I'm not thinking of a wholly automated system but one that'd flag a certain move for review or research. A was extremely common, now it's very rare and a new move B is being played, mark this for a look before it goes live as a problem or similar. Again you'd want to be pretty bloody strong to tell what's going on with the change but it's the best I can think of right now.

Oh, I see. Indeed... to know what it is it's probably very high dan or pro level. Or fuseki/joseki junkie like Oota is

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Last summer, I attended a go lecture by one of europes strongest players. He asked audience for moves, and I suggested a move. He told me my move was greedy and it wasnt played, then showed a way that would counter my move. However a few months later the move I suggested started to regularly appear in top pro games. Me suggesting it was just a coincidence as there was a lot more behind it than I could hope to comprehend. Simply dumb luck I happen to suggest the move at the time. What makes this interesting however is that this is exactly the kind of vetting by strong player. Yet in this case it provided the opposite result than you were hoping for. He advised me against a move that became a common fuseki variation later on.

It all comes down to having good enough information. No need to strive for perfection, it's just a waste of resources. I dont care if I occasionally get told a move is bad, when in actuality its good or the opposite. What matters is that the total adds up to something positive. If I were to teach a 5kyu, I would probably teach him 10% nonsense. Advising wrong variations to choose, reading situations wrong in a way he wont notice and there by arriving at wrong conclusions. 10% is huge number of mistakes if you think about it. Despite all that the 5kyu would gain alot from my 2dan advise. The pro game db, regardless whatever errors it may contain is still far more accurate than I could ever hope to be. If I were to offer a 5kyu a game review he would gladly take it, thinking its a good opportunity for him to learn from a stronger player. Yet when he is using the pro game db he is worried about errors that are almost nonexistant compared to any errors in my teaching, I find that puzzling.

I think for playing strength up to 5d amateur it would suffice to use all moves that sum up to 95% of the total number of moves (be it one move or many moves, and irrespective of the time of the relative moves having been played).

I think in that case it is probably not necessary to use such a position as problem. The focus should be on positions that occur most often. This is where you (as a player) would benefit most from.

Good idea, I mean the way to decide what to consider as viable out of the available information. Currently I have that if a move is played atleast 1:5 as often as the most common move its considered still correct.

I agree entirely with this point, and in fact, the rest of your post. What I find, odd, therefore, is why you're focusing on fashionable moves? Perhaps you explained it earlier but I didn't understand it properly, but I'm not keen on being a 3d at fashionable fuseki moves, I'd rather be a 3d at good fuseki moves. So I'm unclear why just using the last 15,000 games is better than using all 70,000 games.

I'm not sure what concrete change this suggests, but I think it's important nonetheless: however you decide right and wrong answers for rank need not be the same as how you teach. Take the earlier case of a move that has 150 instances, 135 for A, 14 for B, 1 for C. I answer B. Maybe you say it's right, maybe you say it's wrong--I'm not sure.

But either way, you can somehow tell me that it's much less common. If I play C, perhaps you say I am wrong, but you can still tell me that a pro tried it. That tells me something, regardless of how I take it.

I'm not literally saying that you need to give that information (it might be clutter, it might be hard to automatically summarize, who knows). But I do think that comments on what the system should do should at least in principle distinguish between "this is how the rating system should see it" and "this is what the user needs to know."

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Well, you also don't want to get games from too early, or you'll see moves marked as 'correct' because, for example, the high approach to 3-4 was almost never played at the time. The trick is finding a good balancing point for this. Bill Spight (I think?) suggested going back 50 years earlier in this discussion, which seems like a reasonable starting point to get to the right time to me. Perhaps as a player gets stronger, the amount of time you go back should be slimmed down, perhaps to 15 years, to throw out a number. Similarly, maybe that shin-fuseki era move is fine for a 7 kyu player, but will show its weaknesses to a stronger one.

I had this discussion a few weeks back with some high dans. For them it seems the reasonable balance to be somewhere between 5 years and 10 years, depending who you ask. Reason I went with 5 years for now is that as the service is still in development so I don't want to grow the database too large too fast, until I'm certain of what I need.

I think I might need to add some easier tsumegos too, the current one are kinda urm.. difficult. Just need to find a source of lots of good low level tsumegos.

Personally, I consider 10 years to be extremely short. 50 years is okay, but a bit on the short side, I would prefer at least 100.

I also would prefer that the database included games from the period when many of the go books available in English were written. I mean, if we learn principles for example from Opening Theory Made Easy (1992) or In the Beginning (1973), it would seem counterproductive if answers based on such material were called wrong by your website just because they might have gone out of fashion.

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Let me address a couple of points.

First, about the idea that a play that loses 0.1 is not correct. I take that to mean that we are talking about opportunity loss, that the play gains 0.1 point less than the best play. That has a probabilistic interpretation. At the very end of the game we may interpret it to mean that 10% of the time it loses 1 point by comparison with the best play, and 90% of the time it does not, depending on the whole board. At the end of the game we evaluate plays locally. There may be any number of plays that are best, and any number of plays that are theoretically inferior, but with subsequent correct play, produce the best result. In a quiz, we still want to say that those plays are inferior, even if they happen to work out in a particular instance.

But in the fuseki we are talking about the whole board. A play that is normally inferior in a local area may be the best play, given the rest of the board. In a fuseki quiz we want that play to count as correct. We also want other plays that do as well to be considered correct. To say that a play loses 0.1 point is still probabilistic, but now the probability does not reflect our ignorance of the rest of the board, but our ignorance of the game tree. (Now maybe the best metric is not average point difference, but the difference in the probability to win the game, but let's stick with point difference. The argument is basically the same.) Suppose that we actually do have comparative point differences between two moves, and the average point difference is 0.1 in favor of move A vs. move B. Typically the usual difference will be 0. Most often, move A will score better than move B, but often move B will score better than move A, just not as often as the other way around. Because of our ignorance, we cannot conclude that move A is correct and move B is not. It is quite possible that both are actually correct with best play, but the players in our sample can handle move A better than they do move B, or maybe the apparent difference is due to randomness. It is also possible that move B is correct and move A is not. It is just unlikely, given our current state of ignorance.

We can make an educated guess, because of komi, that the first move in go gains around 14 points. Suppose that we have a play that we estimate gains 13.3 points, losing 0.7 points off of what we think is best play. That is only 5% less than what we think is right, and I submit that that is within our veil of ignorance. Now, point estimation is one thing that I research, and, IMO, that is a palpable difference. Normally, few strong players would consider making such a play. OTOH, with smaller differences, such as 0.5 points, it is likely that many of those supposedly weaker plays will score just as well or better than correct plays. And, in fact, many such plays are likely to show up in a pro game database. (The point, OC, is that the results with subsequent best play will often be the same. )

Now, as a professional, I want to maximize my chances of winning, and will make the best play that I can, even if another play may be just as good. But that does not mean that I can say that a play that seems a little bit inferior to me is not as good or even better than my play. Thus, with some exceptions, I expect that any play chosen by a pro in a given fuseki position is likely to be as good as the best play (given perfect subsequent play), and some other plays, as well.

Second, about refutations. I think that refutations are found fairly often for joseki. We are talking about a relatively local area, we have well understood principles to judge results, and we can reliably compare results, even when we cannot readily compare results in terms of points. For instance:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Joseki
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . 2 . . . .
$$ | . . . 1 . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 3 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,[/go]

This joseki had been around for some time before it was realized that Black could reasonably tenuki. Once that was pointed out, it was obvious, and the tenuki became frequent.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Joseki?
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 8 . . . . . . .
$$ | . 5 4 . O . . . . .
$$ | . . X 6 . 2 . 1 . ,
$$ | . . 7 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 9 , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

This was played as joseki for a while, but then it was realized that the exchange, - , was not good for White, and White began simply to play at 8 right away.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Joseki
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 4 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . O . . . . .
$$ | . . X , . 2 . 1 . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . a . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 5 , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

That led to this being played. Now, without the exchange in the previous diagram, this position was more vulnerable to an invasion at "a".

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Joseki
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 4 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . O . . . . .
$$ | . . X , . 2 . 1 . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 5 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

So, while the extension to C-10 was still joseki, this variation began to appear.

Later, became less popular, but I don't think that it has ever been refuted.

While I think that there are clear refutations in joseki, I am much more skeptical of refutations in fuseki. I have already mentioned how the Mini-Chinese went out of style for something like 150 years, and then staged a comeback. Fuseki books from the mid-20th century said that if you had a stone on a 3-4 point (komoku), you should make an enclosure rather than an extension to either side. (Thus, both the Chinese and Kobayashi Fuseki would have been considered incorrect.) The books not only offered those opinions, they showed refutations, variations intended to prove that those extension were incorrect, and thus how to answer them in a game. OC, the refutations were wrong. Here is another example.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Refutation?
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . a . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . 5 2 . . 4 .
$$ | . . . 1 . 6 . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,[/go]

Another thing that the books at the time said was for White not to extend to 4. The kick at 5 was offered as a refutation, because is too close to and . By tewari, if those stones had been played first, White would have extended one more point. This was relatively new thinking, because, even though tewari went back centuries, in the 19th century players had often extended to 4 without much concern.

But has made a comeback, as well. One reason, I think, has to do with the tenuki after the slide to "a".

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Joseki
$$ --------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . .
$$ | . . 5 . . 2 . . 6 .
$$ | . . . 1 . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 3 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,[/go]

Often White had been able to count on Black to answer with , and then White could extend to 6 without any problem. But if Black played tenuki, White could not count on getting the extension on the top side. So if White wanted to guarantee getting that extension, he started making it right away. It turns out that the willingness of players in the 19th century to accept a little bit of overconcentration may not have been so bad, after all.

The battle of ideas in the fuseki is dialectical, and, even though progress is made, supposedly inferior plays cannot always be counted out, so great is our veil of ignorance.

Edit: Corrected the pincer diagrams. I had misremembered.

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I've added a ton of tsumegos from numerous sources. Until each tsumego has at least 1 user answer at it they are can be shown to anyone regardless of the rank. But since tsumegos are considered "perfect" (there is known answer) they are prioritized quite high. Hence until the correct level is found for the tsumegos, expect them to pop up frequently. Some because they are right for your rank, others because the tsumego doesn't have an accurate rank yet.

Now I need help from some serious tsumego junkies. One is to just go trough as many tsumegos as possible to get some kind of rank for them. The second part is, if you find a tsumego with an error, please report it here, just use the share link and copy it here. The most likely error is that either tsumego is symmetric but only accepts answer on one side. The other likely choice is that its possible to change the move order from what the tsumego expects.

There should be around 4000 tsumegos.

Excellent. It turns out that this is going to be what I had intended to implement since long (but never realized). The only missing feature would be "shape" moves (i.e. very common moves of professional matches, focused on small board excerpts, such as 6x6 fields for common shape moves, or 8x8 fields for middle game / invasion joseki or common corner joseki).

It seems, that you just have to find the next move, so no follow-ups like at goproblems.com, but that's fine (at least for me). It seems that these tsumego are rather for pattern recognition. I am a fan of that (for easy tsumego/tesuji), not much thinking, just hit the spot and do the hardwiring stuff.

Will there be repitions for wrong tsumego answers? (haven't detected any so far, but have done only about a hundred until now)

What is the source of the tsumego?

Will there be an option to select between tsumego and fuseki?

There is repetition of those you get wrong.



Yes. I will also add yose problems, etc.

Meanwhile, after having answered 2289 positions, my estimated rank is “between 8.6 Kyu and 7.1 Kyu”—four to five stones stronger than my “real” EGF rank of 13 kyu …

Could this now mean that I’m training Fuseki moves that I’m actually too weak to follow up on? Like … knowing how to hit the brick with the side of my hand, but instead of the brick, my hand bones break b/c they are untrained and not strong enough? Does my question make sense?


Greetings, Tom

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It only means that you have trained enough so that you as EGF-13k can answer Fuseki 50% of the questions that are estimated 8.6k - 7.1k for untrained players. No more and no less, and it is probably normal that, as you train, you will improve in the training program. However I cannot tell, if this will have any impact on your general playing strength (which is probably the intention of this training site) and on your EGF rank with your next tournaments.

Say you play against an egf 9kyu. You will probably gain in fuseki, since you have 2 stone advantage in strength there now. But in the fighting section he will have an advantage of 4 stones in strength. Also since fighting lasts for a longer part of the game than fuseki, he will have more time to take utilize his advantage. And add to that yose, where he probably also holds advantage of around 4 stones.

Since I added tsumegos to the mix you should start getting fighting practice at http://www.ootakamoku.com and not only fuseki practice. But since all pro game positions and tsumegos start out as same difficulty until proven otherwise. And there are already plenty of fuseki positions which have been determined to be lower difficulty than their starting point. But as I only added tsumegos yesterday, even the easy tsumegos haven't had much time adjust their rank based on user answers, hence you havent been shown many if any yet. However I suspect you should start seeing the easiest tsumegos pop up in mix rather soon.


My recomendation is that you play what you think is the correct move, regardless how you feel about it or even if you are uncertain you can handle the complications. If you play it, and then cant handle the followup, atleast you get practice on the followup and you instill the routine of playing the right move. Doing the opposite would only hamper your progress.

For this reason do you keep different rank estimates for fuseki and tsumego?

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.