What's so bad about mirror go?

[Samraku]

@JethOrensin

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.

@JethOrensin

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.

I think you’ve expressed well an aspect of it I’ve been unable to put into words

[Groin]

For people who don’t like it, I suggest to try it on a 13x13. You get quicker to have to think how it will be broken

[qnpnpmqppnp]

@martin3141

Mirror go is just another challenge to overcome, and if it’s difficult, that makes it more exciting and satisfying to win.

You may or may not care for it, but I don’t think you can ignore the specificity of mirror Go as a strategy and wave it as “just another challenge”. You don’t see this kind of reaction with other openings.

The complaint against Mirror Go isn’t about difficulty, it’s about it being unfun (even if you win in the end); and in casual play it’s not surprising that players may prefer to move on rather than deal with something they deem fundamentally uninteresting.

[Groin]

@qnpnpmqppnp

I can easily understand the desire to resign and move on, or even blocking such users.

If you participate in a face to face tournament, will you take such rude decision?

[qnpnpmqppnp]

No, not in a tournament.

It’s allowed by the rules so at the end of the day it’s on me to push through it (but I’ll probably internally curse my opponent, even if I win).

[Groin]

Are you then encouraging the abuse on complacent OGS pairing system?

[qnpnpmqppnp]

Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by “complacent pairing system”?

[Groin]

Well unlike in a tournament you can just cancel after a few moves

[saxmaam]

I’ve never figured out how to “prove” what my motivation is.

[qnpnpmqppnp]

Thanks - Resigning may be more common than cancelling (as cancelling only applies for the first few moves), but in any case why would it be an abuse?

A player is free to leave a casual game they no longer enjoy. Cancelling or resigning is the proper way of doing it.

[Groin]

Because in their mind when implementing the OGS cancelation system, they didn’t think it could be helping players to chose the opening they like. So that’s why I call it complacent. You don’t like mirror, great wall, early invasion at 3-3, whatever, just cancel.

[qnpnpmqppnp]

As mentioned above, cancelling is unlikely to be used. My comments and others all referred to resigning; by the point you know the other player is mirroring, you’re already past the point of cancelling the game.

As mentioned above as well, mirror go is not just “another opening”. No other opening generates the same reactions.

All this being said, if you want to cancel the game when the opponents play 3x3, be my guest.

[Groin]

What do you think then when pros play mirror in titles tournaments?

[saxmaam]

This makes me want to start an “Exploring Mirror Go” group.

[qnpnpmqppnp]

Nothing? I don’t dispute it’s within the rules, and can easily understand why it could be a viable strategy (although pro games are way beyond my grasp anyway).

[Groin]

Myself I think that this is a proof that mirroring is a legal interesting opening and that we shouldn’t be so excluding opening not in the orthodoxy. You should be ready to everything, I didn’t mention even other openings like second line moves, or more into the center. Besides the advantage given by a better opening is even not so big, a very few points sometimes to just reject it. All in all I feel pityful for those who can’t stand being walking in unknown fields.

[qnpnpmqppnp]

a proof that mirroring is a legal interesting opening

Legal, certainly. However I don’t see how this is proof of it being “interesting”, let alone fun. In any case, I don’t think pro tournaments are the right frame of reference for the vast majority of players.

All in all I feel pityful for those who can’t stand being walking in unknown fields.

I think you’re missing the point.

It’s been said several times in this thread, but I can’t stress enough how the issue with Mirror Go is the “mirror” part, not the fact that it’s unknown, uncommon, difficult, challenging or whatever. Nobody here complained about unorthodox openings; they complained, very specifically, about mirror Go.

I think @JethOrensin already laid out the rationale.

[saxmaam]

Seems like the people who are annoyed by mirror go feel that either

• the mirroring player has bad motivations (to annoy, perhaps)
• the mirroring player is getting an unfair advantage
• the mirroring player is being lazy, not engaging
• unfun (because … ?)

[Groin]

But they assume to be less lazyness in other openings as mirror. I don’t think so, players may many times just reproduce the few they encountered before with their orthodox openings,without much grasping the meaning of their choice. But you know it seems it just look like more what a go game should be. Why assuming that you re just sleeping when mirroring?

[JethOrensin]

@Groin

What do you think then when pros play mirror in titles tournaments?

A professional is playing to win and nothing else.
An amateur usually has a lot more different reasons for learning and playing a game in their leisure time.

Therefore a professional, by definition, is obligated to plow through and endure the strategy of the opponent choosing “mirror Go”.
An amateur, by definition, has no such obligatory, explicit and singilar interest in winning, therefore an amateur can resign that game and go fulfill their reasons for playing this game in their leisure time on a different board, with a different opponent.

@Groin

You should be ready to everything

Good. Then you should be ready with the opponent resigning within 20-30 moves.

@Groin

All in all I feel pityful for those who can’t stand being walking in unknown fields.

You see that is my point exactly.
We are trying to play a game to walk into those “unknown fields” generated by the minds of other people and the opponent forces us to walk into the very known fields of our own brain.

@saxmaam

Seems like the people who are annoyed by mirror go feel that either

No, on all three of those.