if it creates more liberties
  3. Block the push through
  4. Block the diagonal creating the same shape as
  5. Extend from a diagonal contact play
  6. Connect against the peep
  7. Hane at the head

1.2. Other technical proverbs

  1. Make no empty triangles and avoid moves leading to them
  2. Do not peep at bamboo joints and don't make moves leading to them
  3. Extend from a crosscut in the absence of neighbouring stones
  4. Don't take away your own liberties
  5. Knight's move against capping play from the third line
  6. One space extension against capping play from the fourth line
  7. Only cut knight's moves if it gives a clear advantage
  8. Capture the cutting stones
  9. Cut the side you don't want (because your opponent will have to capture the cutting stone).
  10. Don't peep where you can cut
  11. Capture the ladder as soon as possible
  12. Reduce a framework by playing on the sector line

1.3. Attack and defense

  1. Knight's move to attack
  2. One space jump to defend
  3. Two space jump to sacrifice

(note: the contact play for defense is not included, because I currently feel that contact plays are emergency measures).

2. Strategic proverbs

2.1. Cutting and connecting

  1. Don't let your groups become surrounded
  2. Connect your groups (or important stones)
  3. Sacrifice unimportant stones
  4. Do not sacrifice cutting stones (see meaning of stones)
  5. Cut weak groups - split on a large scale
  6. Surround the enemy group, then play the vital point

2.2. Territory and influence

  1. Play away from thick groups and stable positions
  2. Don't build influence in the direction of stable positions
  3. Build box shaped territories
  4. First corners then sides then center

2.3. Attack and defense

  1. Attack from a distance
  2. Make a base first, then jump to the center.

3. Meta proverbs

  1. The enemy's key point is yours
  2. Don't touch equivalence

First results after playing this way on KGS.

I found myself connecting my groups much more and defending my territory much less. This turned out to have a great effect in the later stages of the game. I guess that's called thickness. In the late middle game, I often had an occasion to kill (parts of) large groups.

I also lost some games in fighting, because I didn't do any reading beyond a result that could be evaluated by one of the proverbs. Obviously reading is necessary to win fights and games, and often reading supersedes the theoretical move.

There is no proverb that warns against connecting along dame. While I connected my groups, the opponent walked along on the fourth line.

In the opening, I almost instinctively prevent my opponent from making two corner enclosures (see AllowingTwoShimariDiscussion). I also combine pincers with extensions. The latter is surely according to go theory. The first is also a proverb, but one which is difficult to convincingly demonstrate.

Also in the opening, I found myself mindlessly playing joseki. Since I have been receiving teaching by Guo Juan, I treat joseki as virtual groups and try to fit them into my fuseki. This is already better than before. Still, in fast games I play joseki without consciously applying go theory. There is some hard work left for me to unlearn this bad habit.

As for the middle game, I seem to have a very bad intuition on when to cut and when not to cut.

More recently, I lost games at 1 kyu level because I failed to kill opponent's groups thus having him end up with more territory. Killing can not be done by heuristics.

So here are a couple of guidelines I add after some time:

  • Avoid connecting along dame
  • Keep territory and thickness in balance
  • When the opponent does not defend a surrounded group, read carefully and kill.

Comments by other deshi.


PeterMielke: This sounds a bit like [ext] Design Patterns in the OOP community, only with the proverbs the context isn't stated. But there are [ext] problems.


Remillard: Some of the technical proverbs have links to terms inside them, but they don't have an overall link to THE proverb that explains what they mean. Should these be added to the proverbs page? For example: "Knight's move against capping play from the third line". Keima and Boshi are explained as singular concepts, but the overall proverb is not explained.

For what it's worth, I really like this page. I use proverbs as guiding tools for any number of situations and I've found that some situations simply don't arise anymore if good technique is played early and played often.


Dieter: Thanks. I like to make a difference between a proverb and what I consider to be a heuristic. A proverb is a heuristic which is generally accepted and exists as a real proverb in Japanese Go literature. But that is only what I consider to be a proverb. Already the proverbs page contains a lot of proverbs that are either doubtful or self-invented and often both.


Remillard: Well regardless if it's a proverb or a heuristic, would it make sense to make a page for the items that don't have one yet? Perhaps that's in the works, I don't mean to be nosey. Just terribly curious about the ones I haven't heard before (like the Knight's Move one).



This is a copy of the living page "Dieter's ideas on Go Theory" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.