paK0 wrote:I'm pretty sure everyone can reach the understanding of go of a 5k
Many years ago, a friend and favorite sparring partner told me that "anybody can get to 3d by just reading books, but after that you got to be smart." He was a german 2d, in case this is important.
Obviously he was not speaking from experience.
The Adkins Principle: At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
paK0 wrote:I'm pretty sure everyone can reach the understanding of go of a 5k
Many years ago, a friend and favorite sparring partner told me that "anybody can get to 3d by just reading books, but after that you got to be smart." He was a german 2d, in case this is important.
Obviously he was not speaking from experience.
There is such a level, though. I would put it at 2d, which allowing for grade deflation may be much the same. There is another, higher level which is where you get to if you also saturate yourself with tournament go, and I take that to be 4d. Leaving western players falling short of 5d, about which there is not enough in "the system".
I think this is fairly helpful in terms of "resources" (do your own research, intensive use of pro games, playing with others of really different backgrounds, access to strong amateurs, getting the feel of pro thinking) that allow some perspective on what you take to be "quotidian".
If there is in fact such a level (which I have no doubt of) its probably different for everyone. Also reading books might give you knowledge, but applying that in a game is another matter.
paK0 wrote:If there is in fact such a level (which I have no doubt of) its probably different for everyone. Also reading books might give you knowledge, but applying that in a game is another matter.
Well, OK, but getting some sort of "model" relative to "book knowledge", and deciding what should be written in the books to be useful, is a perennial debate.
I've always felt that 1d is no big deal, 4d really is a big deal and beyond that you need to be either exceptionally talented or exceptionally well trained (and early). A combination of both should allow someone to become 6d.
I believe the reason why so few people make it to 1d in a short time frame is that they're working on the wrong things, not that they are not talented. You have to put up with a lot of noise really, in your own head mostly ("Oh I'm so bad at X!") and when trying to get some advice too.
What is interesting to me is what is the difference between people willing to take this approach and those who aren't?
The point about embarrassment levels made above as an extension of this sentence is valid, but I think there's another possible answer and it's to do with how you get your fun out of the whole exercise. Most people willing to adopt this approach - that is, to immerse themselves directly in the game and learn somewhat haphazardly by picking things up as they go - seem to get their fun out of the game itself. People who eschew this approach and who try to impose a rigid structure on what is learnt seem, to me, to get their fun instead out of immersing themselves in the study process. Which is better is an open question, though the former seems more congenial to the majority. Maybe in the long term, also, the former is better because you always have the game to look forward to. With the "method acting" kind of approach, is the play not sterile once you've mastered the method?
I think that's more like vocabulary. Maybe a better analog of grammar would be opening theory. A speaker with poor grammar is understandable but crude and nonconforming
My vote for the go analogue of grammar is suji/haengma (or at least for the syntax part).
As Bill said though, it was through immersion. I started replaying and memorizing pro games from day one because, well, I found it fun. I also really like doing problems. Playing the game, strangely, isn't as much fun (at least online -- it's much more fun to play in person!).
I doubt I will reach 5 kyu in 6 months, but I did lose a couple of weeks along the way to real life butting its ugly head in. Also, I chose to invest 2 weeks focusing on reading books, and I think most of that was a waste of time. For someone a little more dedicated than me, who is a little more efficient and disciplined, 5 in 6 seems well within reason.
Added in edit:
I think, actually, a person could attain far, far higher than 5 kyu in the same timeframe. Children often do in Asia, correct? I don't believe that age has a dramatic effect on go learning, as long as you are between 10 and 65. I think time investment, discipline, and, most importantly, Deliberate Practice, are the keys. An adult, theoretically, should be able to learn as fast as a child does, but he/she would have to have a good support structure: plenty of free time, little need to worry about monetary resources, dedication/discipline, and a cleverly designed training program. (I still want to know how much better Hushfield is after his trip to China!)
Most of the people I know here in DFW that are interested in Go are adults, and most adults simply do not have the time needed to invest to achieve high skills. Locally, there is also a paucity of Deliberate Practice drills or even detailed training regimes of any sort for Go. So if you do have the time, it's extremely difficult to know how to invest it in the most efficient manner. As we all know from the game itself, efficiency is key. It is like an avalanche - a few stones at first build into greater and greater power - then suddenly the side of a mountain is falling on you. Simply playing the game is not enough. Simply doing tsumego is probably also not enough. There must be a system, and the better designed that system, the more efficient it is, the better and faster the results will be.
Anyway, I'm only 9 kyu, so I feel like I'm speaking out of turn. I haven't proven my assumptions; I, indeed, have very little evidence of them except for pointing to my middle-aged self, and I could easily be a statistical outlier. (Although: I'm not a genius. I'm not even particularly good at math. My chances of being an outlier seem slim.)
SamT wrote:Locally, there is also a paucity of Deliberate Practice drills or even detailed training regimes of any sort for Go. So if you do have the time, it's extremely difficult to know how to invest it in the most efficient manner.
Western go is, I think, largely self-taught. And there lies one of the problems.
An anecdote about (in fact) a 9 kyu. She asked me in the middle of a busy club session what she needed to do to improve. I asked "strengths and weaknesses?", at which she pulled a face - clearly not the required approach! Anyway, she said the issue was "my weakie groups die", and I told her she was actually quite good at defending her weak groups, but needed to understand more about the direction of play.
SamT wrote:Locally, there is also a paucity of Deliberate Practice drills or even detailed training regimes of any sort for Go. So if you do have the time, it's extremely difficult to know how to invest it in the most efficient manner.
Western go is, I think, largely self-taught. And there lies one of the problems.
I claim no expertise, but I agree with you. Western Go is in need of a beginning-to-end (30 kyu to 1 Dan Pro*) systematized learning method.
I believe if such a corpus existed in an accessible language (such as English), then refinements could easily be made to the actual training /method/ (timing, volume, review, etc) to noticably increase skill acquisition.
From my point of view, right now there's enough material out there that you can get to 7-9 kyu in 3 months if you work hard, but finding a way forward after that is tricky. (YMMV)
-- * I realize that "Pro" is essentially a title and not a real rank of play, but I've heard that Pros are typically 3 stones stronger than even IGS 9-dans, so it seems like that should be the theoretical target to me.
At one of his workshops Yang Yilun, chinese pro 7p living in the USA, was asked whether everyone could get to dan level. Yang answered that with good teaching most people could get to 5d but not very many could get to 6d or higher. He was speaking of American ranks so perhaps his comment was consistent with European ranks (3d and 4d or higher) mentioned above.
Matthew Macfadyen 6d and former British Champion said something similar, essentially that any reasonably intelligent person should be able to make 4d with some effort, but 5d or more requires something special. I'm not sure I agree though, I know plenty of intelligent people who have put in a lot of effort and aren't that strong. Maybe they didn't have good teaching, or it was the wrong sort of effort, but even if they ticked all those boxes and still don't make 4d or whatever I don't think you can say they are not intelligent, but just their way of thinking doesn't grok Go so well.
Uberdude wrote:Matthew Macfadyen 6d and former British Champion said something similar, essentially that any reasonably intelligent person should be able to make 4d with some effort, but 5d or more requires something special.
The version I heard included having some talent for the game, which makes more sense.
If you are actually "good at go" by the standards of social players, then you get to 10 kyu-ish if you can have games against experienced players. You are then a club player and what you can get out of clubs and amateur tournaments (and server go) can cover enough of the game to get to 4 dan with strenuous effort. You are then still not playing the same game as people who can earn a living at it. But actually I think 3 dans and 4 dans may have the most fun with go.
I started to understand Matthew's teaching rather better when I realised it is essentially all aimed at explaining the 4 dan/5 dan boundary. Not easy for me to grok. One point is about when you do make a heavy group. (Bear in mind that kyu players basically all play too heavily, so this is like correcting an overcorrection.) Another remark was about reading: "playing against 4 dans who go down lines you know they know they haven't read out". All this is a bit too snaky for me. Or too much Sakata, not enough Go Seigen.
Re John Fairbairn's comment above, Kageyama Toshiro, author of Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, observed that ""Amateurs' go comes from pleasure, professionals' go comes from suffering"
When the great Takagawa approached retirement he supposedly said that he was looking forward to becoming an amateur again.
Lee Changho supposedly had "no talent" for the game, at least per the biographies I've read. He still excelled, first in the 90's by learning to be better at basic, simple moves that create predictable responses, letting him read 100 moves ahead in many cases. In the 2000's he had to adjust to the fighting styles out there that muddied the reading waters.
Anyone can learn to read a 60 move ladder with a little work. If your style was able to create predictable responses, that same kind of skill would be applicable to the whole board.
Being a human points calculator and having a razor-sharp endgame: No idea how to do those, sorry.
But it seems to me that anyone could benefit from how Lee Changho was trained. If only we knew how it was done!
There is also some biological facts to consider. It is not sure than one has all the appropriate biological material (in the brain, eyes, hands, heart... ?) available from the first day one starts a new activity. This can take time for some (still) mysterious processes to build this biological material. It is not just a question of training and (initial) intelligence.
