Knotwilg wrote:
Moving this discussion from Rikuge's study journal, Rikuge said he wanted to discover his style (later refined that to finding out what his strengths and weakness are, which I find a very laudible objective). I said, somewhat cheeky, that all of us have amateurish style. Ian Butler jumped in to say:
Quote:
While you are probably right, and I've heard this said before, I don't quite agree with this. I feel even amateur/low/... players can have their own style of playing. Some naturally play for influence, some are very fight-oriented, some are actually very flexibel and will play to match their opponent. Some make the game more complex and profit from that, while others play simple but solidly... Obviously it's not good to pin down on a certain style as an amateur (or ever), you should always experiment, try out new things, look at the situation and handle it as required. But I feel style can be applied on other levels than the professionals' as well. I feel it's unfair to take style away from us just because we're not professional
Compare it to this: I am definitely not a professional guitar player, far from it. Yet in my amateur ways, I have a certain style of playing. A friend of mine is another guitar player, with a whole other style. Even though we're both amateurs, you can see (or rather, hear) the difference well enough.
I believe that also goes for Go. Perhaps I am mistaken completely. Or perhaps I have a different definition of the word "style".
Or maybe style at a low level is only a way to tell what weaknesses are in our play... (my style is solid -> don't play fast enough. my style is peaceful -> you can't fight well enough. I am a territorial player -> you don't know how to use influence)
On the analogy with music, I think it's flawed and I don't like analogies as a rhetoric device (well, they are good rethoric devices but rarely good arguments).
While professional go may be an art, and oriental culture has viewed Go as an art, I find Go to be a skill. At our level, the deficiencies in our skill outweigh any difference in style. When I'm reviewing games, I cannot figure out what someone's style is. Often their play is incoherent. When I review my games, I see the mistakes, not the style. I may have certain intentions or preferences, for example I prefer playing White because I think komi favors White in a game full of mistakes. I prefer 4-4 because I like to keep things simple in the opening. I would like to emulate Otake's thick play, making a difference in the endgame. That's as close as I get to "style". However, I'm sure Otake wouldn't recognize the least bit of his style in my games.
It's not entirely impossible. The infamous "Captain" on KGS had some sort of style, even if he was only 3-4 dan.
Yearning/pretending to have a "style" is a sign of putting the e before go. My guitar style is bad, my go style is bad, my table tennis style, though attacking oriented, is still quite bad ... The only activity in which I can probably claim to have a style, is my professional one.
That's my strong opinion. How about yours?
Very interesting. I used to hold the same position, still do, mostly. But I also thought about it over the years and now I think it might be more complex than I thought initially. My initial though was "Amateurs are too weak to have style. Weak pros, too."
Now I realize, this is a matter of perspective.
I am thinking about poker. When looking at a strong player, we can probably figure out his "style". We can look at different kinds of hands, and what the player usually does when holding these hands. We can discover a pattern. But this relies on one simple assumption - the player and I, we agree on which hands are "similar", or of the same type. For example - we both agree witch hand is weak and which is strong, and in what situation. Then we can match the usual behavior to the particular kind of hand and we can call it a "style".
Of course, the above is a gross oversimplification, but for the sake of this particular argument, it should be enough of an illustration.
Same in Go. We can tell about a player that "in this kind of position, he usually plays like that" - and this is his/her style.
Now, what if we evaluate positions (or poker hands) differently?
I am a pitifully weak poker player, but every now and then I find myself playing newbies, and my mind boggles. They fold strong hands, and they go all-in with weak ones. Then they do the opposite. How can this be any kind of "style"?? Its just crazy, inconsistent! Its like playing in crazy-town, can't predict anything, can't count on anything, each response is confusing. It is actually quite hard to play against that in poker - although in Go it is easier.
Then I catch myself thinking - for the newbie, their play is consistent, I just have to figure out why they evaluate hands differently than I do. Which hands do THEY think are weak, and which are strong, and the pattern will usually emerge.
Same with Go. I will usually play in a certain way in a specific kind of position. This is my "style". Problem is - a pro will look at all these specific positions and will put them in completely different categories, and my "style" will be no style at all, just chaos and confusion and stupidity. But to myself, or to a player close to my own level who evaluates positions similarly - my "style" will be real, and he will often be able to predict me, and disrupt me. Just like I can do to other players I know.
But to a pro, I am just an amateur, much too weak to have "style", making moves all over the place, without any rhyme or reason.
So - this way, I think "style" is a matter of perspective. You can see "style" of players above you (sometimes) and around you (usually), but not always of those lower than you. For top pros, obviously, most everybody is lower than them, so all they might see in our games are chaos, and no "style' at all. But this is only because our underlying organization is so different. From our perspective, our "styles" are crystal clear to ourselves.
What just occurred to me is that by observing pros games, maybe we should pay less attention to "style" (i.e. he played like this is that kind of position) - but more to why do the pros group and evaluate certain positions similarly and others not so. Might be nothing, but maybe we can learn something if we ask the question: Which positions look "similar" to a pro? I don't think I have ever heard this questions asked, let alone answered. Just thinking out lout here.
PS>
Or maybe "style" is something completely different and all I am saying is garbage.
Back to OP - Not sure the music comparison is appropriate here. But maybe it is. I KNOW I was never a good enough guitar player to have style. I just did the few things I knew how again and again, since this is all I knew. But is that "style"? I am not good enough to comment on this, just going by my gut feeling that guitar and Go is different wrt this topic.