The 3 little Pigs problem for DDK players - Part Two

 Returning to this subject I thought some people could, rightly, say my first post described a problem: but in an incredibly general fashion without true examples of solutions. Therefore this is a follow on that will attempt to do exactly that.

What I want to do is to give an example of how a correct answer means nothing to a DDK who does not understand the variations and then some examples, out in the wild, of people who do give a DDK friendly response. Unfortunately the failure example isn't to the same questions the 'good' responses are to but it does give the gist.

So on to the example. For this I am going to use one of the problems from the excellent book Tesuji by James Davies. It is also worth pointing out that the book is not a 'bad example' as it actually relies on the person reading having read, and understood, all the prior chapters - so the example in the book is not 'bad' I am just pretending a review where the specific problem seen and the answer is given as essentially 'play this to live'.

Anyway. The problem I  want to use to illustrate this is Problem 1, page 69 in the Capturing Races Chapter.

Here is the start point with Black to play to live and win the capturing race.

Now the answer is as follows

With this exact text, 

Black 1 threatens Black 2

Now the comment is essentially indicating that if White does not play 2 and plays anything else then black has a snapback - though that is not mentioned and that in itself could confuse a new player. But what I want to focus on is the belly hit at 3.

The advice is essentially, 'play 3 and Black wins' - insinuated maybe. So let us assume this valiant DDK is in a game where this exact corner situation after 1 and 2 (inner stones may vary but liberties and situation is essentially identical so that the answer should work). They remember the lesson and think, 'oh yes in this situation I play the belly hit and live!'

Let us then show what usually might  happens to said DDK in game

Noooo, white is actually alive even without killing off the triangle group. The Belly hit did not work.. The DDK flustered continues  - their Q group is at risk so perhaps they try to escape, perhaps it works their opponent is also likely DDK

But in this case it doesn't. So the DDK is given advice, makes the correct move and then loses 17 stones and 34 points and likely the game. They then get frustrated and potentially quit. This game sucks they studied, learnt the correct response, used the correct response and died. 

SDK's are less likely to fall into this trap as they likely know the continuations. Just as an aside the correct continuation here to the move white provides is (and in this same book is covered in the section before in the belly hit section - remember we are pretending this is a cast or a lesson and the caster has said 'if you play here then safety')

So Black needs to connect under and white can no longer get more than 3 liberties, if they atari next at S1 Black connects at T2 and White would self atari if they attempt to drop to T1 and if they take a liberty from the triangle group above then their main group only has 2. Other white moves can be made but most (IMHO) are easier to read through.

It is this continuation that is 'assumed' by a lot of lessons and castings that most DDK's do not get. Now I am not saying casters need to simplify their instruction and cover stuff the variations so that DDKs get it -  just that if you are casting for DDKs then if you do so correctly then your material is like precious gold dust.

Let us move on to some good examples of how to explain stuff for DDKs. I will give two specific examples. Let us assume a 'bad example' is , 'in this situation you could play the shoulder hit to reduce' - teacher then moves on after imparting 'wisdom'

A good first example of a better way to teach DDKs is from Dwyrin's wonderful little book, 'How to Open Go'. This is a DDK/SDK friendly book but has several chapters going into detail on some common counter moves and one of these is spent entirely on Shoulder hits. I won't reproduce the text (for one thing this chapter has 9 pages and for another I would prefer you to buy the book). The text provides context and reasoning but essentially he provides two variations on a reducing shoulder hit - in this case occurring after a very common 44 knights approach pincer Joseki as follows

X marks the shoulder hit. A lot of casts and professionals would leave it there but Dwyrin (in some detail explaining the wherefor and whys of each move) give a possible Joseki variation

So above is the first variation. Again buy the book for explanations of why each move is being played for both players. He then covers what happens if Black decides not to 'just' try to kill that one stone.

Again explanations as to what it means and why is given. The amazon.co.uk link for the book is here and I do recommend it to DDKs and SDKs.

My second example is from another prominent GO casters beginners series and that is Clossuius. He has an excellent series designed to help DDKs. In his game 3 of his approach to 19 (and also a couple of episodes later where he introduces more variations) he gives one of the best explanations of why this stuff is useful that I have ever seen in a cast online for GO.

Above is the link to the you tube video, though if you are DDK are new to GO then I also strongly recommend the entire Clossie approach series.

Please watch and if you just want to see the specific examples then watch from 40minutes 44 seconds to 50 minutes 23 seconds. It is well worth the time.

Practically the shoulder hit follow up that he is showing here is

But he also covers both the following as alternates when stranger play occurs

and additionally notes in passing both of the examples covered by Dwyrin's book as well. He then moves to cover some cap follow ups as well.

He even makes at one point the statement, "the shoulder hit works because of the simple follow up, but if you don't know the follow up then the shoulder hit might be bad"

That basically covers the entire 3 little pigs problem. DDK's live in houses or straw they don't (often) know the follow ups. The more advanced casts that assume a player knows the follow up, or how to live with a deep invasion (or anything else), is actually potentially bad knowledge that can be misunderstood by the keen DDK and can actually lead to a bad playing experience. Assumed knowledge is bad. Again some casters will not want to dumb their subject matter down to explain this stuff - which is totally fine - if the material is aimed at SDK or Dan then that is entirely reasonable - the point I really want to make is that any casters making, or writing, information which they want to be useful to DDK's specifically needs to know this and not assume the pig in question lives in a house of stone but remember they are in an easily blown  over straw house.

Anyway I hope these examples clarify my initial post and if it leads to more detailed explanations of 'but what if my opponent plays something mad how should I respond' then these posts will have been useful.