I’ve seen SDKs asking about this.
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I only know byo yomi lol
About Dan vs Pro:
- Pros can distinguish intuitively between slack moves, reasonable moves, overplays and sharp moves (Dan intuition is less reliable)
- Pros have a lot of knowledge (Dans would have to read where Pros already know the answer)
- Pros can read very accurately, very quickly and very deep to verify their tactical intuition (Dan reading is less reliable, missing some crucial counter more often)
- All of the above means that Pros are much better at detecting, fixing and exploiting aji.
- Pros can count territory very accurately and very quickly (Dan evaluation is less reliable, resulting in more mistaken strategical decisions)
All of this causes Pros to make fewer inaccuracies, mistakes and blunders than Dans and this adds up to many points difference over the course of a whole game.
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In fighting games, there’s a concept called a frame advantage. That is, a positive frame attack gives you an advantage when your opponent blocks it, whereas a negative frame attack gives you a disadvantage.
I think there’s a similar thing in the game of Go. In fighting games, the frame advantage is fixed to each move, but in the game of Go, it changes according to the pattern of stones. I think Dan players are good at finding positive frame attacks and throws them a lot. So I’ll get behind if I just defend all their attacks. I have to throw a counter punch at some point. Whereas DDK players tend to throw a lot of negative frame attacks to me, So I can get ahead just by happily defending all their attacks.
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I think this is more or less sente and gote in Go, the equivalent of these frame attacks.
The stronger a player gets, the less likely they are to respond to their opponents moves, especially ones which don’t have an immediate follow-up, namely a gote move. Even more so when sometimes one can squeeze in a forcing move before answering the opponents move, because the threat posed is bigger than if the opponent ignores and plays their follow-up. I think in chess it’s sometimes called an “in between move” or Zwischenzug - Chess Terms - Chess.com .
It’s a nice analogy though, and sente and gote probably don’t completely capture it. There’s forcing moves that make ones position worse locally, and there’s also the concept of kiai Kiai at Sensei's Library which is supposed to involve some sort of fighting spirit, defying the opponents plans and/or counter attacking when attacked.
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Another English term is interpolation, Italian intermezzo and Japanese kikashi.
I use all three occasionally but not zwischenzug, which is a bit of a mouthful for me.
Actually, a kikashi doesn’t have be an intermezzo. But it can be, eg. in the proverb play kikashi before living – those kikashi are intermezzi.
I’m not sure whether Japanese has an exact equivalent…
The concept of amarigatachi is also relevant. Amarigatachi is the “overwrought” position left by a failed attack, either on a local or global scale.
I’ve found that when playing against high dans, they tend to defend with ease and I end up slipping into strategic amarigatachi. Local amarigatachi also appears very commonly in DDK games.
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Moves that require a response may be roughly categorized into these 2 categories, which seem to overlap with that terminology:
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positive frame attack = kikashi, a good forcing move, one that improves the position of the “enforcer” (while they keep sente).
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negative frame attack = thank-you-move, a bad forcing move, one that deteriorates the position of the “enforcer” (while they keep sente)
When it is a more prolonged attack (more than a few moves), the distinction may be referred to as good direction of play vs bad direction of play.
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Globally we are in the subject of timing. Timing is surely what makes difference between dan levels, just watching their games. Tenuki during fighting for an appropriate kikashi or yosumiru will make the difference at the end between players with similar tactical strength.
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What’s a yosomiru?
Yosumiru. (Japanese) A move to ask your opponent to take a decision between different choices
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Oh, I misread that u. Thanks.
Hmm, Sensei’s has this linguistic discussion:
In that SL page the very last line is the most interesting. (About the book strategic concepts of go)
AI seem particularly strong at finding moves somewhere between a honte move, semi-sente move and a probe. Those moves may not be strictly sente, but their position seems to improve regardless if you respond or not, or in which way you respond.
A nice video on that topic: AlphaGo - Whatever You Do Is Wrong - YouTube
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The “modern honte” of Takao Shinji, I suppose, as we were discussing in the mountains.
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