Reading Depth

   

The reading depth of a tactical analysis can be defined as the maximum number of moves one has to read before reaching a conclusion about a certain position.

Obviously, the depth of analysis depends on the knowledge or intuition of a player, which determines the level at which they can abort their analysis.

Lee Changho, playing in the second game of the 6th LG Cup final, read the placement of the double ladder break at move 70 before playing the descent of L2 at move 38. Nakayama Noriyuki in The Treasure Chest Enigma relates a story in which Kitani Minoru read to a depth of 37 moves. Nakayama Noriyuki in the game that earned him promotion to 6 dan professional read a critical fight to a depth of 20 moves [1].

The other important aspect of tactical analysis is reading width.

Example

[Diagram]

Experienced

For an experienced player the depth of analysis in this situation is zero or at most one. He knows that White can kill Black by playing at a.

[Diagram]

Knowledge of eyes

For anyone new to this situation, the depth of analysis is about 5: the number of moves to see that Black's seemingly making two eyes is fluked by the shortage of liberties.

[Diagram]

No knowledge of eyes

However, for a complete beginner lacking knowledge about two eyes, it is necessary to complete until capture:

[Diagram]

corner

In the worst case, this can take 14 moves, passes included.


[1] In KageS Secret Chronicles Of Handicap Go by Kageyama, his opponent (Yokoyama) lays out a sequence of 24 moves and comments "if you can't read that out instantly, you can't call yourself a pro."

As both Nakayama and Kageyama demonstrate in the two books mentioned, there are 20 moves and there are 20 moves. Nakayama has several problems that require one to read dozens of moves and Kageyama states that one must practice ladders till they become trivial reading exercises. Because the usefulness of certain joseki variations depend directly on a ladder, we routinely read ladders of 50 moves in the opening. That is very different from reading 37 moves in which several tesuji appear.


This is a copy of the living page "Reading Depth" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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