Go terms
From Free net encyclopedia
Go terms and concepts are important in the game of Go. Technical terms are likely to be met in books and articles about go in English, and in other languages also. As one advances in skill, one becomes more aware of the subtlety behind stronger play that transcends calculable mechanical thinking. Conceptual thinking is what allows intelligent beings to deal with very complex issues with some basic rules of understanding. This exists in go to a degree greater than in other games, as placed stones exert a hard-to-quantify influence of play over the board, and these effects need to be understood for a player to rise to the dan ranks.
Although Go probably originated in China, the current technical vocabulary contains a high proportion of terms from the Japanese language. Many of them are from a jargon, used for technical go writing and to some extent specially developed for go journalism; in some cases the technical meaning of a word may differ from a dictionary meaning coming from ordinary usage.
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Board positions
NB The go conventions that the corner points of the board are called (1, 1) points; and lines are counted in from the edge.
- Hoshi or star point (星): an intersection traditionally marked with a small dot on the board. These are either
- a (4, 4) point in an empty corner,
- a (4, 0) point on one of the sides, or
- Tengen (天元): the (0, 0) point at the centre of the 19×19 goban.
- Komoku (小目): a (4, 3) or (3, 4) point in a corner; meaning "little point" in Japanese.
- Mokuhazushi (目外し): a (3, 5) or (5, 3) point in a corner; roughly "separated point" in Japanese.
- Sansan (三々): a (3, 3) point in a corner; literally "3, 3" in Japanese.
| Go board |
Atari (当たり)
"Atari" (Chinese: "dachi (打吃)"; Korean "dansoo") is a term used for a positional state where a stone or group of a number of stones has only one liberty, and may be captured on the next move if it is not given attention. It can be a verb to describe the act of placing a group under atari, as well as an adjective to describe the status of a group, as being "in (the state of) atari". It may be spoken aloud during the game by the instigator, as a courtesy to call the opponent's attention to the fact that his stone or group is endangered; but that in fact is part of old and now obsolete etiquette of the game, and is not currently used.
Above is a simple atari formation with only one piece in danger. If black plays on the red circle, the white piece is immediately captured.
Seki
Seki is a Japanese term used to describe a situation that cannot be resolved into simple life-and-death. For example, a capturing race may end in a position in which neither player finds it advantageous to continue to try to capture the other. There are numerous types of seki position that can arise, characterised as cases in which neither player adds a play to groups that do not have two eyes. The area remains untouched; at the end all groups involved are deemed alive, but no territory is scored. (This is under the Japanese rules.)
This type of situation has been called dual life, by Janice Kim.
Sente & gote (先手&後手)
Sente is the gain of initiative; the opposite of this is gote (loss of initiative). The initiative being a move that carries initiative, by requiring a follow-up. For example, "white," after making a move that is sente, and it is responded to (in gote) has the choice of where to play next. White is therefore said to "have sente."
See also: Go proverb
Miai (見合い)
A pair of points on the board that are equivalent in terms of value with respect to a group's development or survival. Miai can be seen in the fuseki stage on a large scale or in a simple life and death problem, such as a straight four-space eye. This shape is alive, because if white plays b, black can answer with a and vice versa. This can be seen in the Avalanche joseki.
Aji (味)
The closest English one could use is 'latent potential.' From the Japanese, aji is the word for taste, and in go refers to the lingering quality that even dead stones will provide possible avenues of subtle play. Though aji may not be used at all, it has a bearing on the course of the game. Good aji is when your groups are strong, and have little or no possibility of being compromised. Bad aji, is where dead stones carry a latent threat of compromising an existing area, should the situation become ripe.
Liberty
A free space that is immediately adjacent to a stone either directly up, down, left or right from it or be connected through a continuous string of same-colored stones to such a free space. A single stone must always have at least one liberty to survive and a group should usually have at least two guaranteed liberties (eyes) to be considered alive. If a group is surrounded, having at least two eyes ensures that it cannot be captured by an opponent in most cases.
Moyo
A framework for potential territory which usually consists of unconnected stones with some distance between them. The early game usually consists of competing for moyo by attempting to invade or reduce your opponent's.
Korigatachi (凝り形)
It's translated as 'over-concentrated'. If a player uses his stones in an inefficient way, the result will be korigatachi. So, knowing something about korigitachi should tell you how to avoid it.
Sabaki
Light and flexible shape development.
Thickness
Also called influence. Thickness refers to a kind of influence, where an area is developed beyond the level of the area around it. A large wall, for example, is a common example of thickness, and if that wall has no compromising weaknesses in it, will provide a help to its other stones in the area. Considering the proverb-- "do not try to make territory from thickness", stronger players will avoid making strong areas any stronger (as this will waste moves). Instead they will play in underdeveloped areas and allow their thickness elsewhere to have a subtle influence over play on the rest of the board.
Kikashi
Kikashi is a forcing move in the context of an attack. Unlike sente, though, a move is kikashi when it yields a high efficiency in play by causing the opponent to regard that move in making a change in its course of action. A kikashi stone can generally be sacrificed but meanwhile it still might have an advantage, e.g. a ladder breaker, while the answering move has no value at all.
Moves can be kikashi, or not, depending on whether they are answered with appropriate sophistication or not. If the answering move strengthens the position, then the play is not kikashi but aji keshi (ruining one's own potential).
Yosu-miru
A probe. A yosu-miru move is, in some sense, a sacrifice of a stone, but is designed to yield a very sophisticated kind of information about a developing group and how best to attack it, based on its response. Yosu-miru draws on other concepts of kikashi and aji, and korigatachi in order to understand it fully.
As such, 様子(yosu) means situation or the state of things, and 見る(miru) is "to see", thus "yosu o miru", to "see how things stand". In Japanese this expression is usually used to say that it's better to wait and see before taking an action (e.g. "shibaraku yosu o miru beki da", it's better to wait and see for a little while). It is not a single word or a set phrase except in Western Go literature, and "probe" is the preferred word, being self-explanatory and actually used by the speakers of its originating language.