Brian Marshall
Hello, all.
I'm Brian Marshall, a 23 year old statistician. I started playing Go against the computer in 1999, but I only discovered online Go recently. Being trounced by a human being who knew what they were doing inspired me to try to learn something. And since I'm here, I might as well contribute what little I can.
The thing I see here on SL that I'm trying to learn is how to count the value of moves. There are some pages on miai and deiri counting but I don't think I really understand what material there is. Or what the discussion of temperature is about.
Any pointers to good reference books that teach counting would be much appreciated.
Charles Matthews The counting material on SL could certainly be improved - that goes for much else. After rapid development SL begins to have something of the correct scope, but with many weak patches.
Counting in go is used for (a) positional judgement and (b) endgame play. On the former there's a book by Cho Chikun, on the latter The Endgame by Ogawa and Davies. This stuff isn't the easiest or most useful, until you have a firm grip on likely tactics. Miai counting is essential for certain kinds of theoretical discussion, but I think most players don't think along those lines. As for temperature, it's OK as jargon, and as a working model of 'urgency', but it isn't a traditional aspect of go theory.