Why do we study old go games to improve?

[moyoaji]

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread have actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

I haven't studied a ton of old games, but I have looked at 3 kifus from Longshi (one was the game from GoCommentary and I watched that video). I have watched a number of Shusaku game reviews from this YouTuber tokinonagare27 and have looked at several of his kifus on GoKifu (I think some were taken down recently, I haven't been able to find many of the games from before he became Honinbo Shusaku and I wanted to review some - if you know what happened let me know). I have reviewed a few games by Go Seigen including the game where Fujisawa resigned afterwards (on GoCommentary) and another game the two played later that is on Go4Go.net.

I used to try to get in a mix of old and new games. I would review current games from Go4Go.net to try to get a feel for how the game is played today and where it is moving, but also looked at some older title matches. (The 1985 Meijin series between Kobayashi Koichi and Cho Chikun, for example.)

However, I fear I'm not quite strong enough to fully appreciate these games. I used to get exhausted trying to review a game like that because it would get so complicated. I haven't done many high level game reviews recently because I felt like I wasn't coming away with enough concrete knowledge. Perhaps I should review them regularly again, however, because I'm starting to appreciate how "concrete" knowledge isn't truly important in go. Sometimes feeling and instinct can be just as valuable as memorizing the "correct" answer to a situation.

[tchan001]

I don't think the obvious has been stated yet,
...

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread has actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

Surely JF would be such a person and anyone who has studied Invincible or the games of Shuei would be as well.

[Kanin]

What do we get out of studying old games? How are new games not more relevant and more beneficial in becoming a better player?

I'm sure that every high level go player today has at one time gone over the games of Go Seigen, Honinbo Shusaku, Shuei, etc. But what is it that makes these games special? How do you not get more out of studying a game by a modern superstar such as Gu Li, Lee Sedol, Kong Jie, Lee Chang-Ho, etc.?

Unless you are interested in the history of outdated playing styles what sets those games apart that make them so critical that they must be studied to become a high level player?

Someone already mentioned that older classic games and 'masterpieces' have had more work and analysis done on them, which I think is a good point. Another interesting point is that today, some might argue, there are in fact no masterpieces being made. In comparison with a lot of older games, the games of modern pros are most of the time practically blitz games. It is unclear exactly how big a difference the shorter time limits make, but it is at least not uncommon for big mistakes in high level games to be attributed to time pressure.

Anyway, go is so vast and complex that you have several paths to reach higher grounds. To me it seems a healthy mix of old and new games is reasonable for amateur players. And perhaps more importantly, review the kind of games you enjoy reviewing!

[macelee]

Assuming you can read it, you can see for yourself the measured sort of language Go uses about Huang, and go of the Qianlong era. Here he is in conversation with Kawabata Yasunari, in a famous book called "Conversations on go with Go Seigen". No reference to 13-dan or other hyperbole. He does of course say that Huang towered above others of his era, and that Xu Xingyou did not reach his level, though that is not really in question anyway. He does add a reference to Shi and Fan which seems to put them in the same bracket - again not really in dispute. On the next page, not shown here, in a section headed "Comparison" Kawabata feels obliged to defend Dosaku's honour a little. It might be worth adding that when this conversation took place, Go was probably aware of only about 60 of Huang's games. Later discoveries have brought us up to 105, but I don't think the new games alter the picture very much, although Huang did not get the better of Zhou Xihou on the basis of known results.

This is not the main text I would use to illustrate Go's opinion, but that's tucked away in an early 1950s magazine and I'm not willing to turn the house upside down.

Just to make this clearer, Chen Zude 9-dan was apparently aware of those arguments among Go fans on the strength of Huang Longshi. He corrected the interviewer that Go did not say directly that Huang's strength is 13-dan, but did say that the strength is comparable to Japanese Meijins. He also apparently read Kawabata's book as he made a reference to it. The 13-dan myth is more like 'implied'.

Chen used his words very carefully in this article, making its content very trustworthy. Unless somebody can go to ask Go Seigen himself, we cannot say for sure what he did/did not say. But Chen was the leading Chinese player for a period of time and he must have many chances to meet Go Seigen in person. So maybe the two had some private conversation?

[gogameguru]

Another factor for a lot of people here is the availability of English language books and commentaries.

I played through all the games in Invincible quite a few times at one stage, partly because I wasn't aware of any other source of good commentaries in English. So, in other words, some players replay old games because that's what's available to them, or is what they know about at the time. Now that I think about it, even in the last 5-10 years the number of books and other resources that provide commentaries has improved considerably for Go players in the West.

Can you become a strong amateur player just by studying Shusaku's games? Definitely. Can you learn other things by looking at modern games? Of course.

[snorri]

And if you feel the opening is of the utmost importance, then what do you say about Lee Changho's style? Unless you are saying that I also am mistaken about his not emphasizing the opening, in which case tell Nick Sibicky that he made a mistake in saying that in this video: Nick Sibicky video starting at the point of the comment.

This mainly just shows that an AGA 3dan can still be way off. That's a bit of an exaggeration.

[snorri]

I don't think the obvious has been stated yet,
...

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread has actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

At least Cho Seok-bin, a top European amateur an ex-Korean insei, says he doesn't study the old players much. His comments in this interview about the ancients are mixed:

Did you study historical Go players (for instance Shusaku, or even older)? If so, what do you think of those players - how do they compare to today's top players in terms of strength?


I studied some of Go Seigen's games, but I never studied Shusaku or so.

I think old players had good fighting skills but very bad opening, because the opening evolved so much in the past 200 years.

Also, I believe top players become stronger and stronger with each generation, so I think top players from today are better than the top players from 200 years ago.


As for myself, I study more modern games than old games, but that's mostly because there are more for them. More ancient games are being discovered thanks for the efforts of people like the GoGoD team, but of course the volume will never match that of incoming modern games now that so many are recorded and available on the internet. There are just more games today and more professionals being recorded, too.

Some players (Michael Redmond 9p, for example) study ancient games as part of endgame study, because before time limits players had more time to find correct play, so there are fewer mistakes and (one hopes!) no byoyomi-style moves.

[ez4u]

I don't think the obvious has been stated yet,
...

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread has actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

Surely JF would be such a person and anyone who has studied Invincible or the games of Shuei would be as well.

Let's hope that JF will speak for himself. Nevertheless, in my imagination he is not an example of what I was seeking. I have the impression that he has spent vastly more time on the literature and culture(s) surrounding and deriving from Go than he has spent studying game records in order to become stronger. And thank God he did. Imagine how dull L19 would be if JF were just another reticent Euro 7-dan!

[SmoothOper]

Some players (Michael Redmond 9p, for example) study ancient games as part of endgame study, because before time limits players had more time to find correct play, so there are fewer mistakes and (one hopes!) no byoyomi-style moves.

I personally don't play very long games, so I don't study the ancients for that reason. The problem, is that many of the lines of play while being correct, aren't as robust to the mistakes I make, they also don't have great time suji, I was watching a 6 or 7 dan game on IGS and there was this weird exchange, I was watching the time, and I couldn't figure out why he played the exchange then, but then ah, he had a new clock. I can see how some people in search of perfect games would be fascinated by the ancients, and following those openings and techniques through history.

[Kirby]

Maybe you can compare studying game records to academic research. It's not uncommon to have a scientific research paper including citations from a variety of sources, including sometimes sources that might date back 30 years. I suppose it depends on the area of study.

But to me, when reading a research paper, more important than the dates of the citations are the concepts and ideas themselves.

Coming back to go, probably more important than the particular date in time a game was played, is the idea that's being presented. It's possible that advancements have been made in go in modern times, just like advancements have been made in many fields of academia.

But in either case, an idea is an idea. So you can learn new ideas from many sources, both old and new.

[Enkidu]

I don't think the obvious has been stated yet,
...

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread has actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

I've gone through nearly every old game. The likes of Dosaku, Shuei, Huang, Fan & Shi several times.

[gowan]

I don't think the obvious has been stated yet,
...

I think there is still one bit missing. I don't know of anything showing that amateurs do study old games (versus modern ones). Certainly we are advised to time and again. But what do people really do? In my case, I think the main source of games for review, year in and year out, was Go World and the games studied were overwhelmingly modern. Who among the contributors to this thread has actually made some sort of systematic study of old games or specific historical players?

I haven't made a systematic[i] study of games by historic players but I have studied quite a few, mostly from collections of commented gamnes. I've read most of Invincible, the eight volumes of the Nihon Ki-in's series titled [i]Koten Meikyoku Sen Shu (Dosaku, Chitoku, Shuwa, Jowa, Gennan, Shusaku, Shuho, Shuei), the Nihon Igo Taikei books of Dosaku's and Shuei's games, and others. I study these not so much because it will make me a stronger player but because I enjoy the story. I like feeling that I am part of the flow of history and it is fun seeing where the go that is played today came from. But I do think I learn from studying the old games. For example, if I see a move that isn't or wouldn't be played today I wonder why that is the case and try to figure it out.

[dankenzon]

I think one thing we must bring to the discussion is that old strong players like Shusaku and Dosaku were so ahead of most of players, than seeing their games an amateur can see a strong plan developing and punishing mistakes.

It's like seeing Capablanca or Alekhine in their plenty of chess power, they simply go to a clear win with the opponent sometimes unaware whats going on

That's a way to learn how to develop a plan and punish.

In modern games, with small differences of strength, the battles are so complex that we lot of times we (simply amateur) get lost in exchanges and reasons for a particular order of play. And without the detailed analysis or guidance the learning from the games is dramatically reduced.

[gowan]

It might be instructive to think about lines of play that have been rejected by later players. The Shin Fuseki period is a source of many of these. People really went overboard with trying different things that were rejected by later players. But at the time people were excited by them and played these flawed new ideas a lot. I think that a lot of the "new" stuff we see now will be rejected in the future. A more recent example is the "high" Chinese style opening, which was all the rage in the early '80s (in the Fujisawa vs. Kato Kisei title match all the games featured the high Chinese opening) but it is hardy played much any more. So studying the most recent games will invariably lead you to play moves that will be rejected in future years. It is still important to understand why the moves you play are good, not just play them because Gu Li did or some similar reason. Finally, some old moves that were rejected have come back in modern times, e.g. the Shusaku diagonal.