There was a 1d pro from China who used to live in the Seattle area a couple of years ago. I chat with him at a party where various members of the Seattle Go Center were attending.

I asked him about improving at go, and he thought playing games was important. But not just playing games to win. His view was that it's more efficient to focus on a style or technique that you are weak at, and play games that give you practice with said style or technique.

For example, if you are bad at handling invasions, play games with big moyos so you get practice when your opponent invades. If you are bad at fighting, try to start fights in your games. If you are bad at endgame, try to keep the game close to get practice on endgame. This, he claimed, was more effective for learning than just trying to win.

I don't know if his advice is working, but it seems to suggest an element of style that players can aim for during games.

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I am rather emotive about this thread, because I believe that developing a sense of a style was instrumental in bringing me to dan level on IGS. I was already trying very hard to get a grip on fundamentals and to remove gross mistakes from my game as far as possible, and I continue in this effort, but making the conscious decision to play in a certain way (I suppose extremely influence-oriented if you had a describe it in a few words) has given me something extra.

I try to put my money where my mouth is, so I took one of my games, and went through it with Lizzie. Of course, there are indeed some hefty errors in this game. But, as with many of my other recent games, there is also a sense that my determination to play my own game supported me and helped me to succeed.

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May I suggest an alternative explanation?

I still think that 'mindset' is a better term than 'style' for amateurs. But either way, by playing consistently in a certain way, you are playing, as if by magic, consistently.

I (vaguely now) remember an article in the old Go Review where a pro said one of the biggest mistakes made by amateurs was not playing consistently. I think the main reference there was in high handicap games, where you are effectively being given a certain mindset/style. Too many amateurs would defend the corners instead of using the handicap stones to attack White. They may have been consistent with themselves, but not with the starting stones, and I think there's an important message therein.

You have to play the board. Apart from any starting stones, the board includes your opponent's stones and he has surely been trying to discombobulate you. If you insist on playing to your own style instead of to the board you are bound to make mistakes.

Insisting on playing to your own style is fine up to a point (maybe even 1-dan) but for further improvement you need to combine that with playing the board, so as to achieve consistency with all the previous stones, not just your own.

Consistency is the key word, not style

That is a fair comment, I think - especially the part about the opponent trying to discombobulate me.

But there is another dimension to it, and one that has become very enjoyable to me. Namely, I find pleasure in the battle of wills between myself and the opponent. I want to impose my vision of how the game should go (zone press style, extreme influence, whatever), and the dastardly villain is trying to thwart me.

I suppose the true goal, then, is to get the balance right: to know when to insist on what pleases me expressively, and when to accept the cold, hard realities of the situation in hand. But is that not, really, what O Meien was talking about when he wrote about "infinite" and "finite" aspects of go? That is, when you have to find an urgent point, then that's just plain facts, no room for style or personal expression there at all.

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Let me try an experiment which may prove my point, while still allowing everyone to adhere to their system of belief. Instead of me proving you have no style, I give you the opportunity to prove that even I have a style of my own.

Here are 8 games of mine. In each you have a 50% probability to identify me. Maybe combining all 8, you have a higher probability overall. I don't know what the figures would be, but I would be convinced if you can identify me in 6/8 games.

I'm even willing to help you (genuinely) by describing my style - i.e. what I think I'm trying to do in my games - here:



Bonus question: there are a couple of bots in there, playing bot style.

As a side story, in Belgium people are all about beer. They make claims like "Cara pils is terrible", or "I only drink Stella", or "why would anyone drink Heineken (a Dutch beer, you know), or "Jupiler is too sweet". While some of the claims may be true, in general it's all makebelief and illusion, mostly fueled by the desire to IDENTIFY with something, in this case a brand of beer, or a group of people who prefer that beer. I hold that opinion because every blind test I participated in, left the participants shocked. Not only would they be unable to identify the brand they identify with, often they would mix up beers that are objectively totally different (level of alcohol, brewing process, ingredients, ...). But after the first shock, they would not question their beliefs, but the circumstances of the experiment, like plastic cups take away taste, when mixing your taste goes away, or this was a bad time, or you have messed up the experiment ... anything not to question their beliefs. Human capacity for belief is much bigger than for accepting the truth, or rather accepting how little there is we actually know for sure and how much of story telling there is in this world. Above all, people need to feel special, original and to be truly themselves. The idea their tastes could be non-existent and just a product of their imagination, is quite disconcerting.

I'll have a look at the zip file later.

I did, actually, have a look at some of your games a few days ago. I got the strong impression that you try very hard to play "correctly", so I would have called it a textbook style.

The beer story is interesting. A lot of marketing is based on the notion of making people feel that their consumer choices make them special or sophisticated, etc. But I think even I could tell the difference between, say, Stella and Hoegaarden. I might be able to pick out Corona, but anything beyond a very broad styling of beers would be beyond my palate.

As for go style, I'm not interested in feeling special or original (it took me the best part of twenty years to reach 1 dan, so go is certainly not my area of specialness). I'm basing the way I play firmly on the things that I read, and anything that is unique about it will only be a byproduct of my incomplete understanding. To be honest, I believe that originality in any artistic or sporting field is something that you are best off allowing to arise naturally. A forced originality is rarely very good.

I suppose really it comes down to how one reads the thread title: you ask if amateurs can have their own style. If by that you mean inventing an original style of play, then I would tend to side with you and say highly unlikely (unless it's something ridiculous like the "Stanley Style" that was discussed years ago on SL), but if you only mean whether an amateur can have a style in a broader sense (like the distinction between a lager and a wheat beer), then I would definitely maintain that they can.

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Well, I took a look at the games and must say that this is quite difficult.
Until I, or others, give a guess, you could maybe swap out the second game. The chat there makes it quite easy to guess correctly

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The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

I have looked through the first four games in this selection.

Here are my guesses:



It's quite hard to tell, because your self-description is somewhat vague, and could apply to many other players just as well. That's not to say that it is inaccurate, but rather that I imagine a large percentage of players are also keen on keeping the opening simple, tending to prefer influence, and getting drawn into fights anyway.

Incidentally, I based guess no. 2 on another criterion. I thought that I could tell your play by its textbook-like feeling.

Anyway, although I'm prepared to be wrong. I feel I'm caught in a bit of a false bind, though, because if I guess incorrectly, then if I were to offer any excuse or rationalisation then I could be accused of being unwilling to change my beliefs; whereas, it could be argued that a vanilla style is still a style. (And I don't mean that in a derogatory way!)

A further complication is that it is definitely harder to get what you want with White, if you're up against an equal opponent. My first concern is to get a foothold in the game - only then can I think about giving the game the shape that I like. Sometimes I just have to take it as it is and leave my tastes, etc., to one side.

Perhaps a kinder experiment would be to offer some games by L19ers with styles that would be expected to differ based on their self-description. I would be willing to offer a game to this test for others to try.

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This discussion seems rather semantic to me... the argument can be essentially reduced to 'what is style?' If we strictly defined style as 'a set of preferences, strengths, and weaknesses', I don't think anyone would disagree that amateurs have a style, even if the 'style' is mostly centered around bad moves. I think so long as an individual is consistently choosing one 'type' of move over an equally good other 'type' (e.g. territory vs influence), that could be classified as a style.

I would be much more interested to hear whether people think amateurs should have a style...

Personally, I feel playing with 'style' is a great way to boost your rank short-term by becoming extremely well-versed in the scenarios which evolve from always playing the same way. However, I think the results long-term are much more dubious, as your play risks becoming one-dimensional. On one hand your study will be very focused, as you are limiting the variations you're exposed to by a significant amount... by playing with 'style' many of your games will unfold in a similar manner. On the other hand, a 'style' usually leaves room for a 'weakness'; if your opponent is aware of your tendencies, they will be able to exploit them. But, really, you may never have to play outside of your style in go, so having 'style' quite simply makes you stronger.

More practically, I think everyone at the amateur level has a plethora of weaknesses and many use style as a crutch, as Knotwilg pointed out. From this perspective I agree with him, and I think consciously adopting a style is bad practice... but that's assuming you want to grow to the absolute maximum of your long-term potential (most amateurs do not). Playing with style can be more fun, more gratifying, and offer a temporary boost to power-level but that's because it plays entirely to your own strengths. I think in the context of long-term, consistent improvement honing your weaknesses is much more important.

I think all players would actually gain a lot by trying to squash any stylistic preferences in their play... consciously playing the opposite of what you 'want' to (when there are equally good choices) will expose you to a plethora of learning opportunities that you may rarely see otherwise. As amateurs, you may even realize that one of the 'equally good' moves was significantly better and your 'style' was in fact just a 'mistake'

I think it's a very good idea to play to one's strengths, actually, in everything you do.

I see that there is some benefit in trying out new ideas and getting outside one's comfort zone periodically. But one should still play to one's strengths when possible. I'm trying to learn Norwegian; but I would never attempt to write seriously in anything other than English.

Your last remark could be turned around. Sometimes, one could argue, the"style" move one rejected during the game might be found better afterwards than one's attempt to play "correctly".

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2/3 guesses correct. You played fair, because the only one you guessed wrong is where the chat betrayed me.

Anyway the funny thing here is that I didn't remember game 4 anymore from the start, so I browsed through it. When I saw White's peep against the tiger's mouth in the attach-draw back joseki, I thought "Oh I'm Black, I would never play that"



That already sounds like circumstancial strategy, which I endorse. In the style rationale, I would expect a clash of styles to be compensated with komi, whichever side you are on? Will a moyo builder turn into an invader, only because they are White? I mean, it makes sense to me from a go playing perspective but not from the style perspective.

But whether people realize what type of beer they like or not, there ARE different types of beer, are there not? And whether people realize their own true preferences or not, those preferences still exist, no?

I know you don't like analogies, but since you brought it up, the claim that amateurs have no style (i.e. preference toward certain types of moves in a given situation where a choice is available), in this example, seems to correspond to claiming that beer drinkers have no preference toward the type of beer they drink. This, to me, is different than the less constrained claim that beer drinkers not only have a preference, but also know what it is.

If your claim is "I don't think amateurs can accurately know what their style is", then I totally agree with you. I have some suspicions about my personal tendencies, especially after getting reviews from stronger players, but frankly, I don't really know.

But to say that I *have* no personal methodology of playing is a different thing, and this is how I interpret the OP: "Can amateurs have their own style".



The way I see it, even a bad habit is a form of "style". And I suspect that you'd agree that amateurs have bad habits...

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I was tempted to quit while ahead on a score of 2/3 attempts...but I have now tried the other four. As I said above, I put my money where my mouth is, and if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.



Incidentally, I thought more about beer (it's never far from my mind). Surely, it would require a fair degree of tasting experience to distinguish beers (or wines, for that matter) within the same style category. I mean, let's face it, Heineken and Stella will tend to taste broadly similar, being lagers. I suspect people would find it much easier to tell the difference on blind tasting between say: lager, British-style IPA, a mild, stout, wheat beer and Trappist-style hallucinogenic beer (Duvel!).

Likewise, I suspect it would be easier to identify games by amateurs with clearly contrasted self-declared styles. I'm happy to put this to the test: if you feel you have a style, then please PM me and I can set up a "blind tasting" experiment and then we can find out whether others agree with your self-image!

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Since *I* brought it up, it is indeed a good analogy. You almost convinced me by using it

I agree that some of our bad habits are ingrained and we do certain things consistently wrong. However, I would argue that on the whole, we make more random mistakes, which don't follow from any particular preference but simply from wrongly assessing the situation.

My OP was a reaction on a relative new player wanting to discover his style. If that means discovering his strengths and weaknesses, then we're all set. I probably overreacted because I know people who think they have a conscious preference of approaching the game, which is not overshadowed by their unconscious strengths and weaknesses.

I believe professionals have such a conscious preference because they deal with a narrow margin of uncertainty and through the years have developed some heuristics which work well for them. I can even believe their personality plays a role. And I believe that pros can see each others' personality through their games.

Likewise, I believe amateurs play with similar intentions and may have an "inner style", but these intentions are 1) not shaped through thousands of high quality games, reviews and hours of training 2) overshadowed by mistakes.

This is why I'm more of the school that you exercise the game with different kinds of intentions and approaches, not so much to discover your style, but to discover what works and what not, and to eradicate bad habits. I'm not of Tami's school which thinks that consistently applying "your style" improves you as a player, not at our level where there is so much to learn still.

I agree with knotwilg above.

To add a little. F1 drivers (pros) do have driving styles - at least they and commentators talk about them.

The rest of us (amateurs) just drive. If we all tried to drive with different "styles," mayhem would ensue. But some people do drive differently from others. However, in normal language I don't think you would use the word "style" if you criticised (or even praised) someone else's driving. You would say things like, "The way you drive is not safe." No native speaker would say, "Your driving style is unsafe," surely?

I think we tend to reserve "style" for people who are "stylish" and to be admired - except apparently in go.

But, as can be inferred from knotwilg's remarks on mistakes, a little less ego could perhaps improve the igo.

Some people drive defensively, don't they? And then there are "boy racers". And I have heard that the Dutch drive "assertively".

Knotwilg - how did I do with my other four guesses? I don't mind if I was wrong but please don't leave me in suspense.

I am just a little bit miffed that so many people have sided against me. I mean, I take the conscious decision to try and play in a certain way. My results improve and I reach my best rank so far. And then I'm shot down? Shall I go back to playing more conventionally and satisfy you all by slipping back a level or two?

And has anybody considered that it's possible that trying too hard to be "correct" is a factor that can hold one back? I'm not saying good technique and fundamentals are not important - on the contrary, they're essential - but to crush totally a student's desire to be their own self and to find their own voice? I deplore that!

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Tami

You are just using "style" in a way that I find devalues the word. No-one here has suggested you should play differently from the way you are playing now, or criticising the way you play, or your desire to express yourself. But, at least for some of us, acquiring a style is an achievement in itself and one reserved for pros.

There's a related thing. Quite a lot of amateur players, when talking about one of their moves that occasions surprise and they like the effect, describe it as a tesuji. Well, I think that's usually codswallop. I think they should just say: "I thought this was a surprisingly effective move" - and go on playing such moves, of course.

Indeed we can talk about different driving styles. Have you ever driven on the Autobahn? Those aren't pros flashing their headlights in your rear mirror. If there is such a thing as style, it is surely not just reserved for pros, it's just that pros are able and perhaps inclined to apply it consistently.

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Agree. I'd also go so far as to say that some amateurs may not be as intentional, though, personal preferences still exist (and, indeed, can lead to mistakes).



Sure. I don't interpret the OP as a question as to whether amateur styles are good for one's game. I interpret it as a question of whether said styles exist.

Style is almost synonymous with preference in this context. And to argue that amateurs have no preferences is something that baffles me.

A more interesting question, to me, is: Yes, amateurs have styles or preferences in certain board situations. Is this good for their game, or should they try to get past these preferences to play the best move?

Somehow, I think this is the question you're trying to answer anyway. And I'm with you: amateur style can be a bad thing. But to be pedantic, those preferences that vary from amateur to amateur still exist.

Think of it in simple terms: is it possible for a player to have the tendency to be aggressive? To cut and try to kill the opponent more often than defending? Conversely, is it possible for a player to tend to be passive and avoid fights? Perhaps defending unnecessarily?

If these tendencies are any sort of habit, surely, they partially define their styles.

Whether either player should cling to those tendencies is less certain, and a different question than whether those tendencies exist.

I would argue, that as a player gets better, tendencies and preferences start to become less visible, because sometimes there's only one good move.

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