Kaya.gs Gossary

    Keywords: Online Go

This Gossary will be accesible through Kaya.gs Chat command line.

Eventually this list will be moved to another space as it grows much bigger, including translations for definitions and more. It will be always accessible and open.

In the chat window there will be a set of commands, like

  • :help
  • :link name
  • :+1 user

And with more relevance:

  • :senseis term

The idea is for people to have a very handy way to make a short consultation on a term, using the chat. So for example, someone says "That has bad aji!" someone with a question can do :senseis aji

That will print into the chat(only for the user) a short definition plus the link to senseis.

The list of words is updated manually after i check the text for some basic QA. It is done periodically, so changes are not reflected immediately in the server.

Note: no need to add the link, i add it automagically

Gossary

In many of the definitions below, the author begins by saying that the term is a Japanese Go term that has been adopted into English. I don't think it is necessary to say this. Just get on with the definition.

  • aji:

Aji is a Japanese Go term that has been adopted into English. In the context of Go, aji roughly means possibilities left in a position. This definition is derived from one the meanings of the word aji in ordinary usage: taste, in the sense that it lingers. By analogy, aji in Go refers to lingering possibilities that are latent and cannot be used immediately, but might come to life if the situation changes. That is why aji is also often translated as potential.

  • kikashi:

Kikashi, a Japanese go term adopted into English, is a sente move that produces a certain additional effect. Because it has done its work, it can normally be freely abandoned unless it is part of a much larger chain or group. It is usually translated as forcing move. A kikashi stone is a stone played with kikashi. In many cases, kikashi stones may be viewed lightly. Such a kikashi stone has done its work by evoking a response and are easy to throw away. In other words, kikashi stones often are disposable stones.

  • sente:

A move is sente if the opponent has to answer it, so the player who plays it will have sente after the exchange (opposite of gote).

  • joseki:

A joseki is a sequence of moves at the beginning of a game, usually confined to the corners, the result of which is considered to be a balanced outcome for both players. Determining which joseki is appropriate in any given circumstance depends on the proper analysis of the whole-board situation, especially to the placement of friendly and enemy stones in the corners adjacent to the one where a joseki is being played out.

  • shibori:

The squeeze tesuji (shibori) is a play by which you squeeze the opponent's stones into an inefficient dumpling shape. Often a successful squeeze includes sacrificing one or more stones to make the opponent's shape bad first.

  • tenuki:

Tenuki, a Japanese go term adopted into English, denotes playing somewhere else. Black plays tenuki by not answering White's last move locally, but instead adding a move in another part of the board.

  • moyo:

A framework, or moyo, is an area where one player has a large influence, and which potentially could become that player's territory.

  • miai:

Miai denotes that there are two different options such that, if one player takes one, the other player can take the other.

  • Tsuke:

The Contact play or attachment is a move which is played in immediate contact with (that is, directly next to) a stone of the opponent (without being in such a relationship with a friendly stone).

  • atari:

The state of a stone or group of stones that has only one liberty.

  • false-eye:

A real eye cannot have it's final internal liberty taken until all external liberties are removed; a false eye can.

  • fuseki:

Fuseki is a Japanese go term meaning arraying stones. This normally occurs in the first moves of a game so fuseki is often used as a synonym for opening.

  • gote:

Losing the initiative. Pronounced "go-teh". Borrowed from Japanese, lit. "following move". From the standpoint of one player. A move which loses the initiative, since it need not be answered by the opponent, thus giving him sente.

  • hane:

Hane is a Japanese go term adopted by English speaking players. A hane is a move which "reaches around" one or more of the opponent's stones.

  • tengen:

The center point of the Go board.

  • yose:

Yose, a Japanese go term adopted into English, are moves that approach fairly stable territory, typically enlarging one's own territory while reducing the opponent's. Such plays are usually not as large as opening plays or middlegame plays affecting the life and death of large groups, so they typically occur in the endgame. However, they may occur at any stage. A large yose may even occur in the opening stage. Contrast this with small yose?, occurring late in the game and typified by moves on the first and second lines.

  • territory:

Superficially speaking, territory is the empty points surrounded, or rather "controlled", by a player.

  • bamboo-joint:

The name, like the 'knuckle' on a stick of bamboo, comes from the strength of the connection. It is normally impossible to cut through it. Note that this shape doesn't normally occur without neighbouring enemy stones. The value of the bamboo joint depends largely on the context.

  • keima:

Keima, a Japanese go term adopted into English, is often referred to as a 'knight's move', as the pattern is the same as the way the chess piece moves.

  • snapback:

A snapback is the position created by playing a single stone with the intent of being captured because the reply to the capture is a larger capture.

  • seki:

Seki, a Japanese go term adopted into English, means mutual life. In its simple form, it is a sort of symbiosis where two live groups share liberties which neither of them can fill without dying.

Alternate definition? A seki is a situation in which two or more opposing groups, none of which has two eyes (but which may or may not have one eye), are arranged in such a way that not any one group can remove the last liberties of any other group (in the hope of killing it) without putting itself in atari and thus causing its own death and the removal of that group's stones from the go board. Such groups are said to be alive in seki and are left on the board at the end of the game. Whether or not the vacant points inside a seki can be counted or filled-in when scoring a game depends on the set of rules that is in force during the game in which the seki occured.

  • pincer:

The pincer prevents the attacked stone or group from forming an ideal base.

  • ponnuki:

A ponnuki is the process of capturing a single stone, leaving a diamond shape.

Conanbatt : Totally rejected two. This defintion is long, unclear, and it incites the reader to play them and to think a bad move is a good move. More than the fake eye one, this definition deservers a TOTAL rewrite.

  • overplay:

An overplay tries to gain too much. You don't learn much by playing underplays; you just lose a game by 10 points, and you aren't sure why. Playing overplays is instructive. When you get punished: you learn something. You'll never find the line between the two if you always play under it... And, if you overplay constantly, your overplays will get smaller and smaller as you learn, until you find yourself playing right on that fine line of "good play", or at least close to it.

  • ogeima:

The large knight's move is a knight's move which reaches one line further. The Japanese ōgeima literally means large keima; also seen transliterated as oogeima or ohgeima.

  • ko:

Ko is a Japanese go term adopted into English usage. It describes a situation where two alternating single stone captures would repeat the original board position. The alternating captures could repeat indefinitely, preventing the game from ending. The ko rule resolves the situation.

  • star-point:

Star points (J. hoshi, lit. "star") are the nine points on a 19x19 go board marked by small dots, where handicap stones are placed. They also serve as a visual reference for the players. Otherwise, they have no effect on the game. They are one of the named points on the board.

  • empty-triangle:

Typically, the empty triangle is bad, being inefficient and prone to shortage of liberties. Empty triangle is also sometimes called the devil's shape (onigatachi), because it brings to mind the long nose of one kind of Japanese demon.



This is a copy of the living page "Kaya.gs Gossary" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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