When I first became aware that mirror go was a thing, i thought it was a pretty neat way to learn from my opponent in the oh-so-mysterious opening. Now I sense that it annoys a significant fraction of go players. But what’s so bad about it? Eventually somebody stops mirroring.
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I find idea of mirror very interesting:
if you play tengen as fast as possible, mirror stops, but you lose very few points
so mirror user makes a threat: “give me these few points now or I will continue to torment you with very boring moves!”
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It’s a curious psychological thing I think.
Have you ever parroted someone in conversation? Most kids do it as an experiment at some stage. The same frustration arises.
I can’t explain why I find it frustrating to know that my opponent’s next move will parrot mine, and yet there is a basic upwelling of frustration.
The interesting part of it is more “intellectual” - as soon as intellect overrides psychology, a person can think “ah, interesting, I wonder how I best respond to this”.
It does take an act of intellect to make that choice though…
(stone defender mentioned that the moves are boring … one can ask “why is it boring though”. That might lead to another frustrating conversation that kids have “but why” 
)
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I think if white mirrors and black doesn’t play tengen, then knowing it’s a winning strategy is annoying (you’re forced to break it somehow).
If black plays tengen and mirrors it’s annoying if it’s a winning strategy like no komi and white can’t find a way to counter. Or it’s annoying if there’s komi and it’s not a winning strategy but your opponent plays it for X moves.
I guess the annoyance is mostly about how easy it is for the opponent to choose the next move, vs how hard you have to potentially think to counter it or to play “good enough moves” that they don’t break the mirror with an improvement.
It is what it is though, just another part of the game, and not just Go games. It basically completely kills some other games unless they account for it somehow.
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At first sight yes but then no. I am not sure at all that one position is more comfortable as the other because when you mirror you guess that your opponent will elaborate a counter strategy so you have to think about it too.
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I dont mind mirror go. My moves are great, and if my opponent chooses to use them then it’s twice the fun 
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I’ve always thought that the mentality when playing mirror-go should be something like:
“only mirror the previous move if you think it was the best move the board → if you think opponent played anything sub-optimal, stop mirroring and play the better move → you are now ahead by the difference of the last two moves”
It will probably only be a tiny advantage and really difficult to hold for the rest of the game, but at least you should not be losing after the opening ^^
Alternatively, if your opponent is playing mirror-go against you, and you want to push them out of the mirror: play a slightly sub-optimal move → if they still mirror that, take advantage of their blind mirror
If w mirrors, b can set up 2 ladders from diagonically separate corners, or just keep building the framework until tengen actually becomes a good move
Or if b mirrors, w can build a semeai around tengen, or if it goes on long enough, w can make tengen as useless dame
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Some people dislike mirror and don’t play again against such users.
But its possible to prepare how to deal against mirror before game start.
So, my opinion: if game already started and you have no plan ready, you should blame only yourself if mirror happens. Blocking mirror users is bad sportsmanship.
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I guess it annoys me because usually the thought behind it is “ha, tricked ya!”. Like people playing 3-3 mindlessly, because AI says so.
I dislike gimmicks.
And if my opponent wants to play mirror Go for a higher, more noble reason than just gimmicking, they gotta prove so. 
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I have idea: its possible to paint picture with stones
When you play against mirror user, you have full control of the board
So, it should be possible to draw some cute pixel art
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That’s a very good and I think underrated point. If your opponent is mirroring you, you’re in control. You just have to be prepared.
My preparation so far is to know that I can play tengen at any time in the opening on my skill level, without it making much of a difference.
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If you want to learn from your opponent you can imitate his play in the next game that you play. There’s no need to imitate him in the game itself.
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When you are in a usual not mirroring game, players may be more imitating, putting things they learned somewhere many times even not really understanding the meaning behind the moves. Mirror go can be refreshing.
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Unless you want to win that game yourself, and mirror Go as white does keep the game kind of even in the opening.
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IMO mirror go is very stressful to both players, but it depends on the skill of the players I guess.
In theory, breaking mirror is pretty easy: there are several methods e.g.
- Playing a capturing race around tengen stone, where you capture before the opponent so they can no longer mirror.
- Playing any ladder from the corner toward the center, which become 2 ladders heading toward each other, where you again capture first breaking the mirror.
But of course it’s not that simple, because the opponent is not a parrot. They can decide to quit mirroring at anytime, so you have to actually play a good move. Good enough that your opponent can’t just easily break the mirror and gain an advantage.
The advantage is actually quite small, the most straightforward comparison is: you decide to play tengen immediately (if you’re black), and your opponent (who can’t mirror now) play a corner move. So they gain the advantage between playing corner vs tengen.
To be very honest, at my level I still can’t see what the hell is wrong with playing tengen first move, so it’s basically negligible disadvantage for me.
So, in my experience, mirror is a pretty advanced technique that require both skill in the game to estimate each move’s value, and the mental resilience to do the same for every move. Not to mention that the longer the mirroring continue, the smaller the difference in end game score, which additionally demand deep yose knowledge.
I tried mirror some times before and find out it’s way too early for me to touch this subject, will try again if I reach something like 3-4d. At current time the people who try mirror on me are basically in the same situation I was in: [absolutely no idea what they’re doing], and usually is no threat.
There’s also the “black mirror” case where black player plays tengen first, and then mirror white. iirc pros say it’s worse than white version, because you play tegen first move while your opponent has komi advantage. They can thus lead the game toward one where tengen influence is insignificant and proceed to win. That sounds pretty logical for me so I almost never mirror with black.
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I don’t mind mirror go in an even game with komi and plenty of time, but it is annoying if I’m white in a no-komi or handicap blitz game, because the easy counter strategy of “just let them do it and onus is on them to make up the komi” doesn’t work, and it takes time to engineer an anti-mirror sequence in that situation but you have no time, and they don’t need to spend any time on their moves.
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If you wanted to play against yourself, you could do it on your own.
A very normal assumption is that if you sit (literally or online) against another opponent, you expect the challenge of trying to win against someone else’s strategy, ideas, intellect and skill. If the game starts with mirror Go, there is some very predictable disappointment since you are not getting any of that, but someone that outsourced their whole opening to your brain.
I haven’t had anyone play mirror Go against me, but I assume that I’d resign after, let’s say 20-30 moves, if this was kept up.
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Agreed - I know mirror Go is within the rules and there’s nothing “wrong” with it, but it’s fundamentally un-fun and I can’t help by being immediately annoyed if my opponent is trying this…
I can easily understand the desire to resign and move on, or even blocking such users.
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Mirror go is just another challenge to overcome, and if it’s difficult, that makes it more exciting and satisfying to win.
That’s to resign because one doesn’t like the other players opening strategy. Not a nice thing to do in my opinion.
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Not exactly.
The “other player’s opening strategy” is actually your opening strategy, which is the main issue.
Playing moves that the opponent wouldn’t like to see because they distress their strategy and goals, is kind of the point of the game and not a reason to resign at all.
So, it is not a matter of “liking or disliking” it.
It is a matter of it not being engaging, because it is not an intellectual refutation of your moves, but just an automatic reflection of what you are doing and thinking.
Go has been many times been said to be like a discussion between the two players, so if you like a funny example, it is the same issue with that Monty Python clip with the “argument service”. That person signed up for an actual argument which is “an intellectual process, not an automatic gainsay of whatever they were saying”.
You signed up to play with another human and you are starting the game playing with yourself (pun and innuendo not intended, but quite fitting nonetheless) and, as far as I am concerned, if they want to win so much as to resort to that kind of lame strategy, fine, let them win.
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