
Two-Headed Go - luu
https://www.jefftk.com/p/two-headed-go
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cjbprime
Interesting! I would have guessed going 2:1 against a stronger player wouldn't
help much. Maybe I'm digging in, but I'd expect that it stops being true soon
-- I'd be surprised if a 1-kyu didn't beat two collaborating 6-kyus most of
the time.

(I used to play a lot but don't anymore, was last at 1-dan AGA.)

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pmontra
I'm 1 kyu. I don't have any problem winning against two 6 kyus (I saw some
experiments like that in the past.) There are simply too many things they
overlook. And two 1 kyus (or a room of them) won't win against a 4 dan. We're
playing different games.

What happens is that the weaker players become a little better at don't making
reading mistakes and at finding possible moves. Unfortunately they don't get
any better at evaluating moves and the unknown unknowns are still unknown. The
better player finds moves that none of the weaker ones would think about or be
able to explain.

I can imagine that the knowledge about the game of two 11 kyus have a smaller
intersection than the ones of 6 kyus. This means they become much better
together.

However two 1 kyu have about the same knowledge, so they could be at most 1
dan together, probably still 1 kyu.

~~~
reagent_finder
1k as well here.

I don't see it as much about knowledge of the game, more about avoiding
mistakes and less pressure that lets you look at a game more in-depth. That,
and two people will probably coalesce towards something like honte anyway.

Add to this the player opposing is under pressure because he HEARS the
discussion. Can he take advantage of knowing plans? Should he?

I'd say this is a nice learning tool, and honestly, anything that keeps you
interested and makes learning and playing a bit more fun is fantastic. I've
played 5-in-a-row go, pair go, 3-player go, 1-colour go, 3D go and tried
different board sizes like 38x38 or 19x19 infinite (sides 'joined'). I've
never run across this variant! Seems fun!

Making guesses about what a 2-player team's strength is is a losing
proposition, though.

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jefftk
_> Add to this the player opposing is under pressure because he HEARS the
discussion. Can he take advantage of knowing plans? Should he?_

Since we knew the opposing player was listening we mostly didn't discuss
plans, at least not in a way that would have hurt the plans. Mostly we
suggested moves to each other, and pointed out problems with the other
person's suggestions.

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AmericanChopper
Reminds me of Gary Kasparov vs The World, which surprisingly turned out to be
a better game of chess than you might have guessed.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_the_World](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasparov_versus_the_World)

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re
It sounds (from the comment on that page) like the biggest benefit they got
was from being able to consult with each other to align on strategy and avoid
blunders, which apparently isn't standard in Pair Go. Without that, I wouldn't
really expect them to see qutie such significant benefits.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_variants#Rengo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_variants#Rengo)
[https://senseis.xmp.net/?PairGo](https://senseis.xmp.net/?PairGo)

~~~
jessriedel
Unlike the OP game, pair Go is actually a _handicap_ for the paired up side
rather than an advantage. You only get one brain per move, and that brain
might be forced into using a strategy it doesn't like by previous moves.

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pmontra
Common wisdom is that in a pair go game everybody has three opponents :-)

Remember that it's not allowed any talking, except asking who's to move, maybe
who's to take a ko, and proposing to resign to the mate.

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kadoban
This is a pretty common format for playing go. Usually called pair go. There's
even fairly large tournaments for it here and there.

(To be clear I'm only talking about the two players on a team part, it's
usually 2:2, not 2:1)

Personally I hate it and am absolutely awful at it, but to each their own.

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Sharlin
Normal pair go explicitly disallows nontrivial communication of any sort. Very
different.

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g82918
Pair baduk can be pretty fun. In my local club we do 2:1 and 2:2 pretty
regularly. There is strong diminishing returns above two players though. 3:1
and 3:2 and 3:3 are all usually too much consultation for the game play to be
fun if you don't have an opinionated leader on each side.

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slilo
5:1 Pro game:
[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/C0U4UnDCgML9K7r7qj3Yse4HDm...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/C0U4UnDCgML9K7r7qj3Yse4HDmRvczX_dvb5BLYK3nfHJ5qr4g3vvK0NAkrEXpbQcgcASa92Uz1VvBy0mXsoroC4w8YCzaz2HDPrRA=w1440-rw-v1)

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Buttons840
Just a picture? Who won? Any game record?

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cokernel_hacker
AlphaGo won:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Go_Summit#Team_Go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Go_Summit#Team_Go)

