What's so bad about mirror go?

[BHydden]

This argument thread exploded

[JethOrensin]

@Vsotvep

It reads to me as if you assign no decision making to your opponent.

If you ignore my 10+ posts in this thread and keep only that line, yeah, it can be read like that.

@Vsotvep

But that’s not the case, the mirror player decides each move whether or not it is worth to break the mirror or not, they’re not outsourcing their moves to you.

Is it the optimal time to break the mirror? No? Play the same move as my opponent.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Repeat the above.
Is it the optimal time to break the mirror? No? Play the same move as my opponent.
Is it the optimal time to break the mirror? Yes? Now I am playing something different!

So, yeah there is some pretty obvious outsourcing while they bide their time to spring their trap/strategy.

Did you miss the part with the simile with the stake-out hunt where you are waiting for your pray to appear? Probably?

@Vsotvep

You moreover at multiple stages imply that mirror Go players do not play for fun or out of interest themselves, but are just interested in getting points.

You are now grossly misrepresenting a point that I excruciatingly explained over 5+ posts and was discussed between multiple people. Bravo!

@Vsotvep

you can’t even imagine that the opponent has a legitimate reason for playing it!

you missed those too?

@JethOrensin

An amateur usually has a lot more different reasons for learning and playing a game in their leisure time.

@JethOrensin

This also means that if they tell me “hey, I want to try mirror Go for fun” I will not resign and I’ll humor them and give it a spin. If they don’t, then I’ll do what I like.

Look, this is boring everyone to death and you are seriously making this topic go south with forcing the meta-threading. I do not know what on earth you want to achieve with this after I wrote post 119 to clear this misunderstanding.

Seriously now, what do you want with all this?

@Vsotvep

No, you discover after 20 moves that you don’t like the style of game your playing, and you’d rather rob your opponent the pleasure they have from playing that type

Rob the pleasure from the opponent? Are you serious?

Since when did I sign up to be a “pleasure provider” for the opponent?

That was objectively funny ahahah

@Vsotvep

It’s like exactly like people who resign after weird joseki.

Jesus Christ, we actually explored that on post 105

@Vsotvep

No, you discover after 20 moves that you don’t like the style of game your playing

This was replied/explained in post 19. It has nothing to do with “liking it” or not.

@Vsotvep

Also, what’s even more annoying about this: you don’t even play against mirror Go players!

Why is that annoying? mirrorGo is a rarity in correspondence and I’ve explained why… you want another post link?

@Vsotvep

So, of course it makes sense that you go out of your way to besmirch a strategy that a significant number of players enjoy

ah, yeah, because I am such a known Go hater that I thought that it would be a nice day to “besmirch a strategy”… calm down

@Vsotvep

Just before someone tries that, playing nonsense is generally considered worse than early resigning. Players are supposed to play their games until they are decided, and to play seriously (unless otherwise agreed of course).

Iron pillars are not non-sense but a move that “a significant number of players enjoy, that has enough depth to have professional players use it” , but fine:
Attach, hane, double hane, triple hane, start a greedy fight, lose it fast, die in a corner in 15 moves. Not even 60 moves, “gg, wp!” bye!

DGS - Game #1160685,29

29 moves is my record and I was actually trying my best to win.

[benjito]

Get a room, you two!

[Jon_Ko]

Do you agree with the following?
You think it would be okay, if you’re opponent liked to play mirror go, but if they mirrored you (without warning you about their strategy at the beginning of the game) you wouldn’t want to go beyond 20 to 30 moves and you’d resign, if the mirroring hadn’t stopped by then.

---

If you’re answer to my question above is yes (and I really hope it is, it took me a while to phrase it so that I think you’d agree), consider the following scenario:

You played a game, you’re opponent mirrored your moves for quite a while, so you resigned.
Alice is curious about your game and asks Bob about it.
Alice: How was JethOrensin’s game?
Bob: His opponent mirrored him and he doesn’t like to play mirror games, so he resigned.

Would you say Bob is misinterpreting the situation?

---

If your answer to my second question is no, would you agree that it can be kind of confusing that you’re saying “it has nothing to do with liking it”?

[Groin]

Ok I get that when the winner of the game is not yet decided, OGS policy would be to authorize resignation when you feel no fun. But I still wonder why this policy doesn’t take care of the opponent feeling when left behind like that.

[Feijoa]

@Vsotvep

what about the following counter strategy to mirror go:

• Suppose that I first play mirror go against KataGo, and since KataGo is good at countering mirror go, I would lose both games, but KataGo makes virtually no mistakes, so it’s very hard for the mirroring player to find the move to stop mirroring without making a mistake.
• I then memorise both games so that I can replay them leisurely whenever I want.
• Next mirror opponent I encounter, I simply play according to the memorised game.

Okay, I tried blindly playing mirror go against katago-micro. It played tengen on move 79 leaving the board in almost a perfectly even position:

test mirror

Then I tried playing mirror against the “blue move” in a (Level IV?) review and got a big mess. After 100 moves Black was supposedly ahead by a few points:

test mirror

That doesn’t look fun to memorize.

I think I’d rather just go for an opening that I find fun and then straight to tengen, maybe like this:

That’s basically even and then I get to see two 5-4s in one game!

[martin3141]

@JethOrensin

The “other player’s opening strategy” is actually your opening strategy, which is the main issue.

If this is the main issue, good because it’s easy to see that your view is a flawed here.

Since your opponent is making their own decisions and not you, it’s not your strategy but it’s your opponents strategy.

[Sadaharu]

@JethOrensin

Issuing ladder challenges seem like an easy option for that.

Well maybe you can start 2 games at the same time, but you can’t guarantee that both games will go at the same pace. You need to pray that both of your opponents will not take extended vacations for the entire game, allowing you to wait for them. You also need to get a different colour in both games which is like a 50% chance.

Seems like very tiring just to wait for such a chance to happen, let alone play it.

[Vsotvep]

Oh, how weird!!
I remember mirroring against KataGo once years ago, and the game was not that gruesome at all!

[Tschej]

But are you already aware of a mirror at this point?

[JethOrensin]

@Jon_Ko

If you’re answer to my question above is yes (and I really hope it is, it took me a while to phrase it so that I think you’d agree), consider the following scenario:

Yes, it is

@Jon_Ko

Bob: His opponent mirrored him and he doesn’t like to play mirror games, so he resigned.

Would you say Bob is misinterpreting the situation?

---

If your answer to my second question is no, would you agree that it can be kind of confusing that you’re saying “it has nothing to do with liking it”?

This is a bit odd because in the description Bob is saying that “I do not like playing mirror games” and you are asking that it is confusing that I say that “it has nothing to do with liking it”.

So, yes, what you are asking is a bit odd on its own.

The solution is simple, when I said that it was nothing to do with liking it, I mean that for me, it is not a matter of personal preference (in a poll Yebellz made in this topic I actually voted “5”. I just do not care for this strategy at all), but a matter of an objective lack of engagement that is inherent in the strategy itself.

You cannot play mirror Go, without mirroring moves. That is an objective part of the whole strategy. I hope that noone disagrees with that, at least. I am not “besmirtching” the strategy or anything. That is a fact.

Simply disliking the opponent’s strategy is not a reason to resign or even complain.
Again, I pointed this out very early, it is the very goal of the game itself to put the opponent in difficult situations and play moves that they will dislike, since they will be foiling their plans or areas. Part of the fun is getting challenged and put in bad shapes and positions, invasions and what-not.

This is why most people that expressed their aversion to playing versus mirror Go pointed out that this aversion is unique to this strategy and it does not apply to other rare or bizarre fuseki like the Black hole, the great wall etc or any other fuseki in general. I also pointed out that I am an ardent proponent of one such weird fuseki since it accounts for some of the many flaws in my game.

What is unique to mirror Go then? The lack of engagement from the opponent, which is a requirement of this strategy since, as I said earlier, you cannot play mirror Go, without mirroring moves.

It is then a unique issue and objectively different from any other fuseki in the whole game.

I have written all that before, but I hope this synopsis answers your question

[jlt]

Jonas Welticke 6d is famous for playing mirror go quite often. In some games he breaks the mirror himself:

At move 28
At move 24
At move 28

And in some games, his opponent (Black) plays tengen
At move 15
At move 23
At move 5
At move 1
At move 23

[qnpnpmqppnp]

To be fair, you seem to be particularly sensitive to your opponent resigning.

From my perspective I see nothing particularly shocking or rude with this behaviour. Escaping and letting the clock run would be rude (and is against the rules) because it wastes the opponent’s time, but resigning is the proper way of leaving a casual game that you don’t want to play anymore.

[saxmaam]

@JethOrensin

objective lack of engagement

how can you speculate on someone’s internal mind state and call that an objective fact?

[Vsotvep]

Jeth does not consider the mirror Go player’s internal mind state to be relevant, I believe. Only the one of the mirrored player seems to matter.

Whatever goes on in the mirror player’s mind is somehow irrelevant when considering the strategy, because as long as the move is a mirror move, any thought that went behind that move is nullified into a “lack of engagement”, “automatic reflection”.

It’s such a disdainful way of looking at mirror Go, but I’ve made enough words foul to it.

[saxmaam]

but but but … lack of engagement is an internal mind state, and also the biggest offense.

oh well. I am interested in mirror go. won’t inflict it on Jeth tho.

[saxmaam]

@saxmaam

Would you join an “Exploring Mirror Go” group?

Who wants to be co-administrator?

[JethOrensin]

@saxmaam

speculate on someone’s internal mind state and call that an objective fact?

That part is not speculation, it is literally part of the strategy and it is explained in the exact net sentences from the one you quoted. Also I’ve not commented on anyone’s “internal mind state”. I am not a seer.

But here, final effort, I’ll make a flow chart:

@Vsotvep

Jeth does not consider the mirror Go player’s internal mind state to be relevant, I believe. Only the one of the mirrored player seems to matter.

Calm down.
Again, I’ve made no comments on “internal mind states” or other such ill-defined non-Go related jargon (what does “internal mind state” even mean in this context?).

Noone claims that the mirroring player is somehow in a fugue unithinking state just going “hurhurdur”, singing “baby shark tururururu” in their minds while just blindly copying the moves.

Of course they are thinking when is the right time to break the mirror (and I’ve said that multiple times), however during that process, they are not engaging the opponent because that is the idea of the strategy.

The engagement arrives at the moment/move when they break this loop and both players are now playing different moves. That is the trap of the mirror Go. It is an ambush and while waiting, you play the same moves the opponent played (hence the name “mirror Go” and the lack of engagement. It is in the name of the strategy ) till you find the right moment that it will be to your advantage to break this loop and engage with the opponent.

@Vsotvep

It’s such a disdainful way of looking at mirror Go

That’s your problem. I’ve been more than accomodating into trying to explain things in a civil manner and dispel any misunderstanding and I’ve still never used any of the words that you tried to apply to me.

On the contrary other people did use those words (here and in many other topics, it was even called “legitimised trolling”), but you seem to have no problem with that

@saxmaam

oh well. I am interested in mirror go.

Give it a spin. It will be fun. After you’ve tried playing it and playing against it, I’d be very interesting to hear your opinion again.

[saxmaam]

last sally: my engagement or lack thereof IS an internal mindstate.

it doesn’t matter what somebody puts on a flowchart

But I kind of get it. you’re using “lack of engagement” to mean something else. you’re saying that those mirror moves aren’t giving you the kind of stimulation you want to have. somebody playing a memorized opening does (?). somebody playing mirror moves doesn’t. I know I’m not quoting you directly; i am trying to get the gist.

[JethOrensin]

@saxmaam

my engagement

It is not your engagement that is the issue.
It is the engagement with the opponent that I am talking about.

@saxmaam

you’re saying that those mirror moves aren’t giving you the kind of stimulation you want to have

So, yes, that is correct.

Which is why my prefered solution is:
a) Ranked game? = Resignation. Take the win and the points and have a nice day.
b) Unranked game? = Question: “- Are you trying mirror Go?” “- Yes.” “- Ok, let’s give it a spin.”

I still fail to see the controversy on that.