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TheUltimateProbe
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ThrowInOrNot
AllStarsOpening
CounteringMirrorGo
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Mirror Go
Path: CentralLine   · Prev: BlackSheepRengo2003   · Next: SanrenseiFuseki
  Difficulty: Intermediate   Keywords: Opening, Strategy, Go term

In a game of mirror go (Japanese mane-go, "mimic go"), one player plays each move at a point that "mirrors" his opponent's previous move. Usually, the "mirror" is a 180-degree rotation about the tengen.

The theory behind mirror go is that a move that mirrors the opponent's move can't be worse off. Also, the player who mirrors the moves can abort the mirroring process when his opponent makes a bad move, giving him an advantage.

In present games, White is more likely to perform the mirroring as Black is burdened by a komi. Some competitions forbid mirror go to exceed a certain number of moves.

(Which competitions do this? And why?)

unkx80: I wrote this when the tournaments organized by the Singapore Weiqi Association had a clause that forbids mirror go exceeding 60 moves, but I am not sure why. But this clause has been removed.

Below are two games that demonstrate mirror go.

[Diagram]
Black mirrors White

[Diagram]
White mirrors Black


Various players have tried mirror go at different times. Here is Go Seigen's attempt against Kitani Minoru in 1929. DaveSigaty


I have a naive question: it seems to me that playing manego is a decent strategy if your opponent isn't too weak, and if you don't blindly mirror their moves.

It seems to me that you'll be able to keep sente all the time. So far, all of the examples in breaking manego requires some sort of unnatural move (playing at tengen, for example). If I see my opponent doing that, I'll simply ignore him.

On the other hand, if the opponent tries to attack my weak group, he / she would have the same weak group as well, which I simply counterattack. Again, if he / she makes a mistake in defense, I'll simply ignore the move and play elsewhere.

This seems too good to be true, so where's the flaw in my train of thoughts?

Jasonred Huh? Keep sente all the time? I'm not sure why? Could someone explain this to me? I thought that this GIVES sente all the time?

As for tengen, IMHO, the best time to use mirror go is when you're black, THEN play at tengen. There you go, now you can manego LOTS, and be confident that your center is stronger than your opponents.

Now, as to the flaw in your plan, if you play manego as white against me... here's the most obvious breaker: fierce battles in the center, if you're playing white, and have been exclusively playing manego. Or, in fact, in the MOST simplified case, this particular instance.

[Diagram]

Basically, ANY fight that is symmetrical, and CONNECTING will result in a win by whoever moved first, I think. Yes, you are equally badly/well off if there are two separate fights/groups, but if there's only ONE... then you WILL lose. (I think)

Now, personally, I think manego DEFINITELY has it's uses, IF YOU'RE PLAYING BLACK. Cause then at least you should be in a stronger position at any given time.

If you're playing white, then black can just lead the fight to the center. Then tengen is gonna be a sensible move after all, and you will WANT to follow, but can't. Either that or he'll atari you such that you can't capture after he does.

The SECOND flaw in manego is this: If you can't be worse off than your opponent, your opponent can't be worse off than YOU. In other words, the BEST you can hope for by pure manego is a draw game. BUT, black needs to beat komi. White needs to overcome the fact that black will win any fights in the center.



adamzero Dave's point is the best one worth making, but if one "does" want to talk mirrorgo strategy, then it is probably not to Black's advantage to play mirrorgo. Black must overcome komi. With every successive move, the size of the remaining moves is lower, and it is harder to overcome komi. Early in the game, nearly every possible move is worth more than six points, and that is when komi is thus most easily overcome.

Jasonred Exactly. Thanks for fleshing out what I was saying about komi, I wasn't 100% clear on what I was saying, but it all seems crystal after your explanation.


Now, all this brings up an important thought: How about handicap matches? Like, what if I played a Dan player and got a 9 stone handicap AND reverse komi? Would mirror go work for me then?

I see no reason why not! Even if my opponent breaks it, I would think that he'd have to give up more urgent moves to do so, giving me a chance to go for the jugular. Also, he's got to create territory or try to kill my stones, so I don't think he can "waste" moves by doing that.

Someone else analyse and point out my mistakes please? I'm sure there are some mistakes, or else I challenge some really strong player with this...

Answer: The stronger player just needs to capture one of the handicap stones. His moves will all be meaningful, and his stones will have gotten a liberty, while black's moves will have been meaningless. Put this position on a board, and you will see that any talk of mane-go from that point on is out of the question - the position in the two corners is no longer symmetrical, white has gotten a point (prisoner) but black has not, and white can play on the hoshi point at any time and effectively stop mane-go in any form.

[Diagram]
19x19 diagram

Jasonred Hmmm... IMHO, the biggest skill in Manego is knowing when to stop copying. And possibly, how to resume copying. So, the moment my opponent slaps down move 4, I'd have to respond to the invasion. AFTER that, I would possibly attempt to resume manego... maybe. (despite the fact that it's asymetrical...) Trading a corner for a wall so early on seems like the end to me, despite my being a terrible go player (20 plus kyu?) I'd only use mirror go on a stronger opponent to make up for my lack of fuseki knowledge... OBVIOUSLY, you don't use manego to win in-fighting or pushing games!



9x9 Mirror Go Problem

(Sebastian:) How about games against someone one stone below? This does not give handicap, but gyaku komi. Here's an example of a game I just played on KGS. I lost it with 0.5 points. Any hints how I could have prevented this? (BTW, the opponent, MartinX, has quite a proportion of unfinished games. Maybe those were similar games where his opponents didn't know what else to to but escape. Or he's an escaper himself. I'm not sure who broke off those games. Is there a way to tell this on KGS?)

[Diagram]
Moves 1 to 10

[Diagram]
Moves 11 to 19

At this point, after B19, I realized that Black was playing mirror go. Was this too late or could I still have saved the game?


[Diagram]
Moves 20 to 29

WC = W20


[Diagram]
Moves 30 to 39

WC = W30



9x9 Good Example

OK, I played another game with Mellow, who kindly agreed to try it out. Here's how he forced me to resign:

[Diagram]
Moves 1 to 10

[Diagram]
Moves 11 to 20

I wonder what I can learn from his play. In particular, my problem in the game with MartinX was that I did not realize that he was playing mirror go till move 19. Could I still have saved it at that time?

Zarlan: Of course. You should have played 21 at a and put his middle group in atari.

(Sebastian:) Sorry about the confusion: My game with MartinX is the previous one. This is the game with Mellow, which I resigned at move 21 because of a.



DaveSigaty: Let's see. You have found a stronger player friendly enough and patient enough to play you with 9 stones and a reverse komi. Your strategy is then to play mirror Go. How many moves into the game do you think it will be when your opponent invites you to leave? ;-) When they do, will you count it a success?

Jasonred True. It's pretty much socially unacceptable. And pretty moronic, as the whole idea of playing stronger players is to learn, and manego doesn't do this. (much... I guess maybe you could learn a little about shape?)

Frankly though, I'd say manego's ONLY use is in ruthless competitions. (other than learning when to break off manego itself) So, I was just giving an example of when I thought that manego would clinch a victory, or be really useful. That was an extreme example anyhow, umm... say you're playing for money, and someone gives you a 2 stone and reverse komi handicap? (Make sure you can fight better than your opponent before trying manego in this situation...)


Of course mirror Go has place in competitions (like any legal strategy). But what possible point does it have in amateur play? You bring no originality (the approach has been known for centuries). There is no intellectual content unless you believe that it is ultimately unsuccessful and therefore you as the mirroring player must find just the right point to break the symmetry in order to win (actually true in high-level play but probably not for a lot of amateurs). So why bother?

In China, mirror go is called Duong1 Puo1 Chi2. And there is a story about it.

It was Sung dynasty (perhaps about 1100 AD) in Chinese history. Su1 Duong1 Puo1 was a talented poet, artist, scholar....but very weak go player. Su was very creative, and enjoyed challenging any rules. In Chinese painting, traditionally the primary ink was black. Once Su painted a picture about a bamboo forest, which was very common in Chinese painting. However, he used red ink, which had never happened before. When friends questioned him: Have you ever seen a red bamboo? He replied: Have you ever seen a black bamboo?

One day, Su claimed he could beat a very strong go player. Everybody thought he must be joking again. Anyway, the strong player agreed to play Su a game. I don't know the result of the game, but from then on, mirror go was called Duong1 Puo1 Chi2 (duong puo's go)...... :)

So, brasenly or not, mirror go is an accepted strategy in Chinese tradition of go.


See also:



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