Author: Roy Eassa
Date: 13:58:05 02/13/04
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On February 13, 2004 at 16:02:29, Janosch Zwerensky wrote: > >>Go games between strong players of similar strengths are often decided >>by very long, complicated forced lines where both players repeatedly >>have to make deep and precise calculations in order to find the right >>moves. > >I don't think so. Most of the time, a complicated fight is in my experience >merely the last and most obvious symptom that something went horribly wrong long >before that (a big group that has to run obviously was weak before the opponent >started to chase it), and hence most of those games are not really decided by >miscalculation on one side or the other. >Of course, this doesn't mean that (deep! complicated!) tactics aren't a crucial >part of the game of Go, it's just that, as is the case also in chess, tactics >don't fall out of the blue anywhere.... :) > >Regards, >Janosch I'm wondering if it's possible to get quite strong at Go even if you're tactically at a level only a little above beginner. In other words, if your feel for "shape" is very highly tuned, can you regularly beat Go players who are much stronger tactically? My best anaolgy is that I met Edward Lasker when he was in his 90s and he outplayed many local chessplayers positionally but fell victim to tactical errors in a few games. In chess, tactics are basically everything -- if one player is clearly better tactically, the other one has little chance to win. But in Go, it seems like tactics are (is?) almost more of a "tiebreaker" between two players of equal strategic strength, assuming neither is makes gross beginner-level tactical blunders. The theory is this: In chess, tactics matter much, much more than strategy. Only when both players play equal tactically is strategy a big deal. In Go, strategy matters more than tactics. Only when both players play equally well strategically is (are?) tactics likely to matter much.
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