The Divine Move?

I still have a problem with the idea of a single best move. You can’t completely evaluate how “good” a move is, until a position is settled or the game is over. You can play the best move assuming your opponent is also making the “best moves”, but that is a HUGE assumption when you are talking about 20+ moves later. An “unperfect” move could later end up being a ladder breaker that determines the fate of a group and the outcome of the game.

A tesuji is a good move that is also in some way unexpected or counterintuitive. This creates an emotional story with a single move, and every Go player has experienced this “tesuji” emotion, from one side or another of the equation.

The divine move as presented in Hikaru no Go is something like the pinnacle of tesuji in an emotional sense. All the moves that come close in the anime reveal deep reading and judgement, and the fact that the move was played says something about the strength and character of the player who saw the move. It’s a shocking and spiritual event. Take that to its limit, and the move becomes super human. The moment of joy and shock that we’ve all experienced when faced with a tesuji becomes a moment of transcendence. The perfection, in a technical sense, is secondary to the story of the move. That’s why Lee Sedol’s move sorta fits the bill, even if it’s “just a trick.”

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If it’s just that then solving a tsumego makes everyone play a divine move.
So there is a side that the move should be really astonishing, meaning you are the one to have found it and no one else.

@Groin see above

My idea of a “perfect” move is very different than my idea of a “divine” move. Perfect moves/perfect play has a mathematically rigorous definition. Divine moves are more about the feelings and experiences of everyone observing (including the players)

Perfect moves don’t have to be unique. They just have to be irrefutable. Think about tic-tac-toe: if you know the game well enough, you can play in a way that it is impossible to lose. Perfect play also exists for Go, even if no one will ever be strong enough to master this strategy.

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If both players play perfectly in a game with perfect komi, the result will be a draw. The result will be a perfect game.

I would expect that there exists more than one perfect game. Perfect moves are moves that don’t lose anything when the opponent counters perfectly. It’s quite possible to have multiple perfect moves available in a position.

I would expect that perfect games hardly contain dramatic “divine” moves. In a perfect game, neither player will make any unreasonable moves, so the game would progress rather peacefully, perhaps intermitted by some forced trade here and there. Perfect games may be quite boring.

I like HnG, but this “divine move” theme doesn’t seem very realistic to me. A game of go is not typically won by some dramatic “knock-out” maneuver, at least not at the highest levels of play. At high levels of play, games are won by the opponent accumulating slightly more inaccuracies/mistakes than you (i.e. you win by grace of your opponent’s mistakes, not by your own “geniality”).

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You could read along with LionGuySai

“The divine move” is what Sai tells people when asked why is he so obsessed. For all we know Sai could have another reason. Or no reason at all. Kinda sounds like how a religious fanatic justifies whatever they do for their cause: it makes sense to them and them only.

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