Why do some people never reach shodan

[schawipp]

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

When I play unwarranted invasions - as far as I can speak for me - it's not because of "too much fighting spirit". It is rather a sign of impatience and lazyness, i.e. I want getting a certain situation resolved as quickly as possible. Instead of seriously counting and thoroughly estimating the overall situation I play a do-or-die move and hope my opponent will play some sub-optimal continuation.

It feels similar to trying out a "good-looking" move in a Tsumego without having it fully read out.

I can see both symptoms in my play, they may be an important part of the reason why I'm still around 3-4k and not 1d...

[Joaz Banbeck]

...
Basically every player has two levels: your level of understanding and your level of play. The gap between those two is called frustration...

The gap gets bigger as we get older. This is why old men are grumpy.

[sybob]

Interesting question, interesting discussion.
May I give you a view from the bottom? I am a 'mere' 8k, far from shodan. I am not dan or shodan. I am not even sure I aspire to become one. I don't consider myself to be competent. In fact I have already accepted that I will never reach such a level. I just enjoy the game, the company of other players, the atmosphere at the club, etc.
Yet, in my area, go is not very well known and not much played. So, friends (yes, I have some, and go players can be friends with non go players) consider me to be an experienced or even competent go player (haha).
What I want to say is: like many things, (also) competence is relative.
I am less competent than others, but more competent than some.

[Knotwilg]

Hi Daal

This is my latest game. Can you review it and tell me what moves you would never come up with if you had played this game?

Knotwilg

[hyperpape]

I would not think of

The slide at . Looks passive, but it's probably good.
The knight's move at
The cut at , accepting being disconnected.
The descent at .
The attach at :w140:. What does this do?

[Majordomo]

Cool exercise! Hope you don't mind that I jump on it. I didn't apply much reading, but just noted some stuff that popped up for me in terms of "I'd not think about this" - so it isn't much of a review.

What strikes me the most is that you are much better at playing elsewhere and not stubbornly trying to save things you can instead give up for profit elsewhere (in addition to sharper and more accurate reading heh).

As for the question? I have pondered it myself - especially seeing those players with 1000+ games played and still DDK or high SDK. I think it relates to why you play? To me Go is the competition and the struggle to improve. But for several of those players I believe Go is relaxing after work, or just playing something during your commute - with rank improvement as a happy byproduct but by no means a thing to work actively towards.

Also I don't think Shodan is some lofty goal only a few can reach due to talent - but I do think it represents a rather high investment in time and effort to get there (certainly has for me and I'm nowhere close). Getting there is work, especially if you're not young and plastic (brainwise), so not everyone has the passion or the dedication to get there, even if they claim it as a goal.

[daal]

I wouldn't have thought of any of the black moves from through I would have extended from the group at and jumped into the center at All of this crawling I wouldn't have considered. The effect however is something that makes sense - w doesn't have a base, so b will have something to attack. - I don't think I would have realized that the attack was over for now and would have jumped from those 2 black stones to prevent them from being captured in a net. I would have captured the two stones - but on second thought, it would have been unwise to leave r14 all alone up there. I wouldn't have thought of the leaning attack. I would have played at o14, trying to build something on the top. looks tempting, but I try to shy away from moves that only make territory - though it might revive the attack... looks big, but I would have taken the opportunity to capture the e11 stones. I wouldn't have though of. I would have haned on the other side. I wouldn't have thought of - I would be worried about weakening my already weak group on the side. not on my radar.

There is a lot more, but I'm tired now.

[Knotwilg]

Hi guys, nice to see so many responses.

Most of your comments are absolutely right, which means your level of analysis is higher than my level of play.

- you all saw that my harrassing of the black group at the bottom was not severe enough and lost tempo, so that black could form a good moyo at the top
- while attempting to make a good invasion, I neglected my left side group, which came under severe attack and almost died

Three concepts or attitudes stand out as marking the gap (if any)

- leaning maneuvers
- assessing which stones are (not) important and should (not) be saved/attacked
- (shying away of) ko

Here's a more specific self review, addressing your questions

But first: what to learn from this exercise? I think that you all have dan level analysis but either lack the confidence or some more local prowess to live up to it in your games. I still advocate a diet of fighting spirit / time management / concentration to bring your playing level closer to your level of understanding, but definitely doing lots of tsumego increases confidence in your local power and the local power itself.

[Fedya]

I wouldn't have come up with:

I would have played at instead.
I don't see the point behind this move, and don't know which part of the board I'd play in. I'd probably extend from Q4.
I would have tried to connect Q4 and Q8, by playing something like R6.
I don't get the point of the sequence starting with

[Knotwilg]

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

I want to come back on this one. I disagree: if your goal is to become KGS shodan, then this is a perfectly reasonable goal. We should not question your goals because it's these goals that motivate you.

What I question (and agree with most) is that you will become shodan just by following the classical path of improvement. You might or might not, and might go fast or slow. Instead of convincing you to replace your goal of becoming shodan with a more vague goal of becoming better at Go in a different way than measuring your results (but by pats on the back, or by self consciousness of your mastery of topics ...), I encourage you to achieve your goal and really pursue it by changing those things that matter most to get better results.

So you want to beat shodans 50% of the time. Why do you currently lose more often? What are the determining factors? Change those.

(I have my answer ready, as you know: it's fighting spirit, time management & concentration. But please develop an answer for yourself.)

[Knotwilg]

I wouldn't have come up with:

I would have played at instead.
I don't see the point behind this move, and don't know which part of the board I'd play in. I'd probably extend from Q4.
I would have tried to connect Q4 and Q8, by playing something like R6.
I don't get the point of the sequence starting with

W12 - my direction is correct but I think it should have been low. Black has tenuki'd here and must be punished for that.
W28 - it's a forcing move to prevent Black making shape, in sente. It's probably incidental
W46 - I think it's important to focus on lower left here. Connecting would result in a low territory or central influence, which is not the focus here.
W52 - it's a questionable sequence, mostly pointless I think

[daal]

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

I want to come back on this one. I disagree: if your goal is to become KGS shodan, then this is a perfectly reasonable goal. We should not question your goals because it's these goals that motivate you.

What I question (and agree with most) is that you will become shodan just by following the classical path of improvement. You might or might not, and might go fast or slow. Instead of convincing you to replace your goal of becoming shodan with a more vague goal of becoming better at Go in a different way than measuring your results (but by pats on the back, or by self consciousness of your mastery of topics ...), I encourage you to achieve your goal and really pursue it by changing those things that matter most to get better results.

So you want to beat shodans 50% of the time. Why do you currently lose more often? What are the determining factors? Change those.

(I have my answer ready, as you know: it's fighting spirit, time management & concentration. But please develop an answer for yourself.)

First of all, I never said that my goal was to reach shodan. What I think is that given my experience, it is very improbable that I could become strong enough to reach shodan (for example on KGS). Why? I make elementary reading mistakes, I lose concentration and I can't judge correctly what is a good outcome of a sequence. I have tried and tried to correct these problems. I do tsumego regularly. I don't dislike it, but I am very bad at it, and I don't feel that I am getting any better at it. I meditate to improve my concentration and frame of mind, and while it helps me accept my errors, it doesn't stop me from blundering. (yes, I guess time management is an element of blundering - not taking the time to count liberties and see if a cut is threatened has lost me many a game.) As to judgement of outcomes, I could probably use a teacher to tell me this is good and that is not. I don't seem to have been able to learn from the countless books I've read. It happens fairly often to me that I start out wanting outside influence, and wind up giving it to my opponent. So what I see is a bunch of deficits that I have not been able to correct. I suspect that getting a teacher could help with determining outcomes of sequences, but not with reading and not with concentration. I appreciate your confidence that fixing these errors is within my reach, but I don't share it, and one reason is that again, this is not just about me. I see countless other players in a similar situation. People who have started go later in life (mid 40's for me), are autodidactics, read poorly, and despite continued effort, hit a boundary well below shodan that they can't figure out how to overcome.

[John Fairbairn]

I want to come back on this one. I disagree:

Eh? You seem to be agreeing completely.

So you want to beat shodans 50% of the time. Why do you currently lose more often? What are the determining factors? Change those.

Shodan/pro (at least for those still distant from such status) is a wrong or meaningless target because it is nebulous, too large. It is a dream. It may motivate you but it's still a dream that doesn't tell you how to get there. Proper goals are clearly defined, small steps - incrementally changing the "determining factors" in your favour.

fighting spirit, time management & concentration

But these are nor proper goals either. They may be determining factors but they say nothing about how to improve them. Holding your breath for a long time is a determining factor in free diving, but holding your breath for a long time is not a proper goal. Proper goals are holding your breath for 30 seconds, then 1 minute, then 2 minutes.

And a succession of small wins like that is quite possibly an even bigger motivator than a dream.

[Knotwilg]

First of all, I never said that my goal was to reach shodan.

I thought it was: it seems like you'd want to have 1d next to your avatar, while discussing Go. Mind you, I don't loathe such goal at all.

What I think is that given my experience, it is very improbable that I could become strong enough to reach shodan (for example on KGS). Why? I make elementary reading mistakes, I lose concentration and I can't judge correctly what is a good outcome of a sequence. I have tried and tried to correct these problems.

Okay, I can't argue with that. It's itching but I resist.

I do tsumego regularly. I don't dislike it, but I am very bad at it, and I don't feel that I am getting any better at it.

Again, I'm convinced it should not be that way. There are fundamentals to even tsumego. If you apply the fundamentals, it will become easier because you have a structure to follow and will develop intuition in the process.

I meditate to improve my concentration and frame of mind, and while it helps me accept my errors, it doesn't stop me from blundering.

I appreciate your confidence that fixing these errors is within my reach, but I don't share it, and one reason is that again, this is not just about me. I see countless other players in a similar situation. People who have started go later in life (mid 40's for me), are autodidactics, read poorly, and despite continued effort, hit a boundary well below shodan that they can't figure out how to overcome.

Surely starting late is a handicap. I'm experiencing such handicap in my current activity of table tennis. The youth is blasting past me because they have been properly trained when their brain was still malliable. When I get back after the holidays, it seems I'm back to square 1 and they magically progressed to square 100. It's frustrating. But I still think it is possible to reach "table tennis shodan".

One thing we elderly need to do is to consciously stop doing things and replace them with better habits, while the youth have the luxury of a blank canvas. The problem is that we cling to our bad habits, being afraid to let go of what has given us comfort. I had to change my grip on the bat. I can tell you, not easy to let go of that!

I'll leave it here for now. I do think you could use a coach. And I think concentration/reading is the first thing to fix (you say so yourself). It will require work (again) but it will pay off. Unless you accept that it won't be for you anymore and can live with your current rank. That's fine too.

[daal]

I will however show you my most recent game. It seems not untypical, and shows what kind of gaps we're dealing with.