Motivational Stories for Absolute Beginner at 30++ old

[agewisdom]

I swear you just wrot my story, timeline and all. Thanks for starting this thread!

Nice to meet you too.

[Bill Spight]

it's the case of the blind leading the blind and the one-eyed man is king.

$$B The one eyed man is king
$$ ---------------------------
$$ . . X . O . O . X . O . . .
$$ . . X X O O O . X . O O . .
$$ . . . X X . O X X . . O . .
$$ . . . . . X X O X X X O . .
$$ . . . . X . X O O O O . O .
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B The one eyed man is king
$$ ---------------------------
$$ . . X . O . O . X . O . . .
$$ . . X X O O O . X . O O . .
$$ . . . X X . O X X . . O . .
$$ . . . . . X X O X X X O . .
$$ . . . . X . X O O O O . O .
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Adapted from http://senseis.xmp.net/?canceledit=EyeV ... turingRace

[agewisdom]

$$B The one eyed man is king
$$ ---------------------------
$$ . . X . O . O . X . O . . .
$$ . . X X O O O . X . O O . .
$$ . . . X X . O X X . . O . .
$$ . . . . . X X O X X X O . .
$$ . . . . X . X O O O O . O .
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B The one eyed man is king
$$ ---------------------------
$$ . . X . O . O . X . O . . .
$$ . . X X O O O . X . O O . .
$$ . . . X X . O X X . . O . .
$$ . . . . . X X O X X X O . .
$$ . . . . X . X O O O O . O .
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Adapted from http://senseis.xmp.net/?canceledit=EyeV ... turingRace

Amazing! Gotta come back to this when I've played Go a few rounds...

[quantumf]

Regarding this, I think that a lot of the tips that others have made regarding bad habits are great. I especially liked the golf analogy - it's good to play with good form! But I wanted to just give a warning from personal experience... After I started go, I heard similar advice about bad habits. I didn't want to get stuck into the "bad habit trap"! While I think the fear may have some merits, I also feel that my fear of playing badly, and of gaining bad habits, deterred me from playing go much at all!
I would only want to play in the "optimal conditions", after sufficient amount of study, etc., etc. But after awhile, I realized that if I continue to fear having bad habits, and let it keep me from playing, I would never play go at all.

Good advice Kirby. I can second this with a similar story from my experience. As I was learning the game, I spent a considerable time reading theory and strategy books, rather than working on my reading skills. I'm absolutely certain that this held me back, and remains the fundamental handbrake that prevents me from progressing much further. On the other hand, had I focused mostly on problems, I would probably have gotten bored or frustrated, and abandoned the game, and that would have been a much more significant barrier to my progress

[schawipp]

My first contact with Go in my childhood came in form of a game set from "Ravensburger" consisting of a cardboard and plastic pieces. It was a really basic setup and by opening a door or window or by a sneezing fit the board position could be easily manipulated to your own advantage . At that time, the internet was not yet existent and it was almost impossible to find someone to play (my sister and parents tried a few times but then they started to hate that game...).

Much later - at the age of 40 - I accidentally got into a game store where "real" wooden go boards with glass stones were offered, and for some reason I can't remember I got a spontaneous instinct to buy one set. From that time on my activities on strategy board games gradually shifted from chess (I was playing regularly in a chess club at that time) towards go (no chess club anymore, nowadays).

As a former chess player I'm still too much focused on killing, and members of our local go club regularly point out my bad habits, bad shapes and impatience. I hope getting over it eventually by experiencing bad shapes the hard way - e.g. trying out doubtful strange things and analyzing afterwards, when it fired back (which happens rather often...). IMHO the differentiation between good shape and bad shape has mainly to do with reading - good shapes are just formations which work better in most cases. It seems a kind of 'object oriented' approach, if you memorize a vital point in a certain formation you can stop your reading at this point and rely on the functionality of the already implemented "class method". However sometimes there are interferences between different "objects", I have e.g. a few examples from my tournament games where at some point an empty triangle was the only move due to certain liberty issues. I'm not sure if it would help me to just memorize a bunch of good shapes without understanding the reading behind.

I have no specific "goal" as I cannot guarantee a fixed amount of time to spend on Go. However I enjoy the chaos which is regularly fabricated on the board, also I met already quite a couple of nice people on tournaments and in the local club.

[agewisdom]

Much later - at the age of 40 - I accidentally got into a game store where "real" wooden go boards with glass stones were offered, and for some reason I can't remember I got a spontaneous instinct to buy one set. From that time on my activities on strategy board games gradually shifted from chess (I was playing regularly in a chess club at that time) towards go (no chess club anymore, nowadays).

I have no specific "goal" as I cannot guarantee a fixed amount of time to spend on Go. However I enjoy the chaos which is regularly fabricated on the board, also I met already quite a couple of nice people on tournaments and in the local club.

But... but... you're already a SDK, 5kyu, if I'm reading this right. So, it's already quite an achievement. Especially when you officially started at 40. Did chess help you a lot with your progress? It seems the way you played was probably more aggressive due to your chess mentality during the transition.

Originally, I got quite confused with all the SDK and DDK terms. I was thinking, what has software development got to do with Go until I just realized it referred to Single Digit Kyu... dumb me...

[Boidhre]

You're focusing too much on rank.

[agewisdom]

You're focusing too much on rank.

You might be right. I'll try to get around going to an actual Go club to make some friends and play some games for fun first...

[Boidhre]

You're focusing too much on rank.

You might be right. I'll try to get around going to an actual Go club to make some friends and play some games for fun first...

It's too easy to get trapped in agony over small fluctuations in your rank either way. Best just to play the game and let your rank take care of itself. Just have a read of the online go anxiety thread!

That and you'll soon find your handicap with specific players might not match what your ranks say at all.

[agewisdom]

It's too easy to get trapped in agony over small fluctuations in your rank either way. Best just to play the game and let your rank take care of itself. Just have a read of the online go anxiety thread!

That and you'll soon find your handicap with specific players might not match what your ranks say at all.

You're right. It's just that the rankings also is useful is showing whether I'm going in the right direction or moving backwards... I'm beginning to see why most of you encourage either getting an experienced player to guide oneself or going to a Go school. That way, there's someone that can let you know whether you're doing it right or picking up BAD HABITS along the way.

I'm not quite ready to 'GO' back to Go school yet, but guess it's inevitable, like it or not.

[xed_over]

It's just that the rankings also is useful is showing whether I'm going in the right direction or moving backwards...

not really, no.
they only show where you've been... not where you're going.

imagine for a moment that you are only playing stronger players, and that every game you play, you lose. I dare say you are likely still getting stronger, but your ranking will only be going down.

its too easy to fool ranking algorithms. don't get hung up on them (unless you're going to develop them).

[agewisdom]

not really, no.
they only show where you've been... not where you're going.

imagine for a moment that you are only playing stronger players, and that every game you play, you lose. I dare say you are likely still getting stronger, but your ranking will only be going down.

its too easy to fool ranking algorithms. don't get hung up on them (unless you're going to develop them).

Ah, thanks for the advice. I haven't played any games on KGS yet, but it's good to know. Reading some of the forums, make me realize, MOST of you guys take Go EXTREMELY seriously just like Akira from HnG. A bit scary at times...

Especially the 'I MUST GET STRONGER! ROAR!' part. I could see it in the face of TheDuddha2 when he shared his experience at the Go School

[Inkwolf]

Especially the 'I MUST GET STRONGER! ROAR!' part.

Every now and then, some kid who's been watching HNG asks me about 'The Divine Move.' I try to explain it as an allegory for how every Go player, no matter how skilled they are, is always desperately striving for the next level. Sadly, none of them has really been motivated enough to be able to comprehend the obsession with improvement.

[Boidhre]

You're right. It's just that the rankings also is useful is showing whether I'm going in the right direction or moving backwards...

Only long term trends will. 10-20 games don't tell you anything, you could have lost a lot of them just because you had a week where you were more tired than usual or whatever. Go is a marathon not a sprint to use a cliche.

[mlund]

You're right. It's just that the rankings also is useful is showing whether I'm going in the right direction or moving backwards...

In my learning experience, the process of improving a weakness in my Go always started with losing 2 stones.

If I wasn't dropping those ranks then I wasn't leaving my comfort zone. If I wasn't leaving my comfort zone then I wasn't significantly changing my behavior. All the little cheats / bad habits / risk mitigation behaviors were still being applied in my Go to avoid "losing ground." Real progress involved the discipline to commit to the lesson without fear, and thereby be forced to learn how to respond to challenges within the context of that commitment. Otherwise you get the same kind of result as when you do a weight-training exercise incorrectly - you compensate for the additional stress by distributing the weight on other systems instead of enduring and building the targeted muscle group from it.

Marty Lund