The harder part of Go

[PeterPeter]

The problem is when you get to the nitty gritty of Go. I'm referring to that period where you are faced with a large 361-point board and have no idea what you're doing. Worse, you play as hard as you can and things never line up. You want to win and learn but you're just not getting it.

In short, the part of learning Go when you have to push through the tunnel until you see the light.

The beginning is fresh and new and exciting, and the journey towards new strength and enjoyment is breathtaking, but there's a part of the whole experience that's simply frustrating. This is where your love of Go is tested. This is where players are won or lost.

I can relate to this, having played/studied the game for a couple of months, got to around 15 kyu maybe, and then just lost interest in it.

I think that at that level, you understand well all the rules of the game, and have some basic tactics and strategy. You know some simple shapes, and whether they are generally good or bad. You can follow another game quite well, and understand the flow of the game, who is winning, and you can see reasons for most of the moves. So, you are quite pleased with yourself for having got that far.

Then your progress slows right down, and realise that to get any further is going to take an awful lot of hard work. You learn about the idea of josekis, and that the more of them you know, the better, but there are thousands of them, so where do you start? Life-and-death problems look impenetrable. You need to know the status of loads of corner shapes - Ls and Js and boxes and all their subtle variations, but again there are so many of them, and it is tedious trying to remember them. It all seems very dry and abstract.

No-one that I know knows anything at all about the game, and the nearest club is struggling along with a handful of members that meet in the corner of a bar if enough people agree beforehand to go that week. It is just not part of our culture, and could therefore be seen as irrelevant. Proudly announce to 1000 random people that you are a 5-kyu Go player, and it will mean nothing to 999 of them. With so little encouragement, it is easy to lose interest.

You get so much conflicting advice, you do not know what to believe. The answer to most questions is usually “It depends...”, followed by a specific example that is never going to come up again. It can be frustrating never getting a simple answer. As an early beginner, your questions can often be given simple answers, and as a sdk you can work a lot out for yourself, but for me at least there is a difficult area between these 2 stages. You cannot even ask a computer to tell you the best move or assess a particular move, like you can in chess.

Having said that, I am grateful for the advice I received from the other forum members, and appreciate that it was the best help that could be offered given the nature of the game.

I hope this doesn’t come across as moaning or criticism of the game, as I can see that it is a wonderful game, especially if you are introduced to it as a child, and you live in the Far East! Instead, please take it as a list of the issues that you may want to think about in your own situation.

I will probably return to the game at some point, if something triggers my interest again. In the meantime, living in the UK and in my advanced years, chess seems to be a better option.

[Alguien]

I hope this doesn’t come across as moaning or criticism of the game

It doesn't. I've felt the same and I'm sure a lot of others have too. (btw, you forgot "studying for a while and discovering an infant can beat you before learning to speak").

I will probably return to the game at some point, if something triggers my interest again. In the meantime, living in the UK and in my advanced years, chess seems to be a better option.

Have you seen battousai playing videos? (search dwyrin in youtube) They made go look so simple that they made me want to play. (My game wasn't so simple, but I had played one more. Then I saw another video, played another game...)

[gowan]

Teaching beginners is difficult. Many years ago I had a friend, who had been very interested in learning to play, show up at a go club meeting. I was involved in a very interesting game and my beginner friend sat down to learn with a 2k player who proceeded to "teach" by explaining how strong he was (about 28 ranks stronger) and humiliating my friend by playing on a full size board, capturing everything and gloating about it. Unfortunately that was the last time my beginner friend came to the club. This is an example of bad teaching, if it can even be called teaching at all. When I sit down at the go board with someone I think it is an opportunity for both of us to have a learning experience regardless of which of us is the stronger player. A good teacher can learn from every teaching experience. Something that isn't mentioned often is that the bigger the difference in knowledge between the teacher and pupil the more the teacher needs to think about teaching rather than just the subject being taught. If you have a PhD in English it is probably easier for you to teach a university course than a high school course and that would be easier than teaching elementary school. Back to teaching go. I saw on NHK-TV in Japan some sessions of a go class for beginners taught by a 7p, Izumitani Masanori. Izumitani-sensei showed humility, enthusiasm, and support for his students. In no way were the students shamed for making "bad" moves. The teacher clearly loved go and was excited to share that love with his students. And the students responded. I also recall a US Go Congress several years ago at which Saijo Masataka 8p was one of the pros attending. A beginners' class was organized for spouses and friends of congress participants and Saijo-sensei was the teacher. Clearly pros consider teaching beginners an important job.

[Bill Spight]

Then your progress slows right down, and realise that to get any further is going to take an awful lot of hard work. You learn about the idea of josekis, and that the more of them you know, the better, but there are thousands of them, so where do you start? Life-and-death problems look impenetrable. You need to know the status of loads of corner shapes - Ls and Js and boxes and all their subtle variations, but again there are so many of them, and it is tedious trying to remember them. It all seems very dry and abstract.

FWIW, I did not study life and death until I was 4 kyu, and I have never memorized joseki or corner shapes. (Not that I don't know a number of them, but really! )

[xed_over]

Then your progress slows right down, and realise that to get any further is going to take an awful lot of hard work. You learn about the idea of josekis, and that the more of them you know, the better, but there are thousands of them, so where do you start? Life-and-death problems look impenetrable. You need to know the status of loads of corner shapes - Ls and Js and boxes and all their subtle variations, but again there are so many of them, and it is tedious trying to remember them. It all seems very dry and abstract.

FWIW, I did not study life and death until I was 4 kyu, and I have never memorized joseki or corner shapes. (Not that I don't know a number of them, but really! )

me too neither (only I'm not 4kyu yet, but getting closer)

I gave up chess for about the same reason -- didn't want to start learning all the variously named openings. For me, it just seemed to take the fun out of the game. I consider joseki to be almost the same. Go is still fun for me, and studying joseki takes the fun out. When learned in context, as in if I don't play here then something bad is going to happen, then its not so bad.

[gowan]

The problem is when you get to the nitty gritty of Go. I'm referring to that period where you are faced with a large 361-point board and have no idea what you're doing. Worse, you play as hard as you can and things never line up. You want to win and learn but you're just not getting it.

In short, the part of learning Go when you have to push through the tunnel until you see the light.

The beginning is fresh and new and exciting, and the journey towards new strength and enjoyment is breathtaking, but there's a part of the whole experience that's simply frustrating. This is where your love of Go is tested. This is where players are won or lost.

I can relate to this, having played/studied the game for a couple of months, got to around 15 kyu maybe, and then just lost interest in it.

I think that at that level, you understand well all the rules of the game, and have some basic tactics and strategy. You know some simple shapes, and whether they are generally good or bad. You can follow another game quite well, and understand the flow of the game, who is winning, and you can see reasons for most of the moves. So, you are quite pleased with yourself for having got that far.

Then your progress slows right down, and realise that to get any further is going to take an awful lot of hard work. You learn about the idea of josekis, and that the more of them you know, the better, but there are thousands of them, so where do you start? Life-and-death problems look impenetrable. You need to know the status of loads of corner shapes - Ls and Js and boxes and all their subtle variations, but again there are so many of them, and it is tedious trying to remember them. It all seems very dry and abstract.

No-one that I know knows anything at all about the game, and the nearest club is struggling along with a handful of members that meet in the corner of a bar if enough people agree beforehand to go that week. It is just not part of our culture, and could therefore be seen as irrelevant. Proudly announce to 1000 random people that you are a 5-kyu Go player, and it will mean nothing to 999 of them. With so little encouragement, it is easy to lose interest.

You get so much conflicting advice, you do not know what to believe. The answer to most questions is usually “It depends...”, followed by a specific example that is never going to come up again. It can be frustrating never getting a simple answer. As an early beginner, your questions can often be given simple answers, and as a sdk you can work a lot out for yourself, but for me at least there is a difficult area between these 2 stages. You cannot even ask a computer to tell you the best move or assess a particular move, like you can in chess.

Having said that, I am grateful for the advice I received from the other forum members, and appreciate that it was the best help that could be offered given the nature of the game.

I hope this doesn’t come across as moaning or criticism of the game, as I can see that it is a wonderful game, especially if you are introduced to it as a child, and you live in the Far East! Instead, please take it as a list of the issues that you may want to think about in your own situation.

I will probably return to the game at some point, if something triggers my interest again. In the meantime, living in the UK and in my advanced years, chess seems to be a better option.

People who advocate memorizing joseki and complicated life-and-death shapes are on the wrong track. To learn go you have to find out for yourself whay various moves are good and others are not. The best way to do this is to play serious games where you think about every move. Then when the game is over go back and analyse what happened. Most of us don't have the time to do this with every game but still it is valuable to go over as many of your games as you can. If you keep on playing gradually you will learn what good shape is and what balance is. Then you won't need to memorize joseki because you'll be able to think out what most good move sequences are. As for life-and-death shapes, it helps to learn some of the most basic ones but you can also just try to analyse them in your games when they occur. You need to develop reading ability anyhow so practice by doing in real games. By the way there are many ostensibly strong players who can solve life-and-death problems in a book but are much worse at it in a game situation; you have to practice in real games in any case.

As for choosing to play chess because you don't have to memorize so much, I think that's a delusion. To get good at chess (say Elo 1900 or better) most people have to spend A LOT OF TIME studying openings and endgame technique.

There is another option: just play for fun and don't worry about whether you know this or that particular thing. Places where we get frustrated with go are in investing self-worth in playing well and in having unreasonable expectations. We all play go because we enjoy it. Focus on what you enjoy about it.

P.S. Years ago there was a 15k player (now deceased) who came to all the US Go Congresses and had been playing for decades, and he wasn't discouraged because he hadn't gotten out of ddk range.

[Phoenix]

No-one that I know knows anything at all about the game, and the nearest club is struggling along with a handful of members that meet in the corner of a bar if enough people agree beforehand to go that week. It is just not part of our culture, and could therefore be seen as irrelevant. Proudly announce to 1000 random people that you are a 5-kyu Go player, and it will mean nothing to 999 of them. With so little encouragement, it is easy to lose interest.

I'm in a small town. People like hockey, horses and fruit-picking.

And everyone seems to think they're dumb as dirt.

I tell them about Go and how you have to surround space with your pieces. Nope! Too hard, too complicated, I'm too dumb for that. Chess is much too hard already, so is Solitaire.

I have no idea where they picked this up. These are normal, healthy people who are afraid of any sort of complexity. Not to mention newness. They've been told over and over that they're simpletons and that they shouldn't try. It's sad and weird.

No one so far in the Asian community plays Go. It's frustrating.

So my PR plan is to present Go as a game of fun and excitement with simple rules. I really have to emphasize this, or no one will show up at all.


By the way, you guys are giving some seriously awesome feedback. Thank you all so much!

[EdLee]

They've been told over and over that they're simpletons and that they shouldn't try. It's sad and weird.

Sad and weird, indeed. WHO told them?

[PeterPeter]

FWIW, I did not study life and death until I was 4 kyu, and I have never memorized joseki or corner shapes. (Not that I don't know a number of them, but really! )

Yes, I was probably too concerned about josekis too early.

But, you soon realise that there must be a handful of josekis, that come up all the time, and which every player must know. Sure enough, you can find lists of between 5-10, and you soon get familiar with them, either through recognition by repeatedly playing them, or simple memorisation.

My next step was to get hold of the book “38 Basic Joseki”, which I had seen recommended. This sounds manageable enough, but it turned out to be packed with hundreds of variations and very dry commentary. This looked really offputting, and no fun at all. At whatever kyu level it was appropriate for, if this was typical of a book with “basic” in the title, then this was probably not the right game for me.

[Phoenix]

My next step was to get hold of the book “38 Basic Joseki”, which I had seen recommended. This sounds manageable enough, but it turned out to be packed with hundreds of variations and very dry commentary. This looked really offputting, and no fun at all. At whatever kyu level it was appropriate for, if this was typical of a book with “basic” in the title, then this was probably not the right game for me.

I found it to be a helpful book. Then again I didn't expect a joseki book to be in the least bit entertaining. What I liked about this book is that it put the joseki and their variations in context. Now I have a better idea of which joseki move to play in what situation.

In fact, though I'm about 4kyu (maybe a bit stronger), I've found re-reading all the basic books including "38 Basic Joseki", Kageyama's "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go", Davies' "Tesuji" and "Attack and Defense", and for the first time "Shape Up" has helped more than just about anything. And of course I keep re-reading my favorite, Takeo Kajiwara's "The Direction of Play".

This close to dan level, I feel revisiting and strengthening the fundamentals is more important than all their strategic derivatives. I have a good handle of that for my level. But I'm thinking maybe I'm just trying really hard to avoid doing my tsumego.

[Boidhre]

At whatever kyu level it was appropriate for, if this was typical of a book with “basic” in the title, then this was probably not the right game for me.

Ah now, you have to be just as cautious when buying books in the chess world when they have the word basic attached! Basic in the title of a book about a strategy board game can have many meanings.

I wish you luck with chess by the way, it's a fascinating game.

[jts]

FWIW, I did not study life and death until I was 4 kyu, and I have never memorized joseki or corner shapes. (Not that I don't know a number of them, but really! )

Yes, I was probably too concerned about josekis too early.

But, you soon realise that there must be a handful of josekis, that come up all the time, and which every player must know. Sure enough, you can find lists of between 5-10, and you soon get familiar with them, either through recognition by repeatedly playing them, or simple memorisation.

My next step was to get hold of the book “38 Basic Joseki”, which I had seen recommended. This sounds manageable enough, but it turned out to be packed with hundreds of variations and very dry commentary. This looked really offputting, and no fun at all. At whatever kyu level it was appropriate for, if this was typical of a book with “basic” in the title, then this was probably not the right game for me.

38 basic joseki is (IMHO) a pretty awful book, and pretty inexplicable considering what Davies did with the other books in that series, which are great.

It's funny to me that you feel this pushing you towards chess. I just thirty minutes ago was in a bookstore, perusing books with titles like Simply Slav, Attacking with the Sicilian, Nizmo-Everything, Changing up the Tyigorin, Stylish Openings and You.... (There was also a great book about a bridge murder that I wish I had bought for my grandmother!) At that point I was thinking rather loftily about how superior go is. Like Xed, I tend to feel that memorizing joseki is hopelessly dull and don't mind if my game suffers a tiny bit as a result. (This doesnt even start to get into all the tedium of chess "tactics", which can devolve into memorizing the specific spaces on the board which are good for a certain kind of fork.)

Anyway, you say that you're still around 15k, Peter. May I suggest you just start playing away from 4-4 and 3-4? No one at your level knows joseki for the 5-5, the 3-3, the 3-5, etc, so if it stresses you out to wonder if you should know "the" joseki, just play something off the beaten path. If people reviewing your games try to talk to you about joseki, ignore them unless they can explain why each move is good in its own right.

[PeterPeter]

I must say I am impressed by the concern and advice being offered to someone who might have given up on the game. The old stereotype about Go players being more helpful and friendly than chess players is mostly true, in my experience. Makes me more likely to pick up the game again.

I just thirty minutes ago was in a bookstore, perusing books with titles like Simply Slav, Attacking with the Sicilian, Nizmo-Everything, Changing up the Tyigorin, Stylish Openings and You.... (There was also a great book about a bridge murder that I wish I had bought for my grandmother!) At that point I was thinking rather loftily about how superior go is.

That has gone over my head . Was it the fact that there are openings with names that you picked up on, or the use of "simply", "attacking", "stylish"?

(This doesnt even start to get into all the tedium of chess "tactics", which can devolve into memorizing the specific spaces on the board which are good for a certain kind of fork.)

That has also gone over my head. Forks depend on the relative positions of pieces, not spaces of the board. The only squares that are slightly more interesting than the others are f2 and f7 in the opening.

[EdLee]

I can relate to this, having played/studied the game for a couple of months, got to around 15 kyu maybe, and then just lost interest in it.

Peter, do you enjoy equally in-person games and online games?
For me, it's definitely much more fun with a physical set.
It also helps a lot if you have a friend around your level
who can play you regularly face to face. If there's someone just slightly better
than you, that's even better -- where I live, I don't have such a person.
So the closest thing I can manage is set up my physical set for my online games,
with an extra-slow time setting so I can relay my own game between the computer
and the physical board. Maybe you can give this a try, too?

[PeterPeter]

I can definitely relate to what Lyzl said on viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7505:

I think for me personally, it has a lot to do with the anonymity and seriousness of games online.

recently, I've played more games where I chat about my moves to my opponent, and I know that isn't completely 'competitive' but it really calms me down and turns the game into a friendly match and lesson with learning on both sides. There is something about the hollow "hi, gg" signed at the beginning of each game and final, crushing "thanks" that just makes the whole experience a bit of a shell of real life Go to me.

I like to 'share' a game with someone in person. Discuss positions and the flow, and comment on moves. The game is, after all, a negotiation about dividing up a cake. Online games leave me cold. They feel like a mathematical exercise against a computer, and all you get out of it is a final score. I know you can chat by text online, but the effort of typing compared with speaking, and the lag (the game has moved on before you can type and post a comment) mean that it is a poor substitute.

I have never played with physical stones, but I do not think computer graphics are an issue for me.