There is a way to find out: https://www.govariants.com/game/65ece1ee7a630c2990133615
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So in the end, are the three corner vertices connected or not?
The three corner vertices are not connected to each other on this board.
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Yes, this observation is common to all boards that have triangles on them, including near the poles in circular go. In standard go, “empty triangle” is a bad shape, mostly because in an empty triangle, two connected stones are connected to the same empty intersection. Which means fewer liberties, but also fewer directions to escape when you’re nearly surrounded. On boards with triangles, nobi can feel as bad as an empty triangle for the same reason.
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It seems like mirror go may be a fairly effective strategy for White to neutralize Black’s first move advantage. I’m not sure how Black could easily disrupt a mirror Go strategy by White.
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Well, the technical counters work, so it’s not a winning strategy, but indeed, mirror Go seems quite strong.
Perhaps remove komi?
Tell me more, please.
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Mirror go can be countered on every board (as long as its connected) by setting up a capturing race like so:
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So, does the analogous thing on the Sierpińsky carpet require some sort of huge capturing race position that goes around the large central gap? Or is there some other way of applying the same concept?
The tricky thing about a strategically effective counter is that the moves to build up towards it should still be strategically reasonable to avoid having the mirroring player simply break from mirroring, once you’ve played a clearly suboptimal move.
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I believe so. There is also another, more generally applicable way to counter mirror-go, making use of superko rule: Random Gaps + Pie Rule - #205 by Feijoa
But I agree that it would be difficult to counter, provided that both players consider all possibilities. I believe that is maybe what Vsotvep meant by “technical counter”, i.e. a counter assuming that white sticks to mirroring.
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My opinion is that without center there are no technics to counter mirror go. I mean a center in a strategic sense not just a central point away.
Because it’s easy to take good shape and give bad, or capture first in the center but not away from it all around. Both colors will have to get in contact after a long play so that first to move get a global advantage like a capture that breaks the mirroring. Not impossible but unrealistic for building a counter strategy in real.
Better as nothing but a full miss of the main interest, that is to play with a pure center, no edge. Big chance I’ll try that one in the OP.
I prefer the blunt force hammer solution: moves which create a position symmetrical about some axis which passes through the center of the board, are illegal after move 4
Yes, this is how I meant it. It’s not a winning strategy, because Black can counter it by setting up a capture race, but in practice this means Black has to play many moves that are suboptimal from a Go perspective, thus usually such counter measures backfire by White aborting the mirror and playing a good move (and getting an edge over Black that way).
This is more to show that mathematically mirror Go is not a winning strategy, even on this board, but it may still be a very strong strategy in the hands of an experienced player who knows when to abort and use other methods of winning.
I guess the main difference with odd-numbered boards that have a center, is that you can use ladders to break the mirror strategy, where it is important to note that setting up a ladder usually can be done without playing inherently bad moves. Without ladders, the other methods of countering mirror Go that I know of all involve pretty bad shape.
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