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 Post subject: Young players still a mystery?
Post #1 Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2022 6:15 am 
Oza

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We have just had a boy of 15 years 181 days appear in UK soccer's Premier League, and for the league-topping team at that! The team is Arsenal, which is well known both for a glorious history and (in the old days when real newspapers actually existed) for nearly always being spelled with a hyphen. He is Ethan Nwaneri and is the youngest ever Premier debutant, but there has actually been a spate of ultra-young footballers in recent years. Most of them seem to have gone onto do well.

There are similar cases in other physical sports, e.g. tennis.

The same phenomenon appears in mind sports. We have discussed here before why it is that there are similar cases in go. The usually favoured explanation seems to have been the availability of computers. This view seems to be based largely on the fact that Magnus Carlsen used a computer extensively as a kid (I'm, not sure if this was for preparation or as just an always available opponent - I suspect the a latter). There are some problems with making an analogy with chess, though. The most obvious is that strong playing computers became available much later in go than in chess. Sumire, for example, obviously didn't get any help from katago or whatever. One argument is that young go players were nevertheless able to play over very many games using sgf readers, and build up their intuition quicker. That line of thought has some attraction to me, but as I've never seen any mention of young players using computers like that, I'll reserve judgement.

A different line of thought I've seen recently in Japan is that go is now seen as a young person's game, probably as a result of Hikaru no Go and other manga. That is a tempting argument, but when push comes to shove I would plump for the view that it's all mainly a matter of a bigger pool of young players nowadays. Or should I say BIGGER. There have been quite a few astounding prodigies in go history, as I recounted in Ogawa Doteki, Go prodigy, some of whom (like Doteki and Huang Longshi) may well have been stronger than any prodigy today, and all without the benefit of computers or comics. There just seem to be more now because the pool is so much bigger. I think most people on this forum (middle aged and younger) might not grasp just how much the world population has swollen since, say, Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne. People of my generation can even remember seeing parking places in central London!!!!!!!!! When I was very young I was taken to London and was able, without any interference or queuing, to go on the very step of 10 Downing Street and have my picture taken with the policeman. Many years later, I used to cross that step into 10 Downing Street every day, but had to fight my way through crowds of tourists and then show my pass at big iron gates that didn't exist when I was a tot. It is now even worse - much worse .I was similarly appalled on a recent trip to Paris, my first for many years - massive queues and security searches everywhere. They say people live longer nowadays, but I'd hazard a guess that most of their extra lifespan is spent queuing somewhere.

It's the same in go. People bleat about not finding opponents for a face-to-face game. When I started in go I had to travel 300 miles (and back) to get such a game. No sgf files then, of course; and no proper go sets - I used tiddlywinks. From my perspective, we are now awash with go players in the west, and of course go is booming in the Far East.

Having said that, I've been a bit surprised that Korean colts and fillies have not been featuring too much in the Young Players Stakes. It is true that one young filly fell at an early hurdle - the notorious AI Fence - and hasn't quite got back on track. But what about future stallions? I think we can predict a bright future for 10-year-old Kim Ha-yun who beat new Japanese pro Yanagihara Saki to win the 37th World Youth Goe Championship. Past winners of this event have often had great careers, but young Kim is not yet even a pro. He is still the Korean equivalent of an insei, and, as far as I can gather, his nearest rivals, also inseis, are 15 and 16. I don't follow the Korean scene as much as I used to, so maybe I've missed something, or someone. Anyone more clued up?

And have opinions on young go players and computers changed here? I can't see any way that computers helped Ethan become a football star.


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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #2 Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:21 pm 
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I remember the days, when I could effortlessly name and describe all 150 original pokemon or could tell you the side and panel if you read me the speech bubble in a manga. Those were also the days I was totally immersed in both activities. Day- and night-dreaming about them, playing, talking, writing, drawing...

That focus and unhindered joy in a subject can go a long way. And for me that got lost in childhood - at least to a large degree.

With age came distractions and even more bothersome: responsibilities. In fact I was interrupted five times and had to step away two times before I could finish this post because things in the house or a family member needed my attention.

Personally my biggest take-away from Magnus Carlsen's upbringing is that his family (especially his father) took the time to travel with him to various tournaments and play sports with him inbetween. And despite all of this: Chess was still Magnus' thing. Contrary to this I see Josh Waitzkin's father, who wrote a book about his son when he was 12 - arguably making him the prodigy in some sort of self-fullfilling prophecy. In the "Art of Learning" Josh (tellingly) wrote that: "I became alienated from chess somewhat … The need that I felt to win, to win, to win all the time, as opposed to the freedom to explore the art more and more deeply, [...]"

Computers, and more precise, easy access to good curated study material, help a lot. It doesn't top being a self-centered brat following joy without a care in the world.

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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #3 Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 1:54 pm 
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I would guess that one important aspect of youthful prodigies being more common across a variety of sports is the increased access to good coaches, strong opponents, and quality facilities. When this is coupled with a supportive family, kids can pursue their passion (or, in more pathological cases, the passion of their parents) with all of the necessary tools to achieve excellence.

For go, computers have provided access to coaches, opponents, and facilities that many would not otherwise have available. A kid who plays go on a computer has a nearly unlimited number of strong opponents. They can play at any hour of the day, regardless of whether a family member can give them a ride. They can even find study groups or coaches online, though I'm sure that the stronger players end up with face-to-face support as well. But that easy access is invaluable to drawing in those for whom go becomes a passion, and it provides a number of opportunities that would not otherwise be available for those who wish to dedicate themselves to the game.

As AI improves, it also acts as a rudimentary coach for those who have no other access. It doesn't replace a teacher, of course, but it is still one more resource / tool that can be used, especially for those who are already strong enough to accurately interpret the feedback it gives.

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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #4 Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 5:29 pm 
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The surprising thing about chess is how old the best players are. https://2700chess.com/. The median age for chess’s top 10 is 30. No current top 10 go player is 30 (though Park Junghwan will be 30 in just a few months). Lee Changho and Lee Sedol both held on for several years past 30, and before the two of them, it seems like it was quite normal for the best players to be in their 30s or 40s. Another point: it seems like Japanese top players now have a littlr more longevity in domestic competition, but have had less success internationally in the past 2 decades.

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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #5 Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 6:17 pm 
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hyperpape wrote:
The surprising thing about chess is how old the best players are. https://2700chess.com/. The median age for chess’s top 10 is 30. No current top 10 go player is 30 (though Park Junghwan will be 30 in just a few months). Lee Changho and Lee Sedol both held on for several years past 30, and before the two of them, it seems like it was quite normal for the best players to be in their 30s or 40s. Another point: it seems like Japanese top players now have a littlr more longevity in domestic competition, but have had less success internationally in the past 2 decades.


It is interesting.

I wonder if the situation would be different if professional Go had lot of round robin tournaments and everyone played everyone else all the time. Instead the situation is that some players don't play each other except few years apart. Another issue is that the top pros don't seem to work much together across country boarders, they apparently do more of the opposite. I am sure this biases toward training the next generation to prepare for the future battle to have better of the other countries. There might also be a different cultural perspective. Being the coach or the second has a possibly has less enough prestige in western culture than being the teacher in East Asian culture to affect players decision to stop playing top level game.

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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #6 Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 1:14 am 
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For me, the most convincing theory is that the current crop of young players have an edge due to the shift in training meta. Look at the graduates of the Kitani school: they were as dominant in the early 80s as in the late 90s. That cohort benefited from the Kitani style of education, unlike the one before them. Similarly, the current crop of pros under twenty or thirty are some of the first to train intensively with online games and AI.

This doesn't mean that the average peak age of human performance in Go has genuinely shifted downwards. We won't be able to make that assessment until the training meta stabilises, once online play and AI have been available for, say, fifty years. But by then more innovation will probably have taken place, like applications of VR and Neuralink, which will push the effectiveness of training further and give the newer generation an advantage once again.

It's best to think of four cards being in a player's hand: talent, cognitive power, experience and good training. Talent remains constant. Cognitive power rises early (teenage years), plateaus for some time and then falls (but when? 30-40?). Experience always increases. And good training is one's initial leg up. So with all other things equal, a player is theoretically strongest near the end of the cognitive power plateau, when his experience is greatest. But by that point he has less time before the drop off.


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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #7 Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:13 am 
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John Fairbairn wrote:
It's the same in go. People bleat about not finding opponents for a face-to-face game. When I started in go I had to travel 300 miles (and back) to get such a game. No sgf files then, of course; and no proper go sets - I used tiddlywinks. From my perspective, we are now awash with go players in the west, and of course go is booming in the Far East.
As they say: to know how you are doing you must understand how you were doing before.
In the 90ies I were not able to play Go, due to the lacking of known players in my area, maybe they were there but it was difficoult for me to know they ever existed, now I meet in a club to play all Thursday nights, I can easily have material through amazon or better and Internet servers give me the opportunity to play whenever I feel like,

It is crazy to understand if you didn't lived a life before internet.

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 Post subject: Re: Young players still a mystery?
Post #8 Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 6:20 am 
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bugcat wrote:
For me, the most convincing theory is that the current crop of young players have an edge due to the shift in training meta. Look at the graduates of the Kitani school: they were as dominant in the early 80s as in the late 90s. That cohort benefited from the Kitani style of education, unlike the one before them. Similarly, the current crop of pros under twenty or thirty are some of the first to train intensively with online games and AI.

Interesting idea, though I think the trend pre-dates AI. About 10 years ago, you have a rush of very good young Chinese players start to appear in the top ranks.

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