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Hi (Bill),
It strikes me that there is a great deal of endgame information published on SL but it could be organized a whole lot better. I would like to contribute to its organization but I must admit that my knowledge of the relationships of core concepts of this subject (miai values, komaster/komonster, hyperactive/placid kos, ambiguous positions, orthodox play, temperature, etc.) are not at a level high enough that I could consider myself an expert source on the subject. It seems to me that there are one or two scattered examples of miai values of not-so-simple positions, e.g. Picky Endgame Problem?, Komaster, Three Stage Ko, and two other examples I can't find. Miai Values List is helpful but is not an explanation so much as a categorization of shapes, much like the basic nakade shapes.
For instance, Beginner Study Section is extremely well organized for someone new to Go who wants to get better just by reading. I followed that section and jumped to 3 kyu in 3 months from just that source (and Kageyama's Lessons book), so kudos for those who wrote that.
Would it help the organization process to create a path, including example problems and solutions, with a suggested order of learning the concepts and the concepts' relationships with each other? It occurs to me that the relationships themselves are not so well-defined. Maybe that's because the research on this subject is new and pioneered by a select few (read: EB and yourself).
Kyle (kb)
Hi, Kyle. :)
I think that organization, via a path or otherwise, is a great idea. The miai values list can perhaps be reorganized to show the derivation of values, since in most cases the followers of a position in the list are also in the list.
Traditional methods of calculation work well for non-kos and placid kos. One snag which catches even experienced analysts is reverses. There are a few examples of more advanced ko evaluation here on SL, but that is really an expert topic.
The beginner study section page is almost as old as SL itself. Although there were only three authors listed on that page, it actually went through many iterations of incremental refinement by different people to what it is today.
As for endgame topics, CGT path may or may not be useful to you. Still, something like an introductory or overview article might be better, perhaps something similar to Tom's technical introduction to CGT. The overall organization of endgame topics on SL seems rather haphazard to me. I think part of the reason is that we have two different views of the endgame, i.e., the traditional view, and the radically new mathematical treatment of endgame topics that is being pushed out by Bill Spight et al., causing some kind of conflict.