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GoHumour
HumourAlmostProverbs

 

Humourless go proverbs
    Keywords: Proverb, Humour
  • Never attempt to take a move back without proper thought.
  • The first line is the route to many life-and-death problems you'll never want to solve twice or meet in a game.
  • Try to make your opponent's vital point somewhere within reach of your sleeve.
  • The best kind of ladder-breaker is the one you talk your opponent into thinking really works.
  • The best kind of ko threat to start another ko to play when your opponent is running short of time is the one for which counting the ko threats for the threatened ko will take longest.[1]
  • Strange things happen at the 18-1, 2-19 and 18-19 points. [2]
  • There is always a chance your opponent will play tenuki.
  • Ten points in reverse sente is usually worth as much as five points in gote.
  • Play small points before non-urgent points.
  • It is sometimes necessary to resign; but it is always possible to dispute your opponent's count of the game.
  • There is death in the triple hane.
  • If you have a stone captured in a ladder, you should try to take it off the board as soon as possible.
  • Never resign.[3]

[1] Confused: Charles, in such a situation it also would be very efficient to have your opponent trying to digest this advice. The sentence is really mind-boggling.

[2] unkx80: These points are none other than 1-2 points taken from three different orientations. IMHO, this one can make it into the actual Go proverbs list, under the life and death section. One thing that comes to my mind is the descent tesuji.

Charles This is correctly (and humourlessly) pointed out. Well done!

[3] Charles Bill - not original:(. It appeared in a BGJ list of proverbs for 15 kyus (designed to keep them that way). I think 'Only resign after filling the last dame, but do so quickly so that the game cannot be counted' could replace?


Harpreet: Extremely dense person's question: Why does it say humourless? Is that supposed to be part of the humour?

Charles I don't know to what extent this is limited to Brits - but we traditionally find a certain kind of humourless, over-serious or pompous attitude both unforgiveable and very funny.

TJ Your list is incomplete without: "Never resign if you should have won". Applying this and "Never resign if your opponent is acting like an annoying git" have done wonders to help me maintain 16 kyu for some time now.



This is a copy of the living page "Humourless go proverbs" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.