Simba wrote:I thought Garlock was pretty terrible in the first two but improved after that with the feedback he received which was excellent to see and I'm sure he'll do better in future because of it.
The art of good commentating is appreciating that silence is valuable. Throughout, it felt that Garlock would try to fill any semblance of silence with whatever rubbish floated into his mind at that point. This is a pretty common flaw though; most sport commentators are very similar. It's much easier to overtalk rather than to undertalk .
And yes, it was cringe/silly when he started talking about if AlphaGo might put two stones on the board on its interface to resign, lol. That's exactly the kind of irrelevant overtalk stuff I mean.
In the USA sports TV world most of the commentary is repeating in words what just took place in the game, as though it was a radio broadcast rather than TV. Maybe Garlock was using that as his model for announcing.
I also watched the Deepmind and AGA broadcasts. I'm glad both were available since they targeted different audiences. Watching a high quality broadcast on a live demo board was new to me and a great experience. I was surprised at how quickly the time flew by!
I agree with those who mentioned that Chris Garlock improved significantly during the match. In the first two games he was a bit rude toward Michael Redmond. (Checking the Twitter feed on his phone while Redmond was talking or zoning out to pay attention to the live game on a laptop that was visible on screen were the most egregious examples, though he was also quick to interrupt.) In the later matches he had improved his screen presence tremendously, and I thought the later broadcasts were very enjoyable.
The AGA's contributions to these matches, along with the other high quality content they have been producing recently, has finally encouraged me to pay for a membership!
gowan wrote:In the USA sports TV world most of the commentary is repeating in words what just took place in the game, as though it was a radio broadcast rather than TV. Maybe Garlock was using that as his model for announcing.
I do think that Garlock took TV announcing as his model.
As for sportscasters saying what viewers just saw on screen, try listening without watching the screen. Kind of makes you long for the days of radio.
The Adkins Principle: At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
Bill Spight wrote:try listening without watching the screen. Kind of makes you long for the days of radio.
Off-topic: Like my father before me, I still watch cricket matches with the TV volume turned down and audio from the BBC radio broadcast.
On-topic: I enjoyed Kim Mygungwan and Michael Redmond both, and thought their respective offsiders made good foils at different times (special praise for Lee Hajin!). The AGA and DeepMind production values were very different but it was flavour, not something important.
I still haven't watched all of the streams end to end though... hat tip to the DeepMind team's 15 minute summaries for those who couldn't watch live but wanted to get a feel for how things had panned out before they had the whole stream and time to devote to it. Those were great.
Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi
Garlock referenced looking for questions on Twitter when I saw him looking at the phone. That's probably a bad idea for a live broadcast, but understandable and not the same as ignoring Redmomd for no reason.
I think the Garlock-Redmond combo was mistaken because it was targeting a large audience but played dull-duller. In all fairness Redmond is pretty dull for the average youtube viewer. He's a pro. He's the nerd. So for Garlock there is no point in dressing in funeral clothes and saying "waw" all the time. I'm not necessarily a fan of the cliché "cute girl - smart male" but this combo was a little too dull.
The Andrew - Tartrate (hehe) combo works better because a) Kim is more emotional and expressive, and b) Andrew is more lively and playing the jester role with more enthusiasm.
No offence meant to Garlock: he probably does a great job in the AGA, but as a jester he's miscast.
First of all, I appreciate everyone who took time to do live commentary. Anyone who thinks it's easy to play the pro's assistant for hours on end should try it before being too critical, and I saw a lot of criticism in the YouTube chat.
I started with the Redmond-Garlock feed as that was available first (at least in English). The Kim-Jackson AGA commentary started an hour later.
Redmond-Garlock:
+ Michael Redmond is very clear and does well at keeping the variations simple and relevant for the non-go-playing audience. I don't know how many viewers didn't know go, but it's probably a fair percentage, so I understand choosing this level of commentary. If we want more go players, that sort of thing is required from time to time.
+ Because it was simple, I could do other things, like wash dishes or talk to my wife, and just tune in when something interesting showed up on the board. Then I could just listen for a bit and tune out because I could tell, "okay, now they are going to talk for 10 minutes about what a shoulder hit is."
+ Redmond threw in some interesting history.
+ Occasional visits by DeepMind team.
- I wouldn't be able to watch that continuously. It's just level. But I may review it if I want to teach someday.
Kim-Jackson commentary:
+ Myungwan Kim provides more in-depth commentary.
+ Andrew asked a lot of good questions.
+ It's funny that Myungwan made a money bet that AlphaGo would win at least one game, even though most of his pro friends doubted it. Good for him!
+ Some guest commentators, like Cho Hye-yeon 9p helps mix it up a bit.
- I am not fond of Andrew asking Kim 9p to count so often. I know it adds to the drama, but if he's going to do it, he should throw some skin in the game and go first so we can see the differences between how an AGA 4d and Korean 9p count.
- My fault, but I should have ignored the YouTube chat.
- Some audio / video problems, including distracting background noises (text messages? computer fans?).
I was not able to see all of either commentary, so I may have missed some important things that would change my opinion.
I have not watched An Younggil 8p's video commentary in full yet, but he shows some variations very fast for my taste / level, even more so than Myungwan Kim 9p. I prefer An's written commentary.
I mostly watched the the Garlock/Redmond chat. Just a few comments:
Overall it was very good. Redmond is an excellent commentator who did a very good job of pitching his remarks at multiple levels of viewer at once.
I agree with others here that Garlock got better as the series went on. I do wish that he hadn't played dumb so much (he is a 3 dan and asked a lot of questions as if he were a 20 kyu), which just made me trust him a bit less. It is possible to induce newbie-level explanations from the pro without pretending to be a newbie oneself. I felt like Redmond got a little fed up at times and sometimes let it show in a way that could come through as arrogance, but hey, he is a 9 dan pro.
I thought that Redmond did a really commendable job at understanding on a basic level how AlphaGo works and probing the DeepMind guys with questions about it. I don't know how savvy he is about that stuff but it would have been very easy for him to treat it as a black box; instead he was really interested in its inner workings and did a lot of theorizing about how it might be thinking in certain positions. His enthusiasm about the program made the commentary a lot more compelling.
I wish that at least once (maybe it did happen once and I missed it), Redmond had done a really detailed endgame count. It seemed unlikely that a 9 dan pro would have been so unsure of the result quite late in the game, but maybe 1) he was concentrating much more on other things, like talking, or 2) he didn't want to give it away.
Overall it was a great show that I watched much more of than I expected to (though sometimes in the background). And it got me excited about Go again after a ~5 year absence from the game!
Calvin Clark wrote:First of all, I appreciate everyone who took time to do live commentary. Anyone who thinks it's easy to play the pro's assistant for hours on end should try it before being too critical, and I saw a lot of criticism in the YouTube chat.
Yes, it's also worth remembering that Andrew Jackson and Chris Garlock are volunteers.
Michael Redmond was great (very clear and understandable analysis) but his sidekick was brutal, very annoying and sometimes childish.
The Kim and Andrew commentaries I thought was better than the above because of the many variations Kim offered. Also sometimes other go players show up and offer their insights.
If a perfect world exists, than a Michael and Kim commentaries for the next time.
As a point of view from non-Go-players, my school friend (maybe 28 kyu) and his girlfriend (probably doesn't even know the rules) watched some of the DeepMind commentary, and they found it interesting and enjoyed Redmond's commentary, but both found Garlock annoying.
I really don't understand all the criticism against Chris. I've known and worked with him for years, so I suppose I'm used to his quirks already. Though, I too cringed as he was checking for tweets while on camera. As an avid multi-tasker, I suspect that he's probably more comfortable behind the mic (audio commentaries), than in front of the camera, otherwise I thought he did quite well. I would be eager to hear what the DeepMind team thought of their choice for braodcasters/commentators.
Chris and Michael have been good friends for many, many years, and have often times discussed between them how they might be able to bring Go to a wider audience -- then this opportunity dropped into their laps. I think people mistake Michael's "annoyance" with Chris as actually just their honest friendship with each other.
I actually preferred their broadcast over Andrew and Myungwan's, though I also enjoy watching Andrew and Myungwan very much. Andrew, indeed has a skill of being able to ask the pro (whoever that might be at the time) questions that he already knows the answer to, in order to make it more accessible to weaker players. In the same way, Andrew is a great teacher on his own. He seems to know how weaker players think, and how to correct that thinking. Andrew is quite knowledgeable and informed on current Go world, and technology events.
I don't have similar experiences with Chris as a teacher, but I've never heard any disappointments in his AGA commentary reviews with various pros during US Go Congresses. Oddly, in spite of Chris' position as the editor of the AGA EJournal, I'm sometimes surprised that he is occasionally less well informed on world Go topics or technology. But to his credit, is usually quite careful about not publicly talking about things he doesn't know, until he's had a chance to verify the facts. He's also very aware of his non-pro status, and is quite careful to not offer an opinion that could in any way be construed as usurping his position.
Production wise, the DeepMind broadcast was very professional, as one might expect. The AGA broadcast has always been a low budget volunteer project (and Andrew is a big multi-tasker as well, though he's constantly looking for more volunteers to offloading as many tasks as possible). Perhaps it was the production values, more than anything else that drew me to prefer DeepMind over the AGA.
Despite the lower production values, Andrew had more tools available to him in order to keep up with the game.
Overall, both were great broadcasts. I occasionally switched between them (as a host, my audience often had their own preferences over mine). And I usually caught up watching the other later. Their target audiences were different, and in that light, I thought they all did a great job.
I too thought that Garlock improved during the match. At first he seemed to be attempting to do more multi-tasking than he was prepared for. In particular, he seemed to be searching for the right level of question, sometimes asking a question that a 3D would ask, and sometimes asking a question that a 20K would ask.
I think that Garlock had a much more difficult job than most of us realize, trying to present a match so that players of all levels could appreciate it.
Simba wrote:...it was cringe/silly when he started talking about if AlphaGo might put two stones on the board on its interface to resign, lol...
I thought that was funny.
I didn't understand all the ideas that Redmond offered, so until I replay it, I can't offer an opinion.
Kim, OTOH, was hard to understand. I've learned to cope with his accent in person, but even then I occasionally have to ask him to repeat himself. It was so distracting that I never even asked myself if I was enjoying AJ's performance or not.
As an absolute beginner, I loved the Garlock-Redmond commentaries. It was pitched at the right level without being overly complexed.
Things like: 1. Moyo / Frameworks 2. Territorial influence 3. Cutting 4. Life and Death 5. Joseki 6. Ladders 7. Sente 8. Hand of God 'moves'
Were all naturally explained during the course of the 5 games. As a beginner, obviously one would learn this over the course of time but having someone like Redmond explain all of this over these 5 exciting matches is really fantastic.
It really gave me a bird-eye's view of how the entire game was played without getting bogged down by the details. Really helped me make sense of how the game is played. Obviously, the understanding is superficial, but it's good enough for a beginner to get enthusiastic about playing the game.
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