Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Subject: Zwichenzug.
From: wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 04:51:14 GMT
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Canterbury

Many thanks, Jan van der Steen, for an excellent and comprehensive reply to my
query about go terms.

Regarding the existence/translation of "zwichenzug", I had an email reply
also suggesting "kikashi" as the nearest. I suppose it does capture a lot of
the idea, but not *all* of it, I think; a kikashi play may not necessarily
be "intervening" in any sense, though admittedly it often is.

As regards my comment...

>>It strikes me that this kind of thing is even more common at go than chess

>I would rather tend to the opposite by saying that it's more unlikely
>to happen in a Go game. 

Perhaps we're thinking of slightly different things, but my experience is that 
it's quite common. Your example about distant forcing plays to set up ladder
breakers is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.   This is common, surely.

>I tried to remember a pro game with the
>occurence of a "zwichenzug", but couldn't think of one.

Well, I would have thought there was an absolutely classic case, even a 
*definitive* one, in the book-length game of the novel "Master of Go".

Indeed, to a some extent, the plot even turns upon the critical move actually
*being* a zwichtenzug; off the main battle, and completely unexpected. As I
recall, it was a kikashi move that the player finally decided to make, as the
current battle was slowly reducing its sente-value, and he wanted to get it in
while it was still completely forcing, though he had left it till that time so
as not to reduce his own options. Unfortunately, it came right at the time of
a sealed move, so was interpreted by his opponent as being a cheap trick to
gain advantage from the sealed move situation, in knowing what his opponent's 
reply must be. The apparent bad sportsmanship threw his opponent off-balance
with anger, and thus may have contributed to his losing the game (though the 
angry opponent later completely retracted this implication).

Anyway the point was it was completely surprising to all concerned, being well
off the apparent battle, though forcing.   Surely a true "zwichtenzug" ?
And from a real pro game.

----

Just incidentally, I suppose the modern view of such a situation would be quite
different ?    That is, that if either player wanted to gain the sealed-move
advantage of knowing his opponent's reply by making a totally forcing move, this
would be regarded as being quite a legitimate tactic; along the lines of 
making use of opponent's time trouble by introducing dubious complications.
Would tournament players agree ?   And remember, the sealed-move situation is
quite symmetrical - either player is at liberty to try the tactic.

Indeed, it could lead to a battle over the several moves preceding the
time-control, as both players tried to grab the kikashi sente with successively
more urgently forcing moves !

Has this sort of time-control battle ever occurred in tournament games; does
anyone know ?

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              Bill Taylor              wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz
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    No I'm *not* cheating my employer by spending 3 hours a day on the net.
 I'm just using the time I would have spent on solitaire games and go problems.
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