Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn to play Go

online-go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 159 posts

Re: Learn to play Go

#141

Post by KK7NIL »

dragontamer wrote: post #90
KK7NIL wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an unintuitive aspect of go because it is different from virtually every other strategy game. No, it isn't. As a decent chess and go player I can tell you that they're both just tactics until you approach the master/dan level. And what is strategy if not just a longer form of tactical play? At the end of the day, strategic play is just play that sets up tactics later on. Or, to quote Fischer: "Tactics flow…

> No, it isn't. As a decent chess and go player I can tell you that they're both just tactics until you approach the master/dan level. And what is strategy if not just a longer form of tactical play? You cannot tenuki in Chess. In Go, especially at the 15kyu to 10kyu double-digit dan level, the opponents are full of opening and middle-game mistakes. The best response is often to ignore your opponent and play the most…

> You cannot tenuki in Chess.

You absolutely can! If it's during a tactical sequence we might call it an intermezzo. If it's not during a tactical sequence we don't usually have a name for it in chess but it happens all the time. The mainlines of the KID are famous for having theory where white goes for a queenside attack and largely ignores the kingside and vice-versa for black, just as one example.

> Chess is almost all tactics. Go on the other hand, is Strategic I used to think so too but I think this is a meaningless and superficial comparison now. Each go move is simpler by itself but to counter balance that you get a much bigger board and generally much longer games with much longer tactical sequences (I'm sure you've had games where you spend over 50 moves in a long tactical battle over a mojo, for example).

Re: Learn to play Go

#142

Post by kouru225 »

Izkata wrote: post #139
kouru225 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2.16: 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom 4 Says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with two eyes diagonal from each other, one on the edge. In 2.17: 2 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes." 3 is doable but it also…

Just an additional clarification in case the other reply doesn't help: Your phrasing of "shows me a black formation" doesn't make sense unless it is rendering the page wrong for you. All the problems you've listed show both white and black stones on the board. For example: > In 2.16: > 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the b…

For me 2.16 3 looks like:

|

| B B B B B

| B B B B B

| _ B _ B B

^^^^^^^

Link to screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/odDYg9K

When I use Librewolf I think I get the intended render, but using Firefox this is what I get

Re: Learn to play Go

#143

Post by kouru225 »

kevlened wrote: post #134
kouru225 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2.16: 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom 4 Says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with two eyes diagonal from each other, one on the edge. In 2.17: 2 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes." 3 is doable but it also…

The lessons are correct, but may be more obvious with better definitions. "Alive" pieces remain permanent throughout the game. In both 2.16 examples, white can capture black by filling the gaps. "Eyes" only have one space each and are fully surrounded by a single color. In both 2.16 examples. there are no eyes. Look at 2.17 with this new definition to see where the gaps are not yet eyes. 2.17 (3) is asking you to pla…

Here's a link to a screenshot of what I see so you can see what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/odDYg9K

Re: Learn to play Go

#144

Post by jibal »

jibal wrote: post #72
thaumasiotes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average FIDE elo is 1550; chess.com's average of 1200 elo is much lower because it has many beginner players, including children. Why would that lower the average elo? Elo is a conserved quantity: for you to gain points, your opponent must lose that many points, and vice versa. So there are two obvious facts about the average rating: 1. In a closed system, the average rating can never change, not up or down, no…

> Why would that lower the average elo? Because the average chess.com player is considerably weaker than the average FIDE player. > In the much more common scenario where beginners come in, lose a bunch of games, and then leave, the average rating will go up over time. Weak players come into the chess.com pool faster than they leave.

P.S. The response is hilarious (and rude).

Re: Learn to play Go

#145

Post by kevlened »

kouru225 wrote: post #143
kevlened wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lessons are correct, but may be more obvious with better definitions. "Alive" pieces remain permanent throughout the game. In both 2.16 examples, white can capture black by filling the gaps. "Eyes" only have one space each and are fully surrounded by a single color. In both 2.16 examples. there are no eyes. Look at 2.17 with this new definition to see where the gaps are not yet eyes. 2.17 (3) is asking you to pla…

Here's a link to a screenshot of what I see so you can see what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/odDYg9K

Ah, I see. Not rendering white makes these lessons impossible.

It's interesting that the shading for the white pieces is preserved. I wonder if a dark mode extension is affecting the colors.

Re: Learn to play Go

#146

Post by kouru225 »

kevlened wrote: post #145
kouru225 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a link to a screenshot of what I see so you can see what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/odDYg9K

Ah, I see. Not rendering white makes these lessons impossible. It's interesting that the shading for the white pieces is preserved. I wonder if a dark mode extension is affecting the colors.

oooo I'm dumb lol. Yea I'm forcing dark mode

Re: Learn to play Go

#147

Post by somenameforme »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #122
somenameforme wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening knowledge in chess is almost entirely unnecessary below a rather high level, perhaps 2200+. The reason less experienced players get obsessed with openings is because they make regular tactical mistakes in the opening, and then blame lack of opening knowledge, as opposed to their lack of tactical ability. In other words they try to memorize their way out of tactical mistakes, which is impossible. At that point…

I think it's imprecise to say that opening knowledge is unnecessary. What is unnecessary is opening theory , or more specifically, rote memorisation of opening lines. This is different from opening understanding . Understanding the importance of tempo, development, controlling the centre, the different pawn structures, middle games and endgames that result from different openings, the plans and motifs typical in vari…

In general I certainly wouldn't disagree with this, it's what I was alluding to with general ideas that stick with you. But I'd call this a different thing than opening study. For instance one can get Benoni like structures in the King's Indian, Benko, English, Nimzo, and more! And so it's not really understanding the opening, but understanding how to play a certain structure that arises in many different openings.

And it has nothing to do with memorization. I mean you mentioned the b5 stuff against Bd3/h3/Nf3 setups. You might not be able to calculate the depth of what happens if white manages to hold onto his extra pawn, but you can certainly calculate to at least the point of 'okay, I'm getting my pawn back in most lines, disrupting his center, and getting my play going. if the one line where he holds onto it (Bxb5 stuff) then he's going to have a bit of difficulty castling, his pieces look disorganized, his extra pawn and b2 both look weak.' That's more than enough on general principles to go for the sac I think.

Re: Learn to play Go

#148

Post by Liquid_Fire »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #137
Liquid_Fire wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess also has this "problem" thanks to rules like castling and en passant capture.

>> What I mean is you can’t just look at a board and know the ko “state” - but yes I’m sure in practice it’s not that important. > Chess also has this "problem" thanks to rules like castling and en passant capture. Chess is intended to be stateful. If you forget whether a castle has occurred (and then the king walked back to its starting position, and a rook repositioned into the corner) or not, chess players will no…

I'm not a Go player so I don't really know how it works in practice, but what you are saying seems to disagree with the wording in Wikipedia, so I'm curious which one is correct?

You say:

> if you forget that a particular board layout may have come up in the past, go players will not note that you've messed up the game. It doesn't matter. The ko rule isn't there to stop you from repeating a board twice.

Wikipedia says:

> Rule 8. A play is illegal if it would have the effect (after all steps of the play have been completed) of creating a position that has occurred previously in the game.

> Consequence (ko rule). One may not play in such a way as to recreate the board position following one's previous move.

> While its purpose is similar to that of the threefold repetition rule of Western chess, it differs from it significantly in nature; the superko rule bans moves that would cause repetition, whereas Western chess allows such moves as one method of forcing a draw.

To me that sounds like you do need to track this, in both chess and in Go, though for different reasons (to force a draw vs to prevent an illegal move). Is this not enforced in practice?

Re: Learn to play Go

#149

Post by mark_l_watson »

zenlot wrote: post #132
mark_l_watson wrote: post #63

Go is a wonderful game. My older brother bought a Go set when I was a little kid and we played together. Now, 65 years later I need to give him a 9 stone handicap (I cheated by taking lessons from a South Korean Go Master and studying several books), but thanks to the wonderful handicap system, games can still be fun even when players have very different skill levels. I randomly tried a few exercises on the linked we…

Out of interest which language you used for that?

I used UCSD Pascal on an Apple II computer.

Re: Learn to play Go

#150

Post by dragontamer »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #128
dragontamer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ladders are a thing so easy that its literally in this beginner series of tutorials. Its a thing that 30kyu beginners learn and master. Its very strange to me that AlphaGo / AlphaZero was unable to ever learn ladders. It shows that the way humans learn and AIs learn is quite different (or at least, MCTS + Neural Net machines learn differently). Yes, Go is a strategic game of patterns and perhaps we humans overemphasi…

>we need to double-check all those "strategically brilliant" moves with the newer AI Thanks for this detailed response/thought. As a layperson, cannot wait for the documentary on KataGo (AlphaGo II).

Probably not going to happen.

DeepBlue was the big chess moment. No one writes or cares about Stockfish vs DeepBlue.

Well, chess players performing opening analysis for their games care. Go players care about KataGo being more readily available and stronger than AlphaGo or AlphaZero. But it's back into the weeds and grind, it's not too interesting a story outside the Chess or Go world.

Post reply on HN