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Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 12, 2010, 1:10 AM
on a off topic side note; wouldnt it be cool to have puzzle turn based pente? where pattern puzzles like this here were preset, and the players proceeded from the position. perhaps a list of puzzles to select from. each side gets to chose a puzzle to present to the other opponent in a set. just a thought.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 12, 2010, 4:55 AM
Zoey, Cool puzzle, I am amazed that you came up with in 5 minutes! You must have a couple of Player 2's pieces on the A line or 1 line. Can you please post the sequence?
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Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 12, 2010, 5:35 AM
there is no sequence,.. you just play from that position. blacks turn to move there. no captures yet. its for a example of how a check list is not always simple,.. and something to entertain your brain by pondering a puzzle for fun.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 12, 2010, 5:42 AM
Before I burn up to many brian cells trying to solve for black, can you tell me if black has a chance? It looks like white has multiple paths to win, and has a stacked deck against black.
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Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 13, 2010, 10:01 PM
who wins in the puzzle wasn't the point of the exercise actually. the point was to show that it is sometimes hard to create a check list to solve a position. alison made a point that in perfect play we would never arrive to this particular position. i agree, but, it was a generic example to show principles that do happen in real games. just because a game is done in perfect play doesn't mean it isn't complex. perfect play is not always simple. although i suppose my game example was a slight bit exaggerated lol. but not to far from reality none the less.
Ps. i had considered adding a T5 stone to increase the countering in the game.. if you find a winner, try with T5 added, and see if the result is the same still. any ways...
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
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Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 13, 2010, 10:11 PM
so to continue on about figuring out P1's second move. we went over the logic of answering the basic key stone threat a little. not completely but some. now we need to look at secondary threats. a way that P2 can open where P2 is not attacking K10. if your 2nd 3rd 4th chosen to answer the basic key stone attack cant stand up against a secondary attack, then it means you need to find a different solution to the basic key stone attack of K10. P1's 2nd must be designed to withstand both a primary attack and any secondary attack. solving primary is easier. solving secondary is harder cus it is not intuitive since there are too many options for P2. maybe P2 does straight forward moves, or maybe P2 does obscure moves that are hard to read.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
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Re: Pente - Understand vs Memorize
Posted:
Oct 16, 2010, 4:59 AM
Wow, this discussion has really taken off since I checked in!
Great examples and diagrams Zoey. Perhaps you might start up a new thread where you might teach us how to create and post such diagrams if you are able to do most of it within this site itself, or are you using a lot of features in a "photoshop" type of program and then cut and pasting your diagrams? Would be great to know...
Using Zoey's interesting puzzle example to continue talking about the thought process...
Zoey's suggested response as black is an interesting one, and one I might not have first considered. But when things get complex like this, before making your move, you should take another look and see if there are other possibilities you have not yet considered. Evaluate two or three such moves and then decide.
The sequence I started looking at first, and would have to look at both lines more deeply to see which one of them to go with, is the following moves for black (white's responses are all more or less forced):
H13, H13, M10*, K12, K12, L13 (creating a 3x3 that ... wins ??)
So that is my premise -- however, I had to look fairly deep to find what looks like a win, which means I may have made several mistakes, such as not seeing some other way that white could foil the plan in the process, or perhaps starting to get into cap trouble. Once I have decided that these are my two main choices (this one, and the one that starts with Zoey's suggestion), I need to begin looking more carefully to see if I am blundering badly and if my initial thought actually might work out.
I guess the main ideas here are: Recognize when there is a critical (complex) decision to make, and use plenty of clock to make a careful choice. When thinking, be sure to consider more than one possibility and evaluate each one carefully, comparing their relative strengths to each other. Try to find something that at least "could" lead to victory down the road. Then double check it to be sure. If that seems lost, the next best idea is to try to set up some sort of trap or complication that might be difficult for your opponent to sniff out and increase the chances for him to make a mistake.
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Some more general ideas about the subject:
Your thought process will vary depending on which "phase" of the game you are in. Many experts loosely refer to three main phases of the game:
1. The Opening 2. The Mid-Game 3. The End-Game
The reality is that games tend to blend through these phases and there is often not a clear diffinitive boundary between them. There may even be more than three unique phases as it relates to how it affects your thinking.
In general, a player's development from a novice to an expert often comes from improving your skills in these three phases of the game in reverse order. Meaning, finding the one or two last moves that win the game is often among the first concepts that players begin grasping with some success. Then they learn more and more about how to play through a straight-forward mid-game without severe errors. Lastly, getting a very solid grasp of opening play is among the more advanced and usually the last phase of the game that players become very comfortable with.
3. End Game -- In the end game, there are typically lots of stones in play and some number of captures logged.
The main thought process is now "how can I win in the near future, or what is my opponent doing to threaten a win in the near future that I need to deal with right now."
If you determine that you are the one with the initiative (which can get a little less well-defined in the end-game), in this phase you should be keeping a careful watch of the capture count and considering on every move if you can force a win by captures, especially if your tria-forcing routes are drying up. Obviously, continue looking for trias that will lead to an unblocked tessera, but also look for other win conditions, such as forcing a 5th capture, creating a tria + double-keystone attack, and so on. If the game has become messy and complex, you will often be abandoning trying to create trias, especially if you are in cap trouble yourself. Be mindful of the capture count in cases like this and try to find moves that do not blunder into a loss by captures and at the same time will win with a combination of capture threats and completing a Pente.
2. Mid-Game -- If the opening sequence has gone well, you have now established a position where you have enough material on the board to build multiple threats in a momentum-building line. Your opponent has no trias and no immediate threats to counter your line.
In this situation, the thought process becomes relatively mechanical. You look at your own stones and try to visualize the lines in which they intersect and will build off of each other. At the same time, you need to look at your opponent's stones and make sure that you do not create a tria, now, or down the road, which will be countered by your opponent blocking and simultaneously creating his own momentum-building tria. With multiple options available, you need to be able to see which paths will walk into traps and counters for your opponent and which ones will constantly force your opponent to block in ways which are useless to him (and choose those moves!). Continue doing this until you create a 3x3 or an open 4 to win the game.
The intermediate player begins to see the opponent's stones as opportunities to force captures in this situation. Build your shape and continue your forcing trias in such a way that you force your opponent to block in a place that also creates a vulnorable keystone pair for your opponent. Then, as you continue with subsequent forcing-trias, you put yourself into position to capture across this keystone, re-opening up your previously built tria. This is a fundamental Pente concept that is generally devastating to your opponent. As you become more advanced, you will look much earlier in the game at creating situations that will lead to this and also to avoid having this happen to you -- which is part of what experts end up basing their decisions on in the Opening. With just a couple of stones on the board, you are already aware of these potentially vulnorable board positions and you use your opening moves to steer this concept to your advantage for use much farther into the game.
1. The Opening -- I won't attempt to explain in too much detail here which thoughts go into the opening moves. Suffice it to say, this is by far the most complex and the most important part of the game. Many, many concepts are at play, most of which are very forward thinking to set up the mid-game as favorably as possible. White is trying to create an "easy", straight-forward mid-game scenario like the one described above. Black is trying to steal the initiative outright, but failing this, he tries to at least create a messy and complex mid-game that is full of capture scenarios, keystone attacks (and resulting false threats), traps and counter attacks and a lack of momentum for your opponent. This increased complexity will improve your chances for inducing an error from your opponent. But it all starts with a strong opening that is thinking far ahead into the game.
