🚀 go-pugleaf

Dear Robert,
This is Kan.

Robert Jasiek wrote in message <35541043.62E8@berlin.snafu.de>...

>> If those two players had used your super-ko rule, what would have been
the
>> result?
>
>It seems that black should have won.
>[Have you noticed the variation that I have included in the game tree?]

I had not noticed it.  Thank you for mentioning it.

>Long loops are so rare in real game that spectacular strategies
>other than normal ko threat fights are even rarer. This is so
>normal that I wonder why short loop ko fights and long loop ko
>fights should deserve different treatment. Long loops allow
>special strategy and tactics like ko threats in other ko
>positions, changes of local stability of ko positions, etc.
>But one can rarely expect them to occur in real games. If you
>would like to know about them, you must especially study puzzles,
>I am afraid.


At last, I think I have fully got you.
In short, you are saying we should treat super-ko's  (triple-ko's, chosei's
or anything)  just as we treat simple ko's.
To beat prejudice, nothing is better than real game example.
Although I myself feel that this kind of super-go fight is too tedious for
human beings, this is really a matter of preference.
I am sure I can convince my friend that the super-ko rule is really
applicable to real games, and that it is not just a play upon theories and
puzzles.

>> If you are a five-year-old boy who grasps this situation intuitively, it
>will be simple and easy.

>This is deceptive. Intuition has the right to vary from moment
>to moment and from person to person. Everybody has the right to
>express a different intuition. A game then depends on the intuition
>of arbitrators, etc.. Getting arbitrary results from judges is no fun
>because it does not feel like justice.

I am not trying to deceive you, Robert.
Of course in a case in which intuition varies, you cannot depend on it.

>Let us consider a bent 4 in the corner. What about the five-year-old
>boy? His intuition will not even tell him that a ko is involved.
>What about our intuition? It might be:
>1) It feels like a ko of which the characteristic is some kind
>of directness and direct kos should not be fought because it
>feels good if they are not fought.
>2) It feels like there is something incomplete which should be
>resolved, so it seems to be good to go ahead and resolve it.
>
>Which is better? One cannot tell because one cannot reason with
>intuition. But since there are two entirely different views,
>it is wrong to prescribe one of them in an exceptional manner.
>Only if one avoids the exception, one can avoid the problem
>of prescribing intuitional judgment.

I did not say a bent 4 in the corner can be intuitively understood.
Actually, I did not taught it to my son until he became 8 years old.
He is 15 years old now, and he is not yet sure whether a corner bent 4 is
dead or Ko!!!

What I did say is I cannot understand why you must argue anything in the
particular case below.

. X . X O X O O . X
X X X O O X . . . X
O X O . O X X X X .

All I can see is a Double-ko Seki, another black set of stones which is
alive, and a white string which is dead.

>> A rule text is one thing, a rule itself another, though.
>
>A rule itself is vague and can lead to arbitration. A clear
>rule text avoids the need for arbitration.

Although I feel the Japanese rule (not rule text) is most beautiful, thus I
love it best, I have no intention to defend it for its vagueness.

Many people, in the East and the West as well, feel that the Japanese rule
is too vague, particularly in international tournaments where everything
should be solved clearly and verbally.

Some of those people (including you, perhaps, Robert) who love generality
and logic, are trying to find new, clearer and more distinct rules.
I am interested in those.  That is why I want to communicate.  I want to
prevent prejudice on the part of Japanese people.

I will think of your Super-ko rule for some time.  If I can, I will send my
view on it in another messsage.
-------------------------------------------------------
Kan Ishii
kyhishii@mtj.biglobe.ne.jp