Robert Terry on "Why Go has Failed to Prosper in the US"

[hyperpape]

If I wanted to find people to play chess against, I'd have an easy time, not because I could teach them, but because they'd already know. Making go prosper in the US would mean moving us towards that level of familiarity.

[Kirby]

If I wanted to find people to play chess against, I'd have an easy time, not because I could teach them, but because they'd already know. Making go prosper in the US would mean moving us towards that level of familiarity.

If I take my personal example provided earlier - having people to play against at work - the situation is exactly the same for chess as it is for go. Indeed, I have a chessboard in my cabinet as well (in fact, the Super Mario collector's edition). Still, nobody there wants to play against me more than once - and I'm not that great of a chess player.

So for me personally, whether go is as popular as chess in the US is irrelevant to my idea of prosperity.

That's because my idea of prosperity is local. Playing games with the people around me is what's needed.

Sure, more people know the rules of chess than they do e rules of go in the US - but it still doesn't mean they want to play me. Local interest is what matters to me personally. Learning the rules of the game is just a technicality.

Case in point: I learned The rules to Magic the Gathering at from people at work, because I was interested in playing the game. If I could get those same people interested in playing go against me, I'd consider that prosperity.

[tchan001]

Just sitting around and hoping someone will play you will not produce any results. What have you actively done to encourage your fellow workers to play go?
Probably doesn't help to encourage others by beating up beginner co-workers with H9 and a huge difference in points.

[Kirby]

Just sitting around and hoping someone will play you will not produce any results. What have you actively done to encourage your fellow workers to play go?
Probably doesn't help to encourage others by beating up beginner co-workers with H9 and a huge difference in points.

I haven't done much, yet, actually.

I think that to get something going, it might be effective if I propose something like, "Let's play Magic Monday through Thursday, and then I can show you more about go on Friday." It's something I might try out once my kid gets older and I go to lunch at work more often.

The other small problem is that go is a two player game (though, you can play rengo, of course), and at my job, there are a group of people playing Magic together.

We could try Rengo out, but go is a little more fun as a two player game, in my opinion.

Still, I would say that if it comes to be that we even play rengo on Fridays, for example, I could consider it a success.

[yithril]

I guess prosper for some people means us being similar to Japan or S. Korea, which I think is a bit hard if not impossible. Right now, I think we should focus on getting more kids interested in it and playing it for the long haul. I think there is some room in the culture for a vibrant Go scene centered in cities or larger suburban areas, but the expansiveness of the country does present certain problems. I think getting adults to play a new game that they don't fall in love with right away is problematic, especially since it takes awhile to be really good at Go. From a lot of adult's perspective, if they put that much time in it, they'd better be learning how to conquer the business world

[Kirby]

I guess prosper for some people means us being similar to Japan or S. Korea, which I think is a bit hard if not impossible. ...

I guess the reason it's different for me is that, even if you're in Japan or Korea, the situation isn't necessarily better everywhere you go. I've experienced it before: you're in Japan, and you tell someone that you know go. They'll likely say something like, "sugoi ne!" and they'll know what you mean when you say go. They might even know the rules.

But that doesn't mean that they're interested in playing go with you. There are tons of people that probably know the rules, but that doesn't mean they have an interest to play the game, let alone play it with you.

So even in Japan and Korea, yeah, they know about go more than people in the USA. But is the situation really that great?

The real difference is that you can find a go club easier where there ARE people that are interested in playing, and people that might be around your level.

Well, the same thing can be accomplished in the USA locally if you have the right club. When I lived in Ann Arbor and there were people to play against, it was just as good, if not better, than finding a go club in Sendai where people were interested in playing me.

So I can see that some people want to make the USA like Japan or Korea... But to me that's kind of meaningless if you don't have that local group of people that are going to play against you.

If you can make that local group of people that will play against you, then that's awesome. Who cares if you get a "segoi ne" when you mention go in a country where go is more popular. What matters is that you find people with an interest in playing you, which can be accomplished with local effort.

[Javaness2]

In our countries there are these additional steps in setting up clubs

1. Advertise new club
2. Some people turn up
3. Spend years teaching them, while some leave after a few weeks, and new people show up, and some leave
4. Have normal club

[daniel_the_smith]

I wanted to wait until Bob Terry finished his series before commenting, and it looks like his rant has come to an end. His posts were pretty lightweight. They looked to be borne of frustration rather than being well thought out, but I thought they raised two good points. The first meshes pretty well with my AGA experiences:

A few years ago I brought a film crew from a prominent Japanese television program to cover the Cotsen Go Tournament. That included the host of the program, a well-known journalist in Japan. I attempted to introduce him to the AGA representative on the scene. What did the AGA representative do? He snubbed the journalist, refusing even to acknowledge his presence. I had to profusely apologize to the journalist for the stupidity and ignorance of the AGA representative.

The next day I brought the AGA representative the footage that we had taken and that was to be broadcast on television later in the day. What did the AGA representative do with it? Nothing. As far as I know it was discarded. Typical of AGA action in response to outside initiatives.

The second was a combination observation/question. The AGA has received $2 million in funding from the Ing Foundation. What does it have to show for it? It's a legitimate question, and I think one that hasn't received the discussion it's due.

The film crew story is the most interesting anecdote I see in the posts. Unfortunately, without more details it's pretty hard to judge whether Mr. Terry's perception of the occurrence is more or less accurate than the perception that the organizer apparently had.

No organizer is going to appreciate an offer of "help" that arrives without warning in the midst of a very busy event. One has to call up the organizer in advance, see if this help is desired or if it conflicts with something else the organizer has planned already (what if he or she already sold the media rights?). Then the organizer will be grateful or at least not terribly annoyed. This is social skills 101.

So, anyway, I can imagine versions of that story where the organizer was being silly, and other versions where Mr. Terry was not being as helpful as he believes.

As for the Ing money, that was basically over before I started paying much attention to things, so no comment.

[mdobbins]

... I think getting adults to play a new game that they don't fall in love with right away is problematic, especially since it takes awhile to be really good at Go. ...

That is why we should focus on children as they have not lost the curiosity and freedom to try things that you can easily lose at and take some time to learn. Even better would be groups of children as they are all start near the same level and can have a lot of fun competing with each other as they learn. Adults in general are too rigid in their thinking to even bother funding any massive public outreach except to capture the attention of their children. Some parents will spend the effort to learn if it helps their children enjoy themselves with the game.

[aokun]

Kids and groups of kids are good to teach for these reasons, and also because giving them a fun and instructive activity is good in its own right, whether they take up the game long term or not. But outreach to adults is also important for the hobby. Kids have little money, may or may not be able to schedule their own time or travel, are presented with a thousand fun activities and distractions, have little practical experience of life, become interested in academics, hobbies, jobs and dating and change, constantly. We can expect to teach a lot of kids then, five years from now, have champions, organizers, sponsors and die hards. Adults find it harder to progress rapidly, given their sclerotic noggins. But if they like the game, they can focus, spend, work, organize, travel and evangelize. If you find a dozen adults who like the game, you are quite likely to find one or two that a couple of years down the line are struggling to get to SDK, but are organizing tournaments, going to congresses, buying books, helping run a club and teaching others to play.

... I think getting adults to play a new game that they don't fall in love with right away is problematic, especially since it takes awhile to be really good at Go. ...

That is why we should focus on children as they have not lost the curiosity and freedom to try things that you can easily lose at and take some time to learn. Even better would be groups of children as they are all start near the same level and can have a lot of fun competing with each other as they learn. Adults in general are too rigid in their thinking to even bother funding any massive public outreach except to capture the attention of their children. Some parents will spend the effort to learn if it helps their children enjoy themselves with the game.

[hyperpape]

And, as John Fairbairn is fond of pointing out, to get kids and keep them involved, it helps if their parents think of Go as a worthwhile activity--something more than a silly thing their kids are obsessed with.

[palapiku]

I don't see any great future for go or chess as long as American culture remains so anti-intellectual. The European cultural climate seems much more promising.

[lemmata]

I don't see any great future for go or chess as long as American culture remains so anti-intellectual. The European cultural climate seems much more promising.

I'd say culture is becoming more and more anti-intellectual all over the world. It's not just an American problem.

That said, I don't think that this is such a huge problem for go. I think that marketing go as an intellectual activity is ineffective in the first place. There are many interesting (and popular) games that have a strong intellectual component (Poker, Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, Taboo, etc...). However, not many think of those games as intellectual pursuits. They think of them as fun pursuits.

The moment that go is perceived by people as a game for smart people, losing may feel like proof of intellectual inferiority. Most people do not like being made to feel less intelligent than others. Of course, describing go as an intellectual activity has the effect of elevating the reputations of people who already play it, but it also has the effect of discouraging beginners. This has the effect of attracting primarily people who are confident that their intelligence is superior. This also leads to many of those smart people dropping out because of hurt pride when they get stuck at a particular kyu level. It does not help that there are many people who talk down to weaker players. We most frequently see this in the form of seemingly innocent and harmless "LOL"s in the kibitz when someone is watching/reviewing a game between lower-ranked players. Many people don't realize that laughing at another person's mistakes is impolite. Correcting someone's mistakes is a good and noble deed, but laughing while doing so cheapens the act. Many of these people are otherwise decent. They are not evil. Why do they do it? Well, they probably had that happen to them! These chains are not easy to break.

I really think that we could spread go to more people if we de-emphasized the intellectual aspect and marketed it as a fun activity, period.

[jts]

Hmm, do people really resent laughter so much? I think it's hard to imagine a group of people having a good time without laughter involved in some way or another. Our choices seem to be: cruel elitists or boring zombies.

I'm not sure that there are facts of the matter about whether a group of 300,000,000 people is intellectual or anti-intellectual, much less a derivatives of that fact with respect to time. At the very least, we would have to be a little more specific about what we meant.

I do agree that there is some element of fragile egos in go's current obscurity. Many people who absolutely refuse to take a handicap in go would think nothing of taking a handicap in golf or playing Canadian doubles.

[lemmata]

Hmm, do people really resent laughter so much?

People don't resent laughter in general. People resent laughter that seems to mock them or is otherwise at their expense.

Our choices seem to be: cruel elitists or boring zombies.

Therefore, this is probably a false dichotomy.

I'm not sure that there are facts of the matter about whether a group of 300,000,000 people is intellectual or anti-intellectual, much less a derivatives of that fact with respect to time. At the very least, we would have to be a little more specific about what we meant.

You're absolutely right. There's quite a bit of hyperbole and unjustified subjectivity in what I said about the world culture. I suppose what I really wanted to say was the following: "Don't just pick on them poor 'Muricans."

I do agree that there is some element of fragile egos in go's current obscurity. Many people who absolutely refuse to take a handicap in go would think nothing of taking a handicap in golf or playing Canadian doubles.

Indeed... Given that difference in behavior, one might conjecture that the perception of these activities plays a role.