In both strategies the player countering may play good moves and shapes so i don’t see that much difference.
I’m not sure what you mean with both strategies?
I meant that setting up a capturing race, such as this one:
generally requires Black to make some slow and thick moves. White should not respond by mirroring them.
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I mean how you differenciate ladders vs center moves.
With center moves the player being mirrored can play as good moves as the ones by setting a ladders. The mirroring is the one who gets stupid shapes (like a double empty triangle while you get a clean 3 stones line)
In the end the mirroring one is the player who gets stupid shape, yes, but this assumes that White continues mirroring all the way through to the capture… Setting up a capturing race in the center, Black has to make several pretty bad moves in a row, after each one White could abort the mirror and make use of the fact that Black played a bad move. For instance, simply mirroring on a normal Goban with an even number of intersections:
Why would White respond with mirroring after Black plays 9? If White simply connects, that saves the two stones and leaves Black with two weak cutting points around 5. White will be in a better position by aborting the mirror, and in hindsight Black 9 is a pretty terrible move.
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Could do better
2 looks already strange as an answer to 1
after 3 which is no that bad looking, how about the empty triangle at 4?
then if black insist you can change him in a double empty triangle
To me 1 already breaks the mirroring black should stop here.
Ah, I see where we are confusing each other: I consider White to be mirroring Black, not the other way around. Mirroring as Black is flawed for different, but similar reasons, but on an even board Black can’t mirror, because Black has to make the first move (and there is no center).
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Ok i see it’s more complex on an even board as white can stop. But then black can reestablish the mirror position (like connecting himself too in your example.)
What may break is capture so i m not sure at all that you ll lead to some disavantageous position anyway.
As soon as we talk about concepts such as optimal play, the topic becomes very complex. In particular, it may very well be that there is a playing line that is optimally played by both, and moves are mirrored. This would imply that fair komi = 0 for this board.
Of course that doesn’t mean that mirror go is a good strategy in general, because there may also be optimal lines of play where you need to break the mirror to avoid falling behind.
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In some way i think people will prefer to be mirroring as mirrored because of they feel they have the power to break, but i am not sure this is the truth as with good plays of course the mirrored is the leading who could involve the other in some irreversible bad roads. It’s just very complex maybe (in the example maybe cutting instead of 9 could drive to something more promising ?). Anyway i m not convinced that black has to play bad moves to succeed at all.
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I just want to add on my example on a 19x19 that 1 itself is not so usual between strong players because black can hane already instead of following the symetry and it’s said to be disavantageous to start a fight like this for white. So indeed, even on a classic board it’s not that easy to torture the mirroring…
I’m not really sure how well it’s going for either of us. I’d wager White is ahead, due to me making obvious mistakes, and I feel I don’t really have a strategy.
Making eyes seems quite difficult…
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If you have the three endpoints of one of the smallest “triforce” triangles, then that’s one eye. But to achieve comfortable life, one needs to surround enough territory (like on other boards).
I feel like your stones are very center oriented, and you allowed me to cut off all three corners.
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Assuming the corners live, which I’ve decided to test on the right now
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I’ve called the game. As I see it, White solidly has 12 small triangles, while Black has at best 4, out of 27 in total. The remainder seems to be shared, and probably not worth points.
Thanks for the game @martin3141 !
It’s weird, I feel like there’s not much that can be done on this board. Feels very disconnected and local everywhere
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Is it the same image?
In the lower left of the bottom right there’s a blue cross drawn.
I think that it cuts off 1 White stone, and then White can disconnect the Black groups in the bottom right and bottom left, but everything else just lives as far as I can read.
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Thank you for the game @Vsotvep!
Here’s some thoughts that I had.
In this situation with Black to play, the game move was A. But after White C, Blacks needs to add another move if they want to connect to the bottom. So I think that B might be a better option here for Black to (kindof-) connect. Generally speaking, I think that C and D are important points, because if white takes them, they create a comfortable base and points in the corner.
In this situation the move was Black A. I thought that B instead might be a good chance to try and put pressure on the two white stones.
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