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Comment by orsenthil | Hacker News Reader

<pre> Rather than trying to have the last word, look for the times when there is no need to reply, perhaps because you already made the relevant point clear enough. If you know something about the game of Go, this analogy might clarify that: when the opponent's move is not strong enough to require a direct response, it is advantageous to give it none and instead move elsewhere. </pre>

I had to deal with someone who thought that having the last word is "a thing". So, he will never give up on any discussion without adding a last reply. It is hard to deal with such people.

On the game of go, can someone illustrate how it is advantageous to not have the last word?

Also, I am not sure if this example will convince a last-word-wrong-doer, they are in for an emotional satisfaction, not a rational one.

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I'm a beginner at Go but I think it is fascinating and full of real-life lessons like this.

In general, strong play has a lot of forcing moves that demand responses. Being obsessed with having the last word is akin to allowing the other player to dictate when and where you will play, which is a substantial advantage for the other player. Go is won by area, not capture, so often a weak-looking sketch of territory is more effective than a lot of direct squabbling over little stones.

It's also easy to overplay. Being greedy is a good way to lose everything in Go. So a good game can have the flavor of a negotiation. There are even a lot of standard trades that aim for equality between the players.

> So, he will never give up on any discussion without adding a last reply. It is hard to deal with such people.

If having the last word matters to them and not you, then let them have it and don’t worry yourself.

Indeed, I also know someone like this and he's pretty much universally regarded as a self-important loudmouth and an idiot.

Sometimes it is better to remain silent and thought a fool, and all that jazz.

In the game of go, if your opponent plays a weak attack move that you can ignore, you basically have won a turn (by playing elsewhere). If he tries to invade your territory and doesn't realize that he cannot create a living group inside it, it's just like he gave you a prisoner.

The Go board can be thought of as having nine regions, if you imagine breaking it into squares of the same size, like a tic tac toe board. Later in the game you may have developed such a strong position in the "northwest" region of the board that when your opponent places a stone there, it isn't important for you to respond immediately in that region - it'd take many turns for your opponent to have a chance of being a real threat in that area. So, you play elsewhere on the board.

building on that, remember that your time is a finite resource

Offtopic but it struck me as strange that the author would choose to use Go for this example instead of chess, which would be much more familiar to people. Almost like a subtle form of intellectual "flexing".

In Go, there's a lot of common terminology reflecting the concept of "evaluate your own move independently of your opponent's move", from direct terms like "tenuki" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenuki) to strategic koans like "play away from thickness[strength]" (https://senseis.xmp.net/?PlayAwayFromThickness). I think this type of thinking is something that all journeyman-level Go players learn in order to progress, more so than in Chess.

The allegory doesn't work for Chess since you almost always need to meet advances with responses. Go is different and more strategic in that respect, because you don't need to win every skirmish.

That is also true for chess.

Go is far more complex than Chess, and also far more familiar to people raised in the Asiatic regions. Might be either a cultural thing or simply the fact that Go is only similar to Chess in terms of it being a strategy game, but not similar in difficulty or style of play.

I had to deal with someone who thought that having the last word is "a thing". So, he will never give up on any discussion without adding a last reply. It is hard to deal with such people.

Just reply with

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