Why prioritise automatch?
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Because it gets better the more people use it.
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Can you explain that?
The more people that use automatch, the faster everyone gets paired, so it’s a better experience for everyone.
The more people make custom games, the faster they fly on and off the list. It pressures people to click any game they can and read the settings later, then cancel if they don’t like it. Unlike automatch where you can calmly set your settings and then get a quick match.
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The main value of automatch lies in its name: you don’t chose or being chosen.
Favoring is putting away players from the pool not favorized, so that’s not really an argument in itself.
The fact that the automation let you relax when searching for a game is still to consider, yes.
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Automatch is intended to be the option that most players can use. It’s only if you feel strongly about settings that you should visit Custom.
As others have said, there is a network effect.
There’s also the cognitive overload at play: Custom is hard, Auto is easy
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Should tsumegos be black to play? (When swapping colors can’t be done just by clicking a button, e.g. a picture of the tsumego.)
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yes
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But isn’t it possible this creates a bias in reading?
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I think we should answer two questions:
- what is the result if Black plays first
- what is the result if White plays first.
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I think Davies life and death book does that for a number of puzzles, status problems for either player to play first, and the answer could still be tenuki because it’s alive or dead in some cases.
I suppose whether it’s better or not depends on the propose of the puzzle.
Sometimes puzzles are created because they have a certain solution in mind, so it makes sense to have a label like Black to play.
Other times puzzle creators might want a unique solution, and maybe there’s a unique solution if black plays first but a non unique solution if white plays first. Though sometimes a certain non-unique solution can be better than another because of other considerations, live vs live but get better endgame or ko threats or something.
So sometimes there can be puzzles for other reasons than just say education.
I do agree, though that status puzzles are interesting but can be tougher, but it does make you make sure you can evaluate properly.
I wouldn’t be as worried of the bias of doing a bunch of black to play puzzles, at least the creators of black to play maybe aren’t as worried, and the black to play book series.
I guess the tradeoff is making the puzzles a bit more engaging and drill-able. You can click through easier puzzles quickly when you don’t have to check every time who is to play next.
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There are many crossways in the road I take to work and at most of them the cars go straight, but there is one crossway in particular where almost every car turns.
That is, there are cars coming from all four directions, and cars going to all four directions, but almost no car going straight.
I’ve been wondering about it and one possible explanation is that this crossroad is relatively close to the ringroad/beltway, so cars planning to go a long way are not going straight, they’re going to the ring road.
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There’s a go proverb something like “If Black has four corners they should resign”. I’ve always understood this to mean that Black was outplaying White and should resign to avoid being a bully. Then I see two equally ranked players with this…
White is estimated to be ~22 points up, even with the swiggly nine dying. The pond is so vast, kinda almost Texas shaped, that White still wins. So the question is “have I misunderstood the proverb?” Is it that if both players have good shape, and one invested in four corners, then the resulting middle will likely be XXL?
Alternate question phrasing: If Black has four corners why should they resign?
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I think this is because black has komi so black needs to make up for it somehow, and just by having four corners and giving white the centre is not enough to compensate for the komi.
If white has four corners black should resign
The other way is also true. If white has four corners with komi then it’s difficult for black to catch up so black should resign.
Of course, all these are very generalized so they are not true all the time.
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The earliest example of this proverb “四隅とられて碁を打つな” (four corners got taken, don’t keep playing) that I can find came from 囲碁教句集 (literally means “a collection of proverbs/scriptures for Go”) by 瀬越憲作 (Segoe Kensaku, Go Seigen’s teacher).
And, the phrase likely came from games of examples like these from Kitani Minoru (木谷實)
and Mitsuhara Itaro (光原伊太郎), where games just end when the last corner was sealed.
Kitani was famous for liking territory play (to a certain extreme), and in the era of no komi, it was a lot more practical for black to play very territorial and thick and still win without any mid-game fight. This is the common consensus in the 19th to early and mid-20th century, thus paving the way for the Chinese openings, and influence-based idea (and then eventually cosmic style)
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IMHO isn’t clear to me that 4 corners lead to a winning position.
What I know is that when you have 4 corners
1: be careful to not invest in the sides, may be too much to handle
2: If you think your corners won’t be enough, live in the middle if you can. After all if you get the 4 corners and the center… Your opponent will have a hard time to get points somewhere. This may become really perilous so don’t hesitate to spend slow moves to secure the 2 eyes.
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I’ve always heard this proverb as “If a player has four corners, then white wins.” which seems voluntarily provocative ; I’ve always understood it as: one player having four corners is a very abnormal situation, if it happens it probably means someone made a big mistake, so the stronger player has already won.
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Work to suit your body clock. For me, 07:30 - 09:30, small break, 10 - 1, long break, 3-5:30
Maybe you’re a later person, have a lie-in, work into the evening, but make sure you use the other hours for something you enjoy.
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Did you procrastinate to answer for six years? 
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