Take a 19x19 board with 1000 points komi for white. Optimal play for black is to start crying and slap the opponent in the face with a used (for various purposes) sock.
Q.E.D.

My comment was actually based on a half-joke, one with a lot of truth behind it. It goes that Korean pros say they have found the best first move. Would you like to see it?



If you look at a database of pro games you will see that the incredibly vast majority open on either the 3-4 or 4-4 to the point of almost no other opening moves are being played by most professionals nowadays. I was able to find exceptions, but those are just that - exceptions.

I say the corners are most urgent for the reason pak0 stated - the reason every beginner is taught the axiom of corners-sides-center: it takes fewer stones to gain territory in the corner. That makes the corner move urgent, because if you don't play there, your opponent will and you will be behind. A proverb says "lose 4 corners, resign" - that isn't always necessary, but it does mean you'll have to fight hard for your victory.

You are right that there is more to consider than just territory on your first move, which is why the 4-4 is becoming the most common first move even though technically it doesn't gain you any territory. But even the less standard moves (6-4, 6-3, and 5-5) are still "near" the corner and the idea is that, when your opponent tries to take it, you already have an approach stone ready to go. Even if they don't take the corner, their location is based on the idea that the corner is the most valuable and so your opponent will have to play there or else you get a giant corner. The 5-5 is arguably more center oriented, but it is still just as close to the corner as it is to tengen meaning it still places influence toward a corner. Tengen and the 8-8 opening are the only two professional first moves I have ever seen that do not attempt to influence a corner, that doesn't mean there aren't more (I would be surprised if there aren't). Such moves are not about playing for points, they are about trying to claim the whole board, they are about outfighting your opponent, they are about complicating things, they are big and bold, not calm and logical and I doubt any professional would say they are optimal.

If a better strategy emerges, I would be surprised. Maybe some of us will live long enough for go to be solved and we'll know for sure, but if I had to put money on it, I'd bet the 4-4 or 3-4 is the "correct" first move. For now, pros like Gan Siyan can play interesting games that defy commonly held beliefs, but that doesn't mean that the 8-8 opening is going to become standard.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

I've always assumed that the "it's easier to make territory in the corners" line was just a half truth that pros tell us because it's easily understandable by anyone and naturally leads us to play moves that actually achieve a purpose. (Something that's harder than it sounds )

Who knows what goes on in pro heads, but I see corners as key points from which to affect the rest of the board, and I find it hard to believe that any pro has ever found themselves thinking "I'll play a 3-4 because it makes 6 points."

They would if the 3-4 was open in yose . (And, actually, that still might be there logic on move 1)

You are right, you don't just play the corner for points (otherwise the 3-3 would be the most popular opening move) but if you are going to make a first move on a go board, the corner will get you more potential for points than any other area. This is why shoulder hitting a 4-4 stone is so bad (again, there are always exceptions, but in general). A shoulder-hit to a 4-4 grants your opponent fourth line corner profit. In 5 moves they can have 15 points of solid territory. You can't get that anywhere else. I would gladly play a game where I get every corner on the 4th line and my opponent gets outside thickness toward each side.


I say the corner is the urgent point because nowhere on the board will you get so much for so little. Yes, other points on the board are big, but I don't feel they are urgent. Now, in the heat of a fight, even a corner doesn't feel like an urgent point (Lee Sedol's ladder game had a corner open for half of it) but it is always nagging at you and when your opponent gets a free moment they will play it.

Go is a game of territory, but it is also a game of efficiency. Yes, outside influence has value - but only because it becomes territory. You don't invade a 4-4 right away because black's wall will get him more profit than the 10 points in the corner. However, they are also not efficient points. You need to play 6 moves to get those 10 points.

Think of it like this: if you get 6 points on your first move: six real, permanent points, you have just made a great move. In a game of go where 200 moves are played (100 by each side) will either side have 600 points? What about just 300 points? 150 points? If you can make 1.5 points of territory per move you will win a game that lasts 200 moves. So if you can make 6 on move 1 that sounds pretty good to me.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Points aren't important in go.

Fighting and thickness..

Only if that can be converted to points later.

My understanding is that the corners are important because they are the easiest place to make a stable group (which is different from territory), and stable groups are important as one prepares for midgame fighting.

@moyoaji & Pak0: I'm afraid I remain completely unconvinced. It's true that 6 points is a lot for a single move, but fighting is inevibitable and if you find yourself at a disadvantage you're likely to lose more than 6 points.

I am very confused as to why you aren't understanding this. In go, you win by scoring more points than your opponent. Fighting is only valuable because it earns you points - as pak0 already stated.

Basically, this is what you are saying: "Scoring an early touchdown in football doesn't matter because there is a lot of football left to be played in the game." I don't care how important controlling the line is, or how valuable having a good kick unit is, or whether or not our running back is better than the other team's. If my team gets a touchdown in the first minute, we are winning. We may or may not win by the end of the game, but being ahead is the first step in winning.

And this is completely missing the point of what I said anyway. I am not advocating that playing purely for points wins go (although if you don't know how to play a territorial game you are missing a big part of go strategy), what I am saying is that because points are earned more easily in the corners it is better to play there first. And, if you want to play for thickness and fighting, you should play a 4-4, 5-4, 5-3, 6-4, 6-3, or 5-5 stone instead of a 3-3 or 3-4 stone.

However, don't be upset if your opponent wants to let you have a giant corner when you play one of these moves - be thrilled. A 4-4 is not a magic move that automatically gives you outside influence. I can take it away in a heartbeat by playing the 5-5. Now your 4-4 is only facing the corner and will have no bearing on any fights that occur later in the game. So why don't people play this way all the time? Because the one who played the 4-4 should say: "Oh, you want to give me a 20 point corner? Well, I wanted outside influence, but I guess having a massive corner is okay too." And because fighting is a part of go and because your opponent doesn't do what you want them to when facing thickness they will simply reduce anything your outside wall tries to create and make sure you get less than 20 points on the outside instead of playing super aggressively and trying to fight you when you have a wall. Then they win because they have more points and you can't reduce their corner because, after all the fighting is over, go is a game of territory - a game of points.


This is definitely a good way to think about corners. Having safe groups is key in the mid-game and any group that isn't safe becomes the source of an urgent move (for either side). I would say this would go along with my thought that the corner is urgent. However, the reason being because it is the fastest way to get a stable group on the board. Yet there are those who play a territorial strategy in go and win doing it so I don't think it's wrong to value the corners for the points they can give you.

Go strategy is broader than anything we've brought up here. I think some could argue that the corners are valuable because the moves there are flexible. If you play on a side you typically need to make a two-space extension or run for the center, but in a corner you can choose to go for a side, or stay in the corner, or head toward the center meaning any stone played there has 3 options and your opponent can only eliminate one so you'll still have a distinct choice afterwards - or if they don't eliminate one you have 3 ways to build from your corner.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

One side is talking about "points at the end of the game" (A). This is the only aspect of the game that matters according to the rules and is a trivial statement. The other side is talking about "solid points" (B) at specific locations that cannot be taken away by the opponent. Is this not what is happening here?

The football analogy is fundamentally flawed. In football, you score points and you keep them forever. In Go, points change all the time. Focusing on the center early in the game can make it easy to reduce a large amount of your opponent's territory to almost nothing or just invade it and live while giving your opponent very little in return for example. Or you may end up with a large area in the center. Or you may launch a severe attack on one or more of your opponent's weak groups and gain territory and take away his that way.


Splatted is 3k, NoSkill is 1d and illuck is 2d. You are 8k. This doesn't make them right and you wrong. However, don't you think you ought to consider what they are saying rather than attempting to teach them?

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

How is my analogy flawed? You can have score changes in football too. If you score one touchdown and afterwards your opponent scores two then you are behind. That is a score change, even if you didn't lose any points. How is a score change where you lose points fundamentally different from one where your opponent gains that many points (or one where you lose 5 points and your opponent gains 2 points different from your opponent gaining 7 points)?

Also, if you are counting it as territory it shouldn't be reducible. I'm talking about solid points, not frameworks with potential. When I was taught how to count I was told that you should only count points that are not reducible as territory - everything else is an estimate and needs to be considered only after you get the territory score. Solid territory can't be taken away where no matter what move your opponent makes you have a counter to stop them from reducing it. (Obviously mistakes happen, but if we are talking at a theoretical level you wouldn't count it if there was any workable reduction option for your opponent)

I know territorial strategies are not common anymore, but from my understand this is how they work when facing a moyo strategy: You make solid points in areas across the board, basically always starting in the corners, and then make sure you reduce whatever your opponent makes to be less than yours, then you win. Fighting will clearly be involved as your opponent won't want to lose, but if you win the fights you will still win the game even if you aren't emphasizing outside thickness. Sure, the fights will be harder, but you don't have to win hard, you only need to make sure you've reduced your opponent's frameworks down to a few points less than your solid territory.


Yeah, my wording on that sucked. I shouldn't have put it that way and I did not mean to imply that I was somehow educating anyone. I'm just trying to get my point across. What I meant was I didn't understand why they were talking about fighting when I was talking about points. These are related topics, but to say that go isn't about points is to say that any game where the winner is determined by points isn't about points. Points are everything in football, basketball, hockey, soccer, and go.

I've often heard it said that, in football, a good line is the key to victory. I can see that this is true, but to say that scoring points doesn't matter when compared to having a good front line that doesn't make any sense. You can have the #1 rated linemen in the country and still lose every single game because your team can't score points off of their work. In last year's college season Alabama used their huge front line to win game after game, so I will not argue that this doesn't work, but their QB and RB and WRs also need to be given credit for the success of their season because they scored the points (even if the front line did a lot of the heavy lifting). I could see this argument coming up on a sports forum where one person says "If Auburn scores an early touchdown against Alabama they can win." And then someone says, "You don't know what you are talking about. Early touchdowns don't win football games. Having a good front line does." Both people are actually making valid points, but they aren't talking about the same thing. This is why I am confused.

Yes, fighting is very important in go, possibly the most important skill, but if your fights don't gain you as much territory as your opponent you still lose. You can argue that someone can't be good at fighting and unable to turn it into good points, but I will direct you to this game: http://senseis.xmp.net/?ChoiCheolhanVLuoXihe2005SamsungCup Choi Chelohan wins a board-consuming fight against Luo Xihe, killing and capturing a 23 stone group only to lose the game because his opponent had too much territory. Watching a commentary on this game made me realize how true the statement "Go is a game of territory" is.

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

Okay im finally on a pc so I can respond better.

What we mean is that even pros admit that playing in the corners is not "better" as in the best moves. Pros will tell you, they do not play the best moves. They play the moves that will win. Playing in corners is good for pros because:

1. It limits variations
2. Already a lot of known variations
3. The point factor and number of stone logic does indeed back it up
4. To try something new like playing on the sides would be hard even if you had a good reason, because pros want to win. They don't care about playing the best, good moves. They care about winning their games. Their is a big difference. Read lessons in the fundamentals of go and you will see what he says.

So basically: Corners are not fr sure better, but noone really wants to try something crazy or innovative because of the high chance of failure from breaking the huge, long tradition, and also even if it WAS better, it would have to be consistently able to win against the time time and time perfected joseki to be used. Because all pros care about is winning. So say we find that .... some middle star poing is the BEST move in the opening. Pros won't use it until it gives them a better chance of winning than 4-4, and variations are innovated to make it simpler.




Now to our side argument: Points don't matter. Yes whoever has the most points wins. But over 50% of games are decided in kill or be killed fights. Then, every other game that is won by points is won by fighting, that gave points but noone died. Every game of go is decided by the opening fighting (joseki fighting, variations) if nothing dies/huge result there, mid game fighting (groups dieing, trade offs, points made off attacking), and if not there... then the small endgame fighting moves. You cannot sit down at a go board and think about trying to get 90 points in order to win. You don't think, yay 40 points by move 30.

You should be thinking: Who is controlling which parts of the board, what is the direction of each stone, what are the strong groups, weak groups, what are the aji, any other variations, where is the influence, what is the future going to hold, what is my long term game plan, and lastly what is his long term game plan.

Its about the fighting, the thinking, the struggle. Points are a result of the fighting, and points are a result of fighting. However if you focus on points you will lost your fights, focus on your fights and you wont lose in points if you fight correctly. If that makes sense to you .




But when I made this thread I was thinking as in: Say 500 years ago they had started with joseki in the middle of the board, had totally different joseki, tesuji/shape things, and different ideas about go. Like I mean just fundamentally different. You know how you look at shusaku go and it looks familiar, but kinda odd? Imagine that but to the extreme. Josekis being plyaed at side star points, or tengen. I think its like computers, once they get to be pro level they will play really odd looking to pros, but be just as good right? Go isnt as simple as "corners are always better".

Okay two more things:

1. Even if you play territorial and try to just reduce the opponent who is aggressive and influential, you are still going to have to fight. Invading is fighting, reducing is fighting, sabaki is fighting. Basically those things still decide the game right? Still fighting. You cannot play 100% passive and play for points and win. Therefore, the fighting is what makes the difference to win the game. Of course, its because you end up with more points...

2. Football is won by points. Yes. Playing for points doesn't win the game. You know what does? Im not expert, but im guessing its the plays themselves, the individual running plays, kicks, and passes. Sure you can have the perfect STRATEGY to win by points in football but you have to actually do the plays right? Same as in go. You can say points win, but you do the fights to get the points.

In football you execute plays correctly to get points, in go you fight to get points. Its all the same.

If you're talking about only purely solid points, then both the 3-4 and 4-4 don't make any, and thus can't really be compared to getting an early touchdown in football. Also, while it's true that when counting we'll often stick to the solid points to determine who's ahead in territory, even what is considered solid territory can often end up getting reduced later on. Ways this can happen is by ignoring a move by your opponent, having a fight run near to the territory, having to ignore a ko threat in the area, etc.

_________________
We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

I would assume those are somewhat interchangeable.

Yes, if one is ahead he will try to avoid complications and keep it simple, but whenever one player has that mentality the other is likely behind and should will probably push for moves like those.

I also don't buy the whole "I think its better but I won't play it argument". I'm sure the fact that corner openings are well researched is a factor, but if a pro would seriously believe that another opening move would give him a better chance to win he would play it. Yes, he would research it first and run it through test games, but at some point he would use it in a real game and reap the benefits of the knowledge that he has.

The fact that other opening moves are not implemented means either:
1: Pros looked at them and dismissed them because they are inferior.
2: They are about the same in strength and are dismissed because they are less well researched
3: They are better than the existing moves, but pros don't use them


Now which of the three sounds the least likely?

Pako I think you dont have much knowledge of professional go. Every 20 years a new opening move becomes popular and an old one gets outdated, same with joseki. If you think pros have researched every opening move other than the corner ones and found them ineffective, how come they cannot even research joseki so that their joseki doesn't become outdated?

Basically pros don't know anything for sure. They say this joseki is fine etc, 50 years later its slow. They thought 4-4 wasn't good 100 years ago, now look at what is played.

The pros will admit to you if you ask, they are not sure that 4-4, 3-4, etc are the best, but to their knowledge that is the move that gives them a better chance. Because its easy, simple, limits variations, they know the josekis, etc.

Like you said, if they KNEW say 7-4 was better they would play it, but no research is really being done on that. Maybe by a few pros, but 99% of pros are researching 4-4 and 3-4 joseki. Why do you think we keep replacing like every 4-4 joseki every 5 years? It is because they are doing heavy research on it.


I think within 100 years it could be possible 5-5 or something else is played more often. What we think of 5-5 is essentially what people 100 years ago thought of 4-4.


As I said, pros are good, but they do not know everything. They know how to win and play go, but they do not know what move is the best in the opening, and don't always play the best moves.

As others have said, I'd like to stress that go is primarily about fighting, and only secondarily about territory. On this topic, I always point people to this great online book about go: http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Ch1.html, that says in huge bold letters: "As a result, perhaps the major key to making appropriate strategic decisions lies in understanding that:
Go Is A Fighting Game"

Research is usually done because someone believes there is a reason for it to exist.

I'm not saying they know everything, but I firmly believe that if they would think than another opening move would be better then they would put the time in and research that. Obviously they can't consider every possible opening, but I guess a lot of the opening moves that have potential have been explored to some extend, and the ones that we don't see have been dismissed for one reason or another(so if we see a new opening move its probably more likely that its a move that has been considered before and has been given a new twist, rather than a completely new invented move).

Unfortunately I can't remember the source, but I once watched an interview with a pro who talked about the aims of study groups. He explained that finding a better move was just a one off advantage because once it's been used in a public match everyone else will have studied it too, and so the goal of these groups is not so much to find the best moves, but to find new moves that will put them in a situation that their opponents haven't studied and they have. A new type of opening might be one way of doing this, but I imagine it would also take a lot more work than slightly deviating from a standard sequence and the advantage would be just as short lived.