Redmond Responds: “Andrew Feenberg (Rational Play? The Master of Go vs. AlphaGo) clearly knows his stuff,” writes Michael Redmond 9P, “but I think it’s confusing that he leaves the challenger’s name as Otake. I was told that Kawabata just happened to choose that name, and it probably has nothing to do with Otake Hideo, who was a young player at the time. The challenger was Kitani Minoru, of course.” Redmond adds that he disagrees with Feenberg’s comment that “in the case of the actual match the inferior player wins through manipulating the new meta-rules and upsetting his adversary rather than through superior play.” Redmond says that “I would not call Kitani or AlphaGo the inferior player,” and adds that “I think most pros would agree with me when I say it was Honinbo Shusai who tended to manipulate the old traditions to take more advantage than any of his predecessors did. The new rules were in part an attempt to keep the match fair.”
Feenberg Strikes a Chord: “Andrew Feenberg‘s article, Rational Play? The Master of Go vs. AlphaGo, struck a chord in me,” writes Joel Sanet. “I can remember decades ago feeling great admiration for Otake Hideo when he said that he would rather lose the game than play an ugly move. Today I am learning how useful the empty triangle can be.”
