I've been struck by many of the games I see when checking out new ones posted on websites seem so smoothly professional in quality. I'm generally impressed but I'm suspicious of the quality being so high that I can't help but wonder if these games are mostly memorized variations. Coming from a chess background I know there are variations in chess that sometimes requires a player to know in depth the proper moves sometimes up to 20/30 moves. If you fail to remember or make an incorrect move order...you're dead and if your opponent knows the opening better than you it's impossible to make up for such carelessness.

Does anybody know if the games of Go I see posted online at professional sites are just memorized lines with little originality or is it possible to have completely original games of Go regarless of your memory of joseki theory?

How can you find something "smoothly professional in quality"?

And you probably can't memorize variation, because there is often different moves perfectly fine in a position.


I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of games were uniques after 30 moves (10% of game length).

Part of why most of us are so enamored with go is that each game is different. Joseki patterns only apply to localized areas, however the choice of joseki influences the choices made with the rest of the board. As far as I understand even at the professional level there has never been a game that has been repeated. I think that (especially with fast time limits) openings are often repeated say as many as 50 moves or so, but after that each game takes on a character of its own.

I think that reading skill will always trump memorization of lines. There are way to many lines to keep in mind.

(Repeated castle games exist.)

It all depends on what you call "original". If you mean new tesujis, new strategies etc., then most games are rather in known waters. If you mean "outside the dictionary", then most parts of a game are original. Nevertheless, much known knowledge can be applied to this seemingly original part of a game: move types, shapes, decision types, standard strategies, endgame move sizes etc. It is the integration and combination of everything that is new in every game.

Pros spend most of their time in the opening. They are certainly aware of the existing opening strategies, and they certainly do often follow established lines, but they never do it blindly.


Well yeah... that's the point. That's why we keep pros around in the first place

on go servers you may occasionaly see a pro game replayed, when both players cheat and follow a game from game database. some openings are deeply explored, so pros often follow the same pattern for some time, but it is far less significant than in chess

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I might be wrong, but probably not.

Hane, nobi, connect, approach, one point jump, pincer, invade.... so many of my moves are unoriginal.

To answer your question directly; no, games don't follow memorized lines. Some reports from the go world claim that pros literally know zero joseki (John f. has claimed that when professionals want to know "how joseki goes", they need to grab an amateur to show them).

However, there are certainly mistakes you can make in the opening.

I think you are misquoting - pros certainly do know joseki, but probably don't really memorize rare/exotic ones.

Again, I am only relaying claims that others have made. Surely pros play joseki frequently, but not for the same reasons you or I do. I'm quite positive that john f. posted the anecdote I mentioned, and if I have time I'll look for it... Whether you credit it or not is your own affair.

I also remember John F's post to be something along those lines, but don't recall the specific post.

I also recall reading in a book one specific pro (and I don't recall which) who was quite proud of the fact that he doesn't "know" any joseki -- so much so that once when playing against another pro who played the common line (as published in Ishida's) he was able to instead play the correct move and punish the mistake (this story may be in NewInGo)

edit: http://www.gogod.co.uk/NewInGo/NewInGo.htm #40

In regular western chess I'm familiar with players analyzing previous encounters between masters and "improving" on their play to find better continuations. As if trying to find the "right" move is there to be found and put the variation to rest or disprove theory and revive old lines with fresh analysis. I'm sure the same thing happens in Go. That's why you have branches of move orders showing game continuations that prove or disprove certain stone placements are correct.

So it's possible if one studies Joseki and analyzes a certain move order and your opponent "falls" into your carefully laid trap...that person could lose. I know I'm oversimplifying this but I was curious to know if Go players "wing it" by memorizing lines depending on the opening move choices by their opponents. For instance, is it ever right for a Go player to "think" about a move as early as the first 10 or 20 when they clearly already know "theory"?

I've seen high level amateur players sit for 5 mins and more before deciding on move #1

In the famous game depicted in the book "The Master of Go", day one ended with only 8 moves played.

The short answer is, even if they know the theory, they are probably thinking by moves 4-10. I'm pretty sure a lot of players will put down their first two or three moves without a huge amount of thought (at least in a casual game...corner, corner, approach is pretty standard, or corner, corner, enclosure). As others have said, professionals are typically thinking by move 1.

One difference between chess openings and go joseki, is that while chess openings are full board affairs, there are very few "standard" go sequences that actually involve a full board pattern being played out (not to say they don't exist of course). You may have certain corner sequences memorized, but knowing how they will apply to the other corners is still something to be concerned with. Even if one side plays a large scale pattern (like the Chinese opening) how play proceeds from move 5 will depend on whether white's stones are on 4-3 points, 4-4 points, etc.

I guess it would be similar to playing out to move 6 on 4 different chess boards, and then having to relate the strengths and weaknesses of each board between each other (bughouse, or perhaps alice chess are the first things that comes to mind that would be similar...but imagine if pawn structures connected across boards, or if strong/weak squares applied on multiple boards, etc). It's a bit hard to relate the two.

Pros don't know joseki myth: Although presumably there is an exceptional pro who does not know (many) josekis, I have watched quite a few pros teaching at EGCs recent long joseki variations of the type "rote learning or die". Saijo was an exception when teaching general joseki advice.