A Series Of Questions

[yoyoma]

This will simply be a series of questions designed to get to know more about each player and their playing styles. It's something that I've been curious about. Sorry if it's a lame post, but I figure SOMEONE might enjoy it, and it's been awhile since I created a topic.

1. Do you prefer playing black or white. And why?
2. Do you have a favorite opening as black?
3. How did you learn your favorite opening?
4. What is your favorite language for Go?
5. What is your favorite Go term and what does it mean?
6. Do you prefer complex games or simple games?
7. Do you feel tsumego is critical to improving?
8. If you could become a professional in any country(the ones offering pro certification), which one would you choose and why?
9. Is Go your favorite hobby?
10. As a DDK, who helped your game improve the most if you can remember?
11. Is the journey more important than the end or the start? Basically, do you feel there is more value in gaining strength than simply having it?
12. Do you feel answering these questions helped you learn more about yourself and others? Explain.

1. Black, there are some openings I don't like to face as White.
2. In tournament games as Black I usually play two 3-4s and then make an enclosure. Sometimes I think it's boring and do something else though.
3. The question is where did I learn to play 3-4 points and then make enclosures? hehe
4. English. I prefer to use more English terms if a good one is available rather than the Japanese term.
5. I don't think I have a favorite term. I do have a desire to play the Raccoon's Belly tesuji in a game, because the name is cool and so is the tesuji. I had a close miss just last week where the shape occurred but it didn't work because my opponent had an atari available to escape it.
6. Medium complexity -- Goldilocks complexity.
7. Yes, Tsumego is critically important to improvement. It's not often that I'm in the mood to just do some problems though. Good thing this is just a hobby.
8. Wait so you're saying it's not just a hobby anymore? Dang. Lately I'm interested in Korea, so I pick there.
9. It varies between #1 and #4. Lately the competitors are Starcraft, Ultimate Frisbee, and learning Korean. With US Go Congress approaching, Go naturally rises to #1 for the moment.
10. My DDK days were spent on IGS over 10 years ago, and mostly self-taught. But I will take this chance to say my favorite teacher is Yilun Yang 7p. I haven't taken private lessons from him but I enjoy his lectures on KGS+ and at the US Go Congress, and I have many of his books. I especially recommend the Workshop Lectures series.
11. I enjoy most the moments when you gain some new understanding, and second most the moments when you first start to apply new that new understanding. I'm still waiting for the 2nd half in the case of Raccoon's Belly.
12. Yes I like reading the answers from others, thank you for starting this.

[daal]

3. How did you learn your favorite opening?

Go Seigen's sixteen soldiers game ...

Cool game, thanks for mentioning it. Any idea how it got it's name?

[skydyr]

3. How did you learn your favorite opening?

Go Seigen's sixteen soldiers game ...

Cool game, thanks for mentioning it. Any idea how it got it's name?

I'm pretty sure it was named after the first 16 moves.

[daal]

3. How did you learn your favorite opening?

Go Seigen's sixteen soldiers game ...

Cool game, thanks for mentioning it. Any idea how it got it's name?

I'm pretty sure it was named after the first 16 moves.

Then it would make more sense to me if it was called the fourteen soldiers game, because moves 15 and 16 are sort of in the middle of a joseki.

[xed_over]

3. How did you learn your favorite opening?

Go Seigen's sixteen soldiers game ...

Cool game, thanks for mentioning it. Any idea how it got it's name?

I'm pretty sure it was named after the first 16 moves.

I've heard, but have trouble finding any actual references, that there's another popular game with that name, and the first moves look quite similar to that other game.

[SmoothOper]

Cool game, thanks for mentioning it. Any idea how it got it's name?

I'm pretty sure it was named after the first 16 moves.

I've heard, but have trouble finding any actual references, that there's another popular game with that name, and the first moves look quite similar to that other game.

I am having a hard time finding my original references for it as well. I though it was because he was playing Tei's entire dojo(16 soldiers) but that looks like another game, "The game of the century", which is also similar, so maybe I confused them. I don't actually play the tengen on 5 anymore though that is how I started.

[billywoods]

6. Do you prefer complex games or simple games?

Big horrible fighty games.

7. Do you feel tsumego is critical to improving?

Yeah.

9. Is Go your favorite hobby?

No.

11. Is the journey more important than the end or the start?

The journey. (I can't think of many things I do in life where the end or the start is more important than what I gain by persevering.)

[Kirby]

...
No. I feel that tsumego _are_ critical to improving.

Sorry, couldn't resist. The answer is yes.

...

FWIW, the distinction between singular/plural is not present in "tsumego" from a Japanese language perspective. As the word is used as an adopted word in an English context, though, I suppose you have a point.

[Kirby]

1. Do you prefer playing black or white. And why?

> Black. I feel more control.

2. Do you have a favorite opening as black?

> Chinese.

3. How did you learn your favorite opening?

> Experience.

4. What is your favorite language for Go?

> I don't really get the meaning of this question. What is your favorite language for automobile?

5. What is your favorite Go term and what does it mean?

> Tesuji.

6. Do you prefer complex games or simple games?

> Complex games.

7. Do you feel tsumego is critical to improving?

> At some point, yes. When you're first starting out, no.

8. If you could become a professional in any country(the ones offering pro certification), which one would you choose and why?

> Japan, because I have some good memories there.

9. Is Go your favorite hobby?

> Yes.

10. As a DDK, who helped your game improve the most if you can remember?

> I had a rival at that time. He was 8k. I wanted to beat him.

11. Is the journey more important than the end or the start? Basically, do you feel there is more value in gaining strength than simply having it?

> This is difficult to answer. What is "important"? My life is but a temporal existence...

12. Do you feel answering these questions helped you learn more about yourself and others? Explain.

> Not really, but it was fun.

[karaklis]

4. What is your favorite language for Go?

> I don't really get the meaning of this question. What is your favorite language for automobile?

This question is probably irrelevant to native English speakers (unless they are expats in one of the CJK countries).
I for one learned Go in English even though it is not my native language, and still prefer English, i.e. when the same book is available in German and English, I always prefer the English book.

[billywoods]

This question is probably irrelevant to native English speakers (unless they are expats in one of the CJK countries).

It's not irrelevant, but it is kind of hard to answer. Go players and Asian language learners overlap a fair amount!

Of course, my favourite language for anything I want to be able to read and understand is English; trailing behind are German and French, and then related European languages that aren't too awful to read once I spend a little while understanding their basic structure. (I find reading plainly written technical documents about subjects I'm familiar with in Italian surprisingly easy, considering I can't actually produce two words in Italian.) Then comes Japanese (which I'm passably competent at reading as long as it's written plainly enough), but it's tiring. I wonder whether my Japanese or my go is taxed more by reading a wordy go book. My Chinese and Korean are, well, non-existent.

I find it hard to weigh these factors against each other. Should my favourite language be one of the ones I can speak that there are very few go books written in, or one of the ones I can't speak that go books abound in? A year ago my answer would plainly have been "English"; perhaps in a few years' time my answer will be "Japanese". For now, though, I can't answer.

[xed_over]

This question is probably irrelevant to native English speakers (unless they are expats in one of the CJK countries).

It's not irrelevant, but it is kind of hard to answer. Go players and Asian language learners overlap a fair amount!

Of course, my favourite language for anything I want to be able to read and understand is English; trailing behind are German and French, and then related European languages that aren't too awful to read once I spend a little while understanding their basic structure. (I find reading plainly written technical documents about subjects I'm familiar with in Italian surprisingly easy, considering I can't actually produce two words in Italian.) Then comes Japanese (which I'm passably competent at reading as long as it's written plainly enough), but it's tiring. I wonder whether my Japanese or my go is taxed more by reading a wordy go book. My Chinese and Korean are, well, non-existent.

I find it hard to weigh these factors against each other. Should my favourite language be one of the ones I can speak that there are very few go books written in, or one of the ones I can't speak that go books abound in? A year ago my answer would plainly have been "English"; perhaps in a few years' time my answer will be "Japanese". For now, though, I can't answer.

yeah, but when most people learn go, they usually learn the technical terminology of one specific language or another.

I'd say that most of us in the West learn the Japanese terminology of the game, so to the point that many of those words have become English words themselves (and as Mr Fairbairn has often pointed out, the meanings may not even be the same any more).

Even the Chinese professionals teaching here in the West have adopted the Japanese terms when teaching in English.

The Koreans, however, have been slow to use Japanese/English Go terms, and seem to insist mostly on still using Korean terms instead, when teaching in English.

There was even a recent Facebook post from a Korean pro who mentioned something about dansu, and had to explain it meant 'atari' when questioned. One poster went as far to say they were wrong to to try and use 'dansu' instead of 'atari' when teaching in English. (I think that poster was wrong for even suggesting such a thing)

There are some pedantics who try to use actual English terms (even if made up) rather than using any borrowed Japanese terms. (I kinda like that myself, but wouldn't insist on it)


But the question in question, is quite open ended and can be answered in a number of different ways. It doesn't have to be about terminology at all.

[billywoods]

technical terminology

Well, purely on this front, I don't personally care what language it's in, as long as we all agree to stick to more-or-less one.

(I certainly wouldn't say the Korean pro was "wrong" for saying dansu instead of atari, but insisting that a group of people learn your language before you teach them is certainly unhelpful. Just like calling it "check" or "almost-gobbledness". And I would discourage anyone from calling themselves a teacher before they can speak at the level of their students.)

[oren]

The Koreans, however, have been slow to use Japanese/English Go terms, and seem to insist mostly on still using Korean terms instead, when teaching in English.

Maybe just a stereotype breaker, but if you see Younggil's commentary on gogameguru, he uses the "standard" english terminology.

[xed_over]

I certainly wouldn't say the Korean pro was "wrong" for saying dansu instead of atari, but insisting that a group of people learn your language before you teach them is certainly unhelpful.

no, its not about them trying to teach us their language, as much as its about there being no English translation available for some of these words. And why would they assume we would already know the Japanese words for the same? Or maybe they don't know the Japanese words for the same.