I have the same sense that strong go bots play more “globally” than strong humans.
(Though I think what they do is in some useful sense a generalization of spotting local patterns; after all, in some sense that’s what a convolutional neural network does. But as you add more layers the patterns that can be represented become more subtle and larger, and the networks of top bots are plenty deep enough that “larger” grows sufficiently to encompass the whole board.)
I think what’s going on with different joseki choices between amateurs and very strong humans isn’t exactly more patterns versus less patterns. Weak human players may learn a bunch of joseki, but what they’ve learned is just “these are some good sequences of moves”. Stronger players do better because (1) they have a better sense of the range of possible outcomes once those sequences of moves have been played out and (2) they have a better sense of how the state of the rest of the board affects the desirability of those various outcomes. So they will think things like “if I play this joseki then I get to choose between something like A or B; in case A the stones I play along the way will have a suboptimal relationship with that one near the middle of the left side, and in case B the shape I end up with in the corner fits well with what’s going on in that adjacent corner and there’s a nice ladder-breaker that makes the opposite corner a bit better for me, but in exchange for all that I end up in gote and don’t get much territory in the corner; so maybe that joseki would be better because [etc., etc.]”, whereas weak players like, er, me have a tiny repertoire of joseki lines (so would have to work out from first principles where things might end up) and are rubbish at visualizing the resulting positions (so wouldn’t actually be able to do that, and would misevaluate the final positions even if we could) and don’t have the quantitative sense of how the various advantages and disadvantages balance out (so even if we could foresee the likely outcomes and understand what features of them are important, we’d still likely get the relative importance of the factors involved). My guess is that the last of those is one place where the strongest computer players are well ahead of the strongest humans.
When the relevant subtleties are 100 moves ahead rather than 3, that’s strategy rather than tactics. Even top human and computer go players are not usually reading out tactical lines 100 moves deep. A good player can (usually, in principle) learn new strategic concepts, or get a better sense of ones they already kinda know about, more easily than they can learn to Just Be Much Better At Tactics. The strongest computer chess players win mostly by being terrifyingly superhuman at tactics (though this may be less true of the likes of Alpha Zero and Leela Chess Zero than of, say, Stockfish). The strongest computer go players are also superhumanly good at tactics, but not by so much; a lot of their superiority is strategic.
I have the same sense that strong go bots play more “globally” than strong humans.
Very much so. I have the same sense.
I think what’s going on with different joseki choices between amateurs and very strong humans isn’t exactly more patterns versus less patterns.
From my understanding, Professional players (and stronger amateurs) still rely heavily on Joseki, it’s just that they Joseki become longer and more complicated. In a lot of ways, the stronger you get I think the more reliant you become on patterns you know have succeeded for you or others in the past.
It’s the reason why Professionals spend so much time studying, and why most, if not all top ranked professionals started studying and playing as children. It takes that kind of dedication and that amount of time to learn to become a top player.
Stronger players do better because (1) they have a better sense of the range of possible outcomes once those sequences of moves have been played out and (2) they have a better sense of how the state of the rest of the board affects the desirability of those various outcomes.
It’s possible to become a strong amateur Go player based on ‘feeling’ and positional judgement, but without being able to read your moves out to a decent degree—maybe 10 −15 moves ahead methodically—it’s not easy to get very strong.
In case it wasn’t clear, that sentence beginning “Stronger players do better” was not purporting to describe all the things that make stronger go players stronger, but to describe specifically how I think they are stronger in joseki.
I don’t think joseki are the main reason why professional go players spend so much time studying, unless you define “studying” more narrowly than I would. But that’s pure guesswork; I haven’t actually talked to any go professionals and asked how much time they spend studying joseki.
(Professional chess players spend a lot of time on openings, and good opening preparation is important in top-level chess matches where if you find a really juicy innovation you can practically win the game before it’s started. I think that sort of thing is much less common in go, though again that’s just a vague impression rather than anything I’ve got from actual top-level go players.)
I don’t think joseki are the main reason why professional go players spend so much time studying, unless you define “studying” more narrowly than I would.
In case it wasn’t clear, that sentence beginning “Stronger players do better” was not purporting to describe all the things that make stronger go players stronger, but to describe specifically how I think they are stronger in joseki.
I didn’t take it as if it was all they did.
(1) they have a better sense of the range of possible outcomes once those sequences of moves have been played out and (2) they have a better sense of how the state of the rest of the board affects the desirability of those various outcomes.
With (1) it seems like your describing the skill of reading, but not necessarily reading with the understanding of how to play so that you have a good outcome, or reading and assessing the variations of a particular position, and with (2) your describing reading how local play affects global play. I think if they are truly strong players, they also (3) understand the importance of getting and maintaining sente, and (4) also see joseki (or standard sequences) from both sides, as white and as black.
I don’t think joseki are the main reason why professional go players spend so much time studying, unless you define “studying” more narrowly than I would.
I was talking mostly about studying in preparation to become a professional, like daily study for 8 hours a day, the path from say 1k-9p, although Joseki are usually an important part of study at any level. I think the term also applies more loosely to ‘sequences with a good outcome’. Coming up with new and personal ‘proprietary’ joseki I think consumes a lot of study time for professionals, while going over other peoples or AI games and exploring the different variations.
There are other things to study, but I still maintain that Joseki make up fair amount of Professional knowledge. Some people study openings, others life and death problems, end game scenarios, but they all rely on learning set patterns and how to best to integrate them.
I have the same sense that strong go bots play more “globally” than strong humans.
(Though I think what they do is in some useful sense a generalization of spotting local patterns; after all, in some sense that’s what a convolutional neural network does. But as you add more layers the patterns that can be represented become more subtle and larger, and the networks of top bots are plenty deep enough that “larger” grows sufficiently to encompass the whole board.)
I think what’s going on with different joseki choices between amateurs and very strong humans isn’t exactly more patterns versus less patterns. Weak human players may learn a bunch of joseki, but what they’ve learned is just “these are some good sequences of moves”. Stronger players do better because (1) they have a better sense of the range of possible outcomes once those sequences of moves have been played out and (2) they have a better sense of how the state of the rest of the board affects the desirability of those various outcomes. So they will think things like “if I play this joseki then I get to choose between something like A or B; in case A the stones I play along the way will have a suboptimal relationship with that one near the middle of the left side, and in case B the shape I end up with in the corner fits well with what’s going on in that adjacent corner and there’s a nice ladder-breaker that makes the opposite corner a bit better for me, but in exchange for all that I end up in gote and don’t get much territory in the corner; so maybe that joseki would be better because [etc., etc.]”, whereas weak players like, er, me have a tiny repertoire of joseki lines (so would have to work out from first principles where things might end up) and are rubbish at visualizing the resulting positions (so wouldn’t actually be able to do that, and would misevaluate the final positions even if we could) and don’t have the quantitative sense of how the various advantages and disadvantages balance out (so even if we could foresee the likely outcomes and understand what features of them are important, we’d still likely get the relative importance of the factors involved). My guess is that the last of those is one place where the strongest computer players are well ahead of the strongest humans.
When the relevant subtleties are 100 moves ahead rather than 3, that’s strategy rather than tactics. Even top human and computer go players are not usually reading out tactical lines 100 moves deep. A good player can (usually, in principle) learn new strategic concepts, or get a better sense of ones they already kinda know about, more easily than they can learn to Just Be Much Better At Tactics. The strongest computer chess players win mostly by being terrifyingly superhuman at tactics (though this may be less true of the likes of Alpha Zero and Leela Chess Zero than of, say, Stockfish). The strongest computer go players are also superhumanly good at tactics, but not by so much; a lot of their superiority is strategic.
Very much so. I have the same sense.
From my understanding, Professional players (and stronger amateurs) still rely heavily on Joseki, it’s just that they Joseki become longer and more complicated. In a lot of ways, the stronger you get I think the more reliant you become on patterns you know have succeeded for you or others in the past.
It’s the reason why Professionals spend so much time studying, and why most, if not all top ranked professionals started studying and playing as children. It takes that kind of dedication and that amount of time to learn to become a top player.
It’s possible to become a strong amateur Go player based on ‘feeling’ and positional judgement, but without being able to read your moves out to a decent degree—maybe 10 −15 moves ahead methodically—it’s not easy to get very strong.
In case it wasn’t clear, that sentence beginning “Stronger players do better” was not purporting to describe all the things that make stronger go players stronger, but to describe specifically how I think they are stronger in joseki.
I don’t think joseki are the main reason why professional go players spend so much time studying, unless you define “studying” more narrowly than I would. But that’s pure guesswork; I haven’t actually talked to any go professionals and asked how much time they spend studying joseki.
(Professional chess players spend a lot of time on openings, and good opening preparation is important in top-level chess matches where if you find a really juicy innovation you can practically win the game before it’s started. I think that sort of thing is much less common in go, though again that’s just a vague impression rather than anything I’ve got from actual top-level go players.)
This is also my understanding.
I didn’t take it as if it was all they did.
With (1) it seems like your describing the skill of reading, but not necessarily reading with the understanding of how to play so that you have a good outcome, or reading and assessing the variations of a particular position, and with (2) your describing reading how local play affects global play. I think if they are truly strong players, they also (3) understand the importance of getting and maintaining sente, and (4) also see joseki (or standard sequences) from both sides, as white and as black.
I was talking mostly about studying in preparation to become a professional, like daily study for 8 hours a day, the path from say 1k-9p, although Joseki are usually an important part of study at any level. I think the term also applies more loosely to ‘sequences with a good outcome’. Coming up with new and personal ‘proprietary’ joseki I think consumes a lot of study time for professionals, while going over other peoples or AI games and exploring the different variations.
There are other things to study, but I still maintain that Joseki make up fair amount of Professional knowledge. Some people study openings, others life and death problems, end game scenarios, but they all rely on learning set patterns and how to best to integrate them.