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By Howard A. Landman
2d
At a Go Congress a few
years back, I had the privilege of playing a simultaneous handicap game against
Abe 9P. The opening went OK, but in the middle game a big battle started that
ended with my group managing to
live.
I had survived into the early
endgame; time to count the score. I made a quick estimate, and concluded that
the gam e was dead even on the board. So, when Abe came back around, I said
"Domo arigato gozaimashita, sensei" Thank you very much, sensei. In other words,
I resigned.
Why resign a game when
I wasn't behind? My endgame is pretty good: I've studied combinatorial game
theory as applied to go in great detail, and have even published a paper on the
subject. I can detect fractional-point or even infinitesimal differences between
moves easily, and prioritize them. This means I can usually pick up a point here
and there in the endgame, so I normally wouldn't worry going into the endgame
even, or perhaps a few points
behind.
But against a 9-dan pro?
Not a chance. Abe was certain to gain at least 5 or 10 points on me by
out-reading me in the few vague undefined areas that were left. I had no chance,
so it was the perfect place to resign. Playing simuls is exhausting work, and he
was doing all of us a great
favor.
The guy next to me was
playing out his 9-stone game to the bitter end. With time on my hands after my
resignation, I counted his game and found him nearly 40 points behind. After the
last game was finished, Abe wandered back over to my board and spent 15 minutes
going over my game with me, one on one. A private lesson with a top pro is quite
a prize, and I won it ... by resigning.
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