Why do some people never reach shodan

[sparky314]

Also on the topic of talent, while talent will get you part of the way easier, the top people in any profession put a tremendous amount of work towards their given discipline. That work should never be discredited.

Let me use an example:

It's hard to run the marathon. Most people can do it, regardless of age (assuming no medical illness), but it requires a lot of training and discipline.

First, you have to make sure you're not significantly overweight. If you are, that's your first goal, get down to an acceptable weight.

Second, you have to start running. Can't run? Then you have to start walking. You start by walking 5 days a week, increasing the time little by little.

Then, you start jogging, about 3 days a week, for about a year.

The next year, you start jogging 4-5 days a week. On average, about 20-25 miles a week. If you're in shape, and you grew up running cross country, maybe this is where you start.

Then, the following year, you starting your marathon training. You should have been running at least 1 year with 20-25 miles per week before starting this training. You train hard. You do spend 4-5 days a week running for 30m to 1 1/2 hours a day. It's also helpful to engage in cross training, particularly strength training.

Oh crap, you got injured on one of your 12 mile runs. Now you're benched for the season, so you have to start it up again next year.

The next year, you do better at strength training. You get up to the 18m training mark. Now you're ready to run the marathon. You did it! You ran the marathon in 4 hrs 10 min. Congrats! You got the magnet for your car. You're also bloody sore as hell.

But next time, you want to run it in 3 hrs 30 min. That's your goal. That requires more hours training, both running 5 days a week and doing regular strength training. And it also requires changing your regime to include speed training. Intervals, repeats, hills, and threshold runs.

(End of example)

Does talent make things easier? Sure, you can skip ahead a couple of steps. But unless you're willing to spend 30m to 1 hr every day, then you're not ready to take the leap to the next step. It takes work. Lots of hard work. And if you're not prepared to do the work, or you sideline your training regime for other activities, you won't achieve your goals.

Talent really only comes into play in the speed at which you progress or when you're competing at the top. For everything below that threshold, it comes down to work.

I'm not at 1 dan yet. Hell, I have my sights set higher than that. But I know if I want to achieve it, I have to spend 30m - 1 hr every day studying tsumego/tesuji, playing serious games every week and reviewing said games (preferably with stronger players, which I haven't been), studying professional games (at some point, Relentless is helping with that), and perhaps picking up a teacher or two along the way.

The question you have to ask is, is it worth an indeterminate amount of time and effort? I ask myself that question often, but I enjoy studying, I enjoy reading, and I enjoy playing games. Is it worth beating my head against a wall? Maybe, maybe not. But when I'm not spending time with family and friends, its certainly a good pursuit. And to me, it's a good hobby to do while I'm relaxing and mentally recouping.

When I'm on KGS, send me a message, and I'll be happy to play a game and review it with you. I hope you much success, maybe you can outline your training regimen, and like others said, post a few games for stronger players to review to find weaknesses.

[swannod]

Relentless work is what is needed to become competent?? Let me throw out another hypothesis: What is needed to become shodan is talent. Becoming competent at go should not be as hard as rowing across the Atlantic, and for most shodans I expect that it isn't. You might argue that some of us are just not working hard enough, but I don't buy it. I've become competent at several disciplines with a significantly lower amount and level of work than I've put into go. I was just better at those things from the start. I'm not saying work isn't important, I just think that for some of us, the skill window shuts before shodan, no matter what they do. I'm sure you are right if you say we need to understand getting sente or using aji better, but we can't. These lessons are too hard for us. We still fail to apply the basics.

Hrm half of the attendees to the US Go Congress 2017 were of dan level. I generally think of talent, if such a thing even exists, as something available to maybe 10% of a population, not 50%.

To me learning Go seems much more like learning piano, learning to draw, or learning a foreign language. For a person of average capability (if such a thing even exists) I just don't see how you can expect to achieve shodan without continuous structured learning (regular lessons, teachers) for at least the duration of 3 or 4 years. Perhaps the talented ones can get there faster via self-study, but us mere mortals just have to put in a lot of time with a lot of outside help.

There's probably a related issue here which is that often autodidacts pick up many bad habits along the way. This itself becomes a obstacle (or a plateau) because often this involves unlearning to make further progress. I recall working with a classical guitarist at a university arts library. When entering the music program his instructor told him while he was good enough to get in, but all of his fundamentals were in fact broken. He had to spend the entire first year only doing fundamentals and removing all his bad habits. This would be enough for many people to give up, but he stuck with it and came out the other side with a much higher ceiling of capability.

[Anzu]

And chess is a simple game compared to go.

If both games are beyond human ability to play perfectly, this comparison is meaningless.

That's like boasting that you make more money than someone who is already so rich that they will never be able to spend it.

[daal]

Daal, it seems like you're implicitly assuming you can compare competence in go to competence in other activities. I think that's very hard to do. Elsewhere, I made a rough comparison that a KGS 6 dan to a 2hr 45 min marathon runner. But marathons are a sport--one person beats another. There is a literal ranking of results. And even that comparison was very very fuzzy. There is a huge difference between 2:45, 2:30 and 3:00, and I didn't know which one was the best comparison.

So I'm curious, what activities would you compare to go, and what would you compare to shodan?

My comparison would be using a foreign language. As with go, there are established levels of competence, for example there is the european framework (Wikipedia link)which describes what one can do in a language. I would say that achieving B2 level would indicate a degree of competence at or above shodan level. In Chinese there are the HSK tests, (Wikipedia link) also with 6 levels. Here also I would say that passing the HSK 4 would indicate a high level of competence.

The methods of learning also have some similarities. Here daily tsumego, there daily vocabulary flashcards. Here thematically and level appropriate books to study, there textbooks. Here fundamental principles to learn, there grammar. Here games, there conversations and written communications.

I had a talent for German. After studying on my own for 6 months I moved to Germany, and within two years, I was able to communicate at a C1 level. Chinese is a different story. I started learning Chinese about 4 years ago. I study between 5 and 10 hours a week, and I am not yet ready to take the HSK3 test. Yes, German was easier because I lived in the environment, but I have put in a lot more time and hard work into Chinese, and I am nowhere near as good. I think I don't have as much talent for Chinese. Another way of saying this is that Chinese poses a greater challenge for me as a native English speaker than German does, and I also started 25 years later. I did however recently start learning Dutch, and within 6 months I was able to communicate at an A2 level. Again, with a knack for something, one learns quicker and with less effort.

How does this compare with Go? As far as time and effort is concerned, I'd say my effort is on par with my Chinese studies - though I have been working on Go for about twice as many years. I do tsumego every day, I play almost every day, and up until about 2 years ago, I worked through books a few hours a week. I have played at KGS 5k level for about 4 years. I could work harder at Go, but I don't feel confident that doing so would enable me to reach shodan.

You might point out that I have not had a teacher or that I have not done this or that, but as illuck pointed out, all unlucky families are unlucky in their own way, and there are many many others who have had excellent teachers, who have done mountains of tsumego, who have done this that and the other thing and are still kyus and are probably going to stay that way. I know that many of you think that this could be overcome with hard work, but I'm not so sure. I still see folks who have lived here in Germany for years, taken classes, had to work, make friends, deal with bureaucracy all in German and still are at an A2 or B1 level. They work at it, but they don't seem to know how to learn effectively. I thought it was easy, but not everyone can do it.

[daal]

Hrm half of the attendees to the US Go Congress 2017 were of dan level. I generally think of talent, if such a thing even exists, as something available to maybe 10% of a population, not

What percentage of the population were the attendees of the Go congress?

[daal]

Daal, it seems like you're implicitly assuming you can compare competence in go to competence in other activities.

I agree there's a glitch there. Even limiting things just to go, you may be improving in the opening and middle game but still losing all your games because your endgame is awful. So you are no nearer shodan - yet you are improving.

For me this is probably the case. I often play stronger than my rank, but stay there because my blunder rate remains high.

And that highlights two bigger glitches. One is the assumption that shodan measures competence. Even if there is a vague, indirect correlation, it really measures nothing other than your results against players who use the same rating system.

The other glitch follows from that. If your goal is to become shodan (or pro, or whatever) you have a wrong, meaningless goal. The goal should to become competent, or more competent.

How do you know whether you are competent? Ask obvious questions:

Do I know how to live with the tripod group, the J group, the L groups, etc? Do I know how far to extend? Do I check whether I am connected? Can I count that boundary play? Do I sense there is aji there? (And so on and so forth for all the items that come up in virtually every game.) If not, I am not competent and know what I have to work on. If yes, I have achieved a level of competence in that I can cope with most of the things that occur in most of my games. Great. Now I can work on becoming more competent.

For example, I know the L group is dead, but how many liberties does it have in a semeai? I am good at staying connected but can I be more efficient with my connections (bigger leaps or doing it in sente)? I understand common kos, but do I know about yose-kos? I can count territories slowly, but can I estimate them reliably at a glance? Etc, etc.

This seems to be an excellent way of understand go competence, and putting it this way makes it clear to me why I don't expect to reach shodan. I don't know most of these things, and despite having tried to learn them, I still don't know them. I have gone over the life and death issues of the L-group for example many times, playing it out, thinking about it, comparing variations...and still I forget.

Are you studying the right things? If you are studying tesujis or life and death and learn something that comes up only once every few hundred games (e.g. ishinoshita) you are becoming more learned, but you are not really becoming more competent. Competence means being able to handle the bulk of what is thrown at you.

So the first step is to identify what really constitutes the bulk. Playing or looking at a lot of games is one way to do this.

The second step is to apply competence to becoming competent. You handle the bulk of a new concept by first being able to identify it reliably. You then become more competent by handling it in the commonest ways. Only then do you learn how to handle the rarer uses. Eventually you may go on to learn the very rare uses and exceptions. Take aji. Step 1 is to learn to sense when it exists. When you are happy with that, go to step 2 and use your knowledge to handle it in the commonest cases. This may just mean avoiding it yourself - adding an extra stone for safety or, better, learn to make hontes. In Step 3 you may start using aji actively, probably by adding stones nearby as forcing moves. In Step 4 you may learn to use aji internally without help from forcing stones.

If you keep taking baby steps like this, shodan or pro status may suddenly creep up on you unawares. Boo!

This does seem like the right way to progress for those that are able to.

[John Fairbairn]

daal

I could work harder at Go, but I don't feel confident that doing so would enable me to reach shodan.

I don't know you or anything significant about you, so I can't say anything trustworthy, and what I do say also risks being impertinent, but FWIW there is something that is coming over strongly: you do like validation by means of grades. Apart from shodan, you made extensive mention of grades in learning languages. As you know, my background is as a linguist and so I have dealt with very many linguists, almost daily over 50 years. I don't think I have ever come across anyone in that field so keen on grades. Instead, I know people who have targets such as being able to listen to a film in a foreign language, or learning all the dirty words. The nearest people I know to your kind of target-seekers are those who try to learn, say, 1,000 words for vegetables. You obviously know yourself best, but I'd say that more functional targets like these make sustained learning easier than abstract grades such as shodan. The immigrants you mention who get by without reaching A3 or C1 or whatever seem like successes rather than failures to me - they have achieved sufficient competence for their needs and are now getting on with other things.

Unless it is specifically having the label shodan next to your name that motivates you, I'd say that simply improving at go and so appreciating go better is sufficient reward for working harder at it. If you can learn to enjoy that, you may be motivated to study even more, and, as I've said, shodan may creep up behind you.

To pick up on one particular point, you say you've studied the L group in depth, variations and all, and have forgotten everything. I don't think the aim ever should have been to remember these details. All you need for shodan is a clear understanding that the L group is dead, plus the reassurance that you have seen (not necessarily remembered) the reasons why. Knowing all the variations is a matter for higher dans.

As for blunders, they seem to increase with age, but not because of dead brain cells. More a matter of "can't be bothered to focus properly" with so many other things I want to do. That is how it is with me, at any rate. I normally play go only when I'm too tired or lazy to do the other things. As I've spent so much time on go over the years, I can go onto auto-pilot - usually crashing in the end but I can often have a long enough flight to let my brain have a snooze. There are books in the chess world on how to avoid blunders but I haven't bothered with them. Fortunately, my proclivity for blunders does not interfere with my ability to understand and appreciate and enjoy something of what is going in pro games, nor does it stop me learning more and increasing my enjoyment. That's my target.

[swannod]

Hrm half of the attendees to the US Go Congress 2017 were of dan level. I generally think of talent, if such a thing even exists, as something available to maybe 10% of a population, not

What percentage of the population were the attendees of the Go congress?

A question more relevant to your theory is - how accurately does the US Go Congress represent a sample of the wider population? I personally find it hard to believe that a tournament with little in the way of monetary reward (which in fact requires significant expense) would draw a sample such that every other person has some innate ability that I do not.

[dfan]

If half of the people so excited about go (and have the time, money, etc.) that they make it to the Congress are dan-level, to me that's a pretty positive statement about the accessibility of 1d. Compare to chess, where my 1d-ish 2000 rating puts me at the 95th percentile of US tournament chess players. Granted, that includes lots of young kids and occasional players, but it's probably at least the 80th percentile of people who would attend a Chess Congress if there were one.

Disclaimer: I have been 4k for years

[Knotwilg]

For me this is probably the case. I often play stronger than my rank, but stay there because my blunder rate remains high.

Basically every player has two levels: your level of understanding and your level of play. The gap between those two is called frustration. It is caused by losses that are due to other things than your level of understanding.

What other ways to lose a game are there than have a worse understanding than the opponent?

1. Resigning too early, too often, for the wrong reasons
2. Running out of time
3. Making blunders

This can be trained: you can develop fighting spirit, time management and concentration. When you have developed those mental assets, which are circumstancial to the game, the only remaining reason why you'll lose is because the opponent has better understanding (or sheer statistics). Then you can work on your understanding.

Many students of the game work very hard on strategy, tactics and technique, to be frustrated the wins don't follow. Often this is because their level of play remains restricted by lack of fighting spirit, time management or concentration. While it is perfectly possible to train those aspects, somehow it is not taken very seriously. Sometimes I even feel that people inflict stupid losses on themselves, in order to keep a self image of a much higher level of understanding than they actually have, which is unfortunately destroyed by their perennial blundering.

So, first bring your level of play closer to your level of understanding. The positive feedback will be plenty. Then improve your understanding and the play will follow.

[Boidhre]

If half of the people so excited about go (and have the time, money, etc.) that they make it to the Congress are dan-level, to me that's a pretty positive statement about the accessibility of 1d. Compare to chess, where my 1d-ish 2000 rating puts me at the 95th percentile of US tournament chess players. Granted, that includes lots of young kids and occasional players, but it's probably at least the 80th percentile of people who would attend a Chess Congress if there were one.

Disclaimer: I have been 4k for years

The data here might interest you, I can't vouch for its accuracy though: http://senseis.xmp.net/?RatingHistogramComparisons

[RobertJasiek]

The following refers to German 1d.

The minimum investment is ca. 1500h playing plus 1500h study.

Talent helps but limited talent can be compensated by greater effort. A minimum talent is necessary. E.g. somebody without the ability to think one move ahead never becomes 10k, let alone 1d. I know such people who simply lack such abstract thinking ability entirely.

There are lots of topics of go theory but a 1d does not need to be strong at all of them. He should have a solid knowledge of the basics of most of them so that he can compensate or hide his weak topics. A 6d must be reasonably strong at all topics incl. those still missing in the literature. A 1d can postpone them.

There are topics and related skills that each 1d has:
- he does not make any DDK mistakes (2k still occasionally make such mistakes)
- his reading is good
- he has at least basic LD knowledge, although he does not get all LD right
- the blunder rate is ca. 2 per game
- he applies basic endgame theory, although he still makes mistakes but not in large numbers any more
- he has a good representative knowledge of many (but not very many yet) details of various fundamentals of various kinds; it does not matter which details, but the selection must be broad enough to be representative for various aspects of go knowledge

I can recommend quite a few very helpful, additional topics but they are not shared by all 1d.

[daal]

I don't know you or anything significant about you, so I can't say anything trustworthy, and what I do say also risks being impertinent, but FWIW there is something that is coming over strongly: you do like validation by means of grades.

It's perfectly reasonable to make inferences based on what I said - no offense taken, though I don't think this applies to me. I brought up grades so much because I thought many people might not be aware that a system for assessing language achievement exists, and that it can be compared to go levels. Not grades, but the pleasure of learning is what motivates me most.

Unless it is specifically having the label shodan next to your name that motivates you, I'd say that simply improving at go and so appreciating go better is sufficient reward for working harder at it. If you can learn to enjoy that, you may be motivated to study even more, and, as I've said, shodan may creep up behind you.

I'm not concerned personally with reaching shodan. Although there is room to disagree, what I've noticed is that working harder brings results only up to a point, and I find it curious that this point is below the level at which one is considered competent at go. Despite the fact that I am not improving, I still enjoy studying. Indeed, I may not be diligent enough, or not put in enough effort, but my feeling is that with the diligence and effort I have put in, I ought to be competent by now. One of the reasons I say this is that I know what amount of work and diligence is necessary to become competent in other areas, such as language.

Fortunately, my proclivity for blunders does not interfere with my ability to understand and appreciate and enjoy something of what is going in pro games, nor does it stop me learning more and increasing my enjoyment. That's my target.

Same here. While much of the focus of this discussion has been my abilities or lack of them, that was not really the intent of my question. Rather, it is to question why it is that some people cannot manage to achieve a level that some call "competent." If anything, I am more interested in words such as "competent," "proficient," and "skilled" than I am in the word "shodan" which is indeed somewhat arbitrary. I do however find it irritating that the rank after my name indicates that I only have a vague idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to go. I suppose that this has some justification, but as I said, it's not just about me. Lots of people try and fail to improve and find themselves stuck at a point often well below shodan, and I wonder why it is that they (we) can't seem to get a better handle on the game.

[Knotwilg]

I do however find it irritating that the rank after my name indicates that I only have a vague idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to go. I suppose that this has some justification, but as I said, it's not just about me. Lots of people try and fail to improve and find themselves stuck at a point often well below shodan, and I wonder why it is that they (we) can't seem to get a better handle on the game.

I've long accepted you as a worthy co-commentator of the game, so don't worry about that kind of impact of your rank. As for your playing level, see my previous post.

If you still want to make a concerted effort to get there in a reasonable amount of time, you can count on us. I for one still am sure it is possible.

[Fedya]

Often this is because their level of play remains restricted by lack of fighting spirit

Except that there are people who fight when they shouldn't: unwarranted invasions and the like.