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Sake Bottle Shape
   

[Diagram]
Diag.: The sake bottle shape

Black 1 makes a dog's head or sake bottle shape . it is said to be negative, but in my humble opinion that takes into account only for its efficiency in jumping towards the center. One prefers to jump as far as a, making a horse head shape.



Discussion. HolIgor: Everybody knows the proverb that sake bottle is negative. A difficult thing with the proverbs is that they should be reinterpreted, formulated in terms that are closer for your individual thought pattern. Any proverb and this one in particular should be understood. So why is it negative? Your opinion is that it is just worse than the horse head shape. That is good enough reason, of course. The question is in the efficiency of stones. But that could not be all of it. Other people say that it is not a good eye shape. Is that true? I have a feeling that since this

Of course, these discussions are empty without opponent's stones and your own support.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Moves b and c are also possible. Are they better? When they are better?

There is another proverb: strong players play straight, weak players make diagonal moves. One day I'd like to discuss this obscure statement too.

See Also [ext] This page for a discussion on the sake bottle shape. -- MortenPahle



Alex Weldon: The thing that confuses me about saying that this is a bad shape. I remember reading somewhere on SL that reductions of good shape? (ie, a good shape, minus one or a few stones) are also good shape (because they can become a good shape), while extensions of bad shape (ie, adding one or a few stones to a bad shape) are also bad shape. Now, the tortoise shell is supposed to be good shape. It's clear that the sake bottle is part of it (actually if you look at it, the tortoise shell is a sake bottle mirrored about the line just beside the ikken tobi part). So, obviously, saying that a reduction of good shape is also a good shape is not always true.

[Diagram]
Diag.: Sake Bottle and Tortoise Shell


Charles Alex, the reason you find that confusing is that the principle stated isn't true. It might be half-true: a partial shape that can't develop into a good shape may not be good. But the other way round? I don't think that's sensible or acceptable as an abstract principle.


Alex Weldon: That's basically the conclusion I reached. I suppose that you must take everything you read on SL with a grain of salt. Incidentally, the original phrasing of the "proverb" I mentioned was: "All subsets of the basic five shapes are good shape," and appears on A Static Treatise on Shape. I've added a note on that page that the statement is controversial, and added it to the controversial statements page.


KarlKnechtel: Funny, the thing that confuses me about it, is how you get a 'sake bottle' shape out of a triangle of three stones. But then, I have never been so lucky as to see a bottle of sake, much less try the stuff ;) So I wouldn't know what the bottle looks like. Or is this something like the imaginative names given to the constellations? (... Hey, now *there's* an idea. The table shape rather reminds me of the Big Dipper, for instance.)



This is a copy of the living page "Sake Bottle Shape" at Sensei's Library.
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