Factor of age on learning

Magicwand · **#41**

HermanHiddema wrote:

Magicwand wrote:

[quote="entropi
Is there a ground for this statement?
It sounds like "anyone who really wants can win the national lottery". Of course, but only if he buys all (or most) of the available tickets.

The question is what it takes for one to reach 5d. How many games, how many books, how many mega-tsumegos per second?

It obviously differs from person to person. Therefore, I don't even believe that everyone who really wants (and tries) can reach 10kyu, let alone 5dan.

given proper training and studying ...anybody can reach that level.
that is my belief and probably is true.

I seriously doubt it.

There are plenty of people out there who simply don't "get" go. Their brains are apparently not wired that way. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I am really bad at learning languages. I had to learn five foreign languages in high school, and I was always struggling with them. No matter how much time and effort I put in. And at the same time I excelled at things like maths, physics and chemistry, despite the fact that I hardly put any effort into them. And there were people in my class that were exactly the other way around. Always struggling with math despite all the hours they put in, while effortlessly getting high grades on their languages.

And I think the same is true for go. Some people learn it effortlessly, others are struggling with every step ahead.[/quote]

yes i agree with your comment...but 5D can be reached for every normal people (i am talking about 1 standard deviation from the norm of human Intelligence. what is that?? about 92%??). and it might be slow for some but "everyone" can reach 5D.

kirkmc · **#42**

Magicwand wrote:

on't even believe that everyone who really wants (and tries) can reach 10kyu, let alone 5dan.

given proper training and studying ...anybody can reach that level.
that is my belief and probably is true.
[/quote]

Dang, it must be tough to be always right...

Stefany93 · **#43**

The older the better

I am 16 and still I beat my brother who is 11 :lol:

Exologist · **#44**

Anyone can become strong if they take to heart what stronger people say. Why go through the process of rediscovering everything when it has already been discovered? There's a few people that bring in their go books to club, yet they keep playing the same moves that the books say not to play. You can't really expect things to click on their own when you randomly study, got to have the conscious effort.

Now the pro level is different. Such high levels of play you can no longer read what the stronger players have already discovered, because you are the stronger player, so you're at the frontier discovering completely new things. That takes another level entirely, so you have to start young and stay ahead of the game. If you don't start young, then you're already in the footsteps of those who did, so you're stuck reading what the stronger have already discovered (and losing to them).

Mef · **#45**

HermanHiddema wrote:

What do you mean, there are no figures? 99% of professionals started playing before age 12. Most really strong professionals start really young, at around 5 years old. Zero professionals started playing after age 18.

While I completely agree that younger children learn faster (I'm actually a bit surprised at the number of people disputing this fact...I've had but a handful of games against young children learning to play, and their rate of improvement is astounding), but I think this particular use of numbers is misplaced. In this day and age it is (some outliers excluded) necessary to start at a young age to become professional simply because there are many who start at a young age who aim at becoming professionals. Even if there were no difference in learning, imagine two comparably skilled people born at the same time. One of them starts go at age 5, one starts at age 18. At the very least, the one starting at age 5 will always 13 years experience on the one who starts at 18. As long as you have enough talented people starting a a young age, this difference will easily become insurmountable for those not equally blessed. This may have nothing to do how well one learns, etc, simply that if you want to be in the top tier you must have virtually every advantage working in your favor and one of those advantages is time (not to mention the amazing commitment that must be made, though those other factors have been discussed already). Again this would only apply to the top tier (professionals) and isn't to say that a person starting older can't become strong, or a high dan player...It is simply saying that they have already suffered setbacks as to the maximum potential they could have reached (and acknowledging that there are others who have not suffered those same setbacks).

Suji · **#46**

Bantari wrote:

I don't know your circumstances, but I know from personal experience that once you reach a certain level you need to study to stay there. Sometimes you study and your skill still deteriorates. Examples abound...

Check aging chess grandmasters, since this is the area you are into. Most of them reach their peak and then their play deteriorates. I assume that they still study a lot and fight hard to stay at that peak. Same goes for Go pros. There are exceptions, but not many.

But ok, I myself said pros are not a good example for that.
So take regular players. I think most people would probably agree that if you stop playing and stop studying for a while, your strength will go down and you will need to overcome this by 'getting back into the game' which implies playing and studying.

I know this from personal experience. And it did depend on my level.
* When I took long breaks from the game when I was 10k or so, there was very little negative effect. I guess because there was little to forget.
* when I was around 3k, I needed to work at it for a while to get back to 3k after a break.
* when i was 5d, I did not have time to study enough to stay at that level, and dropped to 4d. Now I don't study at all and the occasional game I do play shows me that there is a negative effect.

The above is part of the basis of what I say. One might say that part of the issue was lack of play instead of lack of study, but what is playing other than just another way of studying?

Maybe you are an exception, or maybe your chess style relies more on intuition and attitude than on solid knowledge. I have no way of knowing. But I would be interested how many strong dans think they can afford to take a few years off of Go and not suffer any negative effects. How many SDK players?

Maybe I am wrong... but this is what I think.

It also touches of the first point you disagree with.

Okay, all of the above makes sense. I do rely a lot on intuition for chess. I rarely, if ever, calculate things out. And when I do, it's only to make sure that I'm not missing any simple tactics. I don't really have the patience for tactical puzzles, which could be why I'm stuck at a certain level.

With regards to losing skill, after you posted your reply I got thinking about Minesweeper. I know it's unrelated to Go, but I got to a point where my play deteriorated even playing a significant portion of the day. I hardly play now and I'm nowhere near the "strength" I used to be.

With regards to studying to maintain one's level, maybe I'm not at a high enough level, at least with chess? See above with Minesweeper. I, too, would be interested in players that think that they can take time off without negative effects. Yes, rust is an issue for everyone, but how badly? It seems to effect different players differently. One could set up a study with a control group, 1 month off group, 3 months off group, 6 months off group, and a year off group. It'd be interesting to see the results after such a test.

Factor of age on learning

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