What is a large monkey jump ?
It’s seems like a trick play , what could be the appropriate answer?
1971-02-03a
Hashimoto Utaro vs. Otake Hideo - 2024-10-09
What is a large monkey jump ?
It’s seems like a trick play , what could be the appropriate answer?
Besides the links others have provided, a monkey jump (large or small, since in Chinese they are called 大伸腿 and 小伸腿, “extending the legs large” or “small”) is considered an “end-game/yose tesuji”, which is different from a “trick move/play”.
It’s one of the few easier to show tesuji for ddk players, since it is “counter-intuitive” at the first line (most teachers would tell beginners to find yose at higher lines first). As to how to respond to it properly, that’s a whole other story depending on the students’ levels with all the different contexts and positions around/above it.
If it’s played before endgame, and sometimes in endgame, the appropriate answer is often to tenuki.
Could you elaborate on why tenuki after a monkey jump often is the appropriate answer? Maybe with some examples?
In general, moves that affect life and death status of groups are bigger than moves that just make points. So if your opponent makes a monkey jump that doesn’t threaten to kill your group, it’s generally better for instance to attack an enemy group in sente (if such an attacking move is available).
If i recall correctly, an average monkey jump is worth 7 points. So, if you let your opponent the opportunity of doing one, you’re giving away 7 points.
In the endgame it’s a nice loot.
In the middle game you have to evaluate if there are better/bigger moves around.
Preventing a monkey jump is probably a gote move, so you’re giving away sente at the price of 7 points.
If you don’t answer to a monkey jump, you’re giving away some more points, since your opponent could extend from that stone.
Again, it’s a matter of opportunity: it’s worth if there are better moves somewhere. Or if you play sente moves and then come back to it.
It’s a matter of size. Endgame moves have to be played in endgame because middle game moves involve more points to get.
Even in endgame you have the mutual destruction idea. If you have a sente move somewhere else of same size you have to play it instead of answering.
It varies a lot (especially if gote or sente) but yes as a reference. 7-8 points
Thx everyone !
I saw the large monkey jump somewhere in a comment and i was wondering how different it was from the ,“regular” monkey jump, maybe a bigger big knight move ?! …
But, actually, it’s the same just Chinese speaker call it "large "
And I see you learned some tricks back in the day, like the large monkey jump. I have shown it to ddk players those unintuitive moves, and it usually sticks with them till they advance beyond sdk, when they start to learn it is just one type of tesuji, and even with a variation of a small monkey jump (and as a yose/end game moves, the large monkey jump is normally not a very good yose choice)
anyway i learned some news things about it
Thanks for these valuable ideas.
I should tenuki more often.
You may still answer at times, satisfied by the fact that your opponent lost a valuable ko threat anyway.
It can also depend on whether if you block the monkey jump you get a sente follow-up later.
Only a gote follow-up after blocking
sente follow-up after blocking is more like 9 points
Or other situations
I’m not sure how one would count a realistic average - or whether instead one just thinks about the most common situation to come about and calls that the average.
Here’s some pro games from the book with multiple monkey jumps
2 here at 83 and 95
Hashimoto Utaro vs. Otake Hideo - 2024-10-09
Both move 138 and 139 are monkey jumps in this game
Ma Xiaochun vs. Yuki Satoshi - 2024-10-09
I read this thread and kept in mind that I should more often question the importance of monkey jumps. So, in a recent game, I did not block an option for my opponent to make a monkey jump, but decided to play somewhere else.
AI later showed that this was basically my main losing move and I should have blocked the monkey jump.
(Well, it was on 13 x 13, so that gives the monkey jump more weight, I guess. And the alternative move I chose was also not the best locally.)
I also completely forgot about a monkey jump in one of my recent tournament games, playing other moves instead, and then my opponent got to play it
It happens luckily I did win that one though
Note that the best move is not always a monkey jump, but may be a one-space jump.
Looking at a random pro game with AI,
At this stage, if White blocks, then White loses 5 points according to AI. Even if Black jumps into the corner, White’s bottom left group still has two clear eyes. On the other hand, the life and death status of several groups in the center is not clear (I’d even say very confusing for me), so defending/attacking is more urgent.
Now that all groups seem to be perfectly alive, Black can jump into the lower left corner - although the best move here is a one-space jump to the 2-3 point. In the game Black played it only 34 moves later, since many other interesting moves were available elsewhere.
(By the way, is there a name for the one-space jump from a second line stone as in the example? If not, could we call it the donkey jump?)
At this stage, if White blocks, then White loses 5 points according to AI.
Because black’s move primary purpose was not to threaten white’s territory, but to stabilize the black group and make eyespace on the left side. So if you let black get that in sente, it’s intolerable. If white moved first in that area, the 2nd line hane at same spot there is huge.
donkey jump?
(By the way, is there a name for the one-space jump from a second line stone as in the example? If not, could we call it the donkey jump?)
I would imagine there is in Japanese, but it has not, nor an anglicised version, entered the Western go lexicon to my knowledge.
(By the way, is there a name for the one-space jump from a second line stone as in the example? If not, could we call it the donkey jump?)
Also seen it written as トビコミ in katakana in Ishida’s endgame book.
There is a
iwhich is where that’s from, but I basically had to find it in a book, to know what to look up Otherwise I’d just be full reading the dictionary.