Idea to raise the popularity of Go

[bogiesan]

I've been trying to promote go for forty-five years. I've taught A LOT of folks to play. I had a popular lecture during the Hikaru surge and gave away at least 100 of those cardboard punch-out sets provided by the American Go Federation.

During all of that interaction with total newbies, I only ever found one possible explanation for the reluctance of folks--who play a huge variety of board, miniature, card, role playing, and video games -- to get interested in go: Time. If I could get someone to play ten 9x games with me or other newbies, they either got bored or the more enlightened realized exactly how complex go can get and decided they did not have the time. That is, they realize they'd be giving up their other games to become proficient.

My success rate among, say, two hundred students, those who advanced to the big board -- taking nine stones and eventually giving me two -- is less than 10%, more like 3%.

[Oberlappen]

I've been trying to promote go for forty-five years. I've taught A LOT of folks to play. I had a popular lecture during the Hikaru surge and gave away at least 100 of those cardboard punch-out sets provided by the American Go Federation.

During all of that interaction with total newbies, I only ever found one possible explanation for the reluctance of folks--who play a huge variety of board, miniature, card, role playing, and video games -- to get interested in go: Time. If I could get someone to play ten 9x games with me or other newbies, they either got bored or the more enlightened realized exactly how complex go can get and decided they did not have the time. That is, they realize they'd be giving up their other games to become proficient.

My success rate among, say, two hundred students, those who advanced to the big board -- taking nine stones and eventually giving me two -- is less than 10%, more like 3%.

I would say 3% is even a great result. I know how hard it is, to get new people permanently. I know it especially from my time before Go, when I was in a chess club. In many years we had probably more then 1500 people trying it and maybe came for a short time in the club, mostly children ( I take the 15 years I spent there). In the long term their stayed 4 or 5 till now.
Today there is a lot other things like to do, all clubs and sports has to rival more things. In the end you need stamina and got to hope for the best. But it's a help, to get attention, especially, after only a small part stays, so you need more people to show yourself, if you want some to stay.

[bogiesan]

I would say 3% is even a great result.

Here is what I contributed to recent "how do we get more go players?" thread on r/baduk, over on the reddit:

First, go needs to be featured prominently in a huge, popular, and successful Netflix series or major film. Next, the international go community should be prepared — long in advance — to handle a surge, however large or small, of inquiries and requests for instruction and guidance, online and in real life, brought on by the exposure. Third, based on the collective experience we gained in the old Hikaru surge and the more recent experience of successful online go dojos, we should be able to have theoretical plans in place to encourage the newbies to stay with go long enough to learn to really enjoy playing. Fourth, eventually we’ll obtain critical mass, sustain large scale competitive events, gain coverage in gaming and sports press, acquire sponsors who have cash, open more national go centers, and establish recruiting systems in schools to backfill our ranks with young and innovative talent.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Been spinning the same fantasy, more or less, for forty years.

[Oberlappen]

I made with Orcachess an Go video (in german). It's first view video about Go and if it has some success, Orca would like to make more Go videos. He is a german chess youtuber with a few thousand follower, so it's nice thing, to have him making Go more popular, also he got a lot of fun with that. I think it's a good thing. Even so, he is not as huge, as The Big Greek, still he can reach some people and everyone who joins, is a true win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEBZF8Ifc1I

[pwaldron]

<snip> establish recruiting systems in schools to backfill our ranks with young and innovative talent.

The school item piqued my attention. (Quite) some years ago I did a chapters survey for the AGA, speaking with current and former chapter reps. I was struck by the number of high school go clubs that were started during the Hikaru boom and then folded a few years later. I figured that this was just the way of boom and busts, but it was more subtle than that.

What overwhelmingly happened was that the key organizer graduated from high school. They left behind a vibrant go club that didn't have a good transition plan. Things fell apart quite quickly the next year. I suggested that the AGA (and other national organizations) could help quite a bit by offering organizational support every April/May to ensure that school clubs could survive to the next year. Providing a reminder to ensure that a student and faculty sponsor are both in place for the following September may well have saved a number of clubs from folding.

[Oberlappen]

TheBigGreek the biggest german Chess-Streamer made an stream, where he learned Go from Tobias Berben. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1413189799

[goTony]

For those wanting to make content or videos more power to you! I wish you success. But I do not believe there is a magic bullet to popularizing GO. It simply is not that well known in the West, it is not as interesting at first glance to children as Chess with its cool pieces, it takes time to get good, and there are plenty of other diversions. Finally at least in the US there is a bias against intellectual games.

Also the Nihon Kiin does a poor job of supporting GO in the West or even in Asia outside of Japan. The website is nearly useless for a non Japanese speaker. They do nothing to bring big name Korean and Chinese players and other grandmasters to the big Meijin and Honinibo games. Imagine how much more exciting that would be! Of course they might not have these be Japanese titles anymore. Why does the national GO societies of the big three not have better Youtube content for reaching Westerners? The Nihon Kiin has Michael and a few other English speakers, they should use maximize the use of them. Would any of these things sovle the issue, no but it would help a bit.

For all those who started school clubs thank you for your efforts! I really wish there was an easy answer.

[John Fairbairn]

Also the Nihon Kiin does a poor job of supporting GO in the West or even in Asia outside of Japan. The website is nearly useless for a non Japanese speaker. They do nothing to bring big name Korean and Chinese players and other grandmasters to the big Meijin and Honinibo games. Imagine how much more exciting that would be! Of course they might not have these be Japanese titles anymore. Why does the national GO societies of the big three not have better Youtube content for reaching Westerners?

Why pick on the Nihon Ki-in? Why pick on any oriental gp organisation? It's like asking why the PGA doesn't support golf in Eastern Europe, or why Hollywood doesn't do more for the film industry in Africa, say. Or why doesn't MLB include teams from Europe.

The function of any professional go organisation is to support the professionals within it. They do this with no resources of their own beyond their ability at the game. They have to seek support from companies or the state, who in turn provide support based on their own priorities. In the case of the Honinbo and Meijin (and many other titles) it is the sponsoring newspapers who decide who plays in their tournaments.

In some of my books, I have chronicled the arduous journey the Nihon Ki-in has had to take to get where it is now, which is an organisation that has to watch every penny and can support only a tiny percentage of its members with an income that allows them to be self-sufficient in go.

If you really want to point fingers, why not point them at the many western people who do NOT support this forum, the many western people who do NOT support western go associations, the many western people who have killed off western go magazines and go books through apathy or piracy, the many western people who have killed off local clubs because they play only on the internet, the many western people who turn go into an exercise for mathematicians with fractious debates about rules, or the western people who have turned go into a bot paradise off-putting to beginners? Or the fortunately not so many western people who criticise the oriental organisations and risk making them even less generous than they already have been when times were better in their own countries?

[mart900]

Go, I think, needs its own Queen's gambit (the TV show). Hikaru No Go was nice and all, but Western non-Go players had very limited exposure to it. We need something that penetrates the mainstream.

Writers among you, write a script and sell it to Netflix!

[Elom0]

Also the Nihon Kiin does a poor job of supporting GO in the West or even in Asia outside of Japan. The website is nearly useless for a non Japanese speaker. They do nothing to bring big name Korean and Chinese players and other grandmasters to the big Meijin and Honinibo games. Imagine how much more exciting that would be! Of course they might not have these be Japanese titles anymore. Why does the national GO societies of the big three not have better Youtube content for reaching Westerners?

Why pick on the Nihon Ki-in? Why pick on any oriental gp organisation? It's like asking why the PGA doesn't support golf in Eastern Europe, or why Hollywood doesn't do more for the film industry in Africa, say. Or why doesn't MLB include teams from Europe.

The function of any professional go organisation is to support the professionals within it. They do this with no resources of their own beyond their ability at the game. They have to seek support from companies or the state, who in turn provide support based on their own priorities. In the case of the Honinbo and Meijin (and many other titles) it is the sponsoring newspapers who decide who plays in their tournaments.

In some of my books, I have chronicled the arduous journey the Nihon Ki-in has had to take to get where it is now, which is an organisation that has to watch every penny and can support only a tiny percentage of its members with an income that allows them to be self-sufficient in go.

If you really want to point fingers, why not point them at the many western people who do NOT support this forum, the many western people who do NOT support western go associations, the many western people who have killed off western go magazines and go books through apathy or piracy, the many western people who have killed off local clubs because they play only on the internet, the many western people who turn go into an exercise for mathematicians with fractious debates about rules, or the western people who have turned go into a bot paradise off-putting to beginners? Or the fortunately not so many western people who criticise the oriental organisations and risk making them even less generous than they already have been when times were better in their own countries?

https://forums.online-go.com/t/controve ... /34051/211
"John Fairbairn has mentioned before that the bias towards computer and numbers guys in the western go community might have unintended bad consequences.

An unpopular opinion I have is that go in the west is promoted in a blatantly discriminatory and sexist and ableist manner, even though the people involved are innocent.

Let’s say 20% of the western population are computer nerds. If the go population in the west is full of computer nerds, short term growth is actually detrimental to long term growth, as the bigger an exclusive group is, the harder it is to change, so that means after rapid growth there’d be instant and eternal stagnation since the maximum amount of people in the west who will ever be into go would be at 20%. This means I am against growing go in the west unless it’s specifically for groups that are underrepresented in the western go population, and also neuroatypical people and those with special needs.

Now that European go is at a low level, now is the perfect chance to prioritise making female go stronger since the objective level women in the west have to compete against to be equal to their peers is easier to reach. in addition, promoting women’s go promotes youth go for obvious reasons, which is the best way to make western go stronger long term. This is how Korea got strong.

But nooo, subsciously sexist higher ups refuse even the most obvious ways to improve go in the west if it involves making women the most important aspect, because we can only see women as a group that needs to be helped rather than a positive contributor to go overall."

https://forums.online-go.com/t/controve ... ions/44896

"Although one slight downside to Hikaru no Go and AlphaGo might be that some people start thinking that significant progress in spreading go can only happen in waves started by a few god-like figures, Hotta Yumi and her husband or David Silver and Demis Hassabis, and so essentially their local efforts at go promotion are kind of pointless."

Yes, I can't tell you how much it annoys me when people say stuff like "what we need is a new Show/Major event that involves go to create a new wave". That is surely a highly unintelligent thing for a go player to say. I was not at all surprised that the AlphaGo wave didn't result in as many, but those who where just stuck in an anti-creative mindse, and then complain about everything other than themselves. It seriously annoys me.

When . John Fairbairn is absolutely right that one should not expect such activity to fraw in players so I don't complain when my rulesets rants don't bring in beginners. The only justification for what I'm doing is that the aim is precisely to create the most beginner-friendly ruleset with an informal feel, yet still rigorous enough for pro tournaments, a bit like the python programming language.

[Elom0]

Go, I think, needs its own Queen's gambit (the TV show). Hikaru No Go was nice and all, but Western non-Go players had very limited exposure to it. We need something that penetrates the mainstream.

Writers among you, write a script and sell it to Netflix!

Wow, Just as I was typing in my above post

I can guarantee you if there was any new show, the western go population in general will mostly squander the opportunity precisely because of the emotionally passive and non-exploratory nature of our go promotion effort.

Apart from the fact that Hikaru no Go would probably have made far more sense if it was based on Shogi (although Shogi in it's modern form wasn't a thing in the Heian Era)I almost feel like Hikaru no Go has had an unintended negative effect on the western Go population. The entire strategy is based on, "wait for a messiah to make show with go as the plot device. Yeah, your local efforts at promoting go are kinda okay, but really inconsequential compared to that". Yet EVEN if we decide to follow this silly strategy, the self-sabotage THAT one, showing close to Zero emotional intelligence. Because videos about go almost always are based on the toxic assumption that beginners should want to become better at go, rather than having fun at the level they are at. In my opinion, the entire idea of videos designed primarily to help you improve at go should only be aimed at single-digit kyus, the group of people who actually need it most sinc e that's where strength plateaus are most common. But there's a higher chance that a random 15kyu is only playing go for fun, NOT to be good at it, and a deluge of "how to get better than 15kyu" videos takes things too seriously at that level and is a turn off for people who already are turned of by difficult games in this dumbed down society. Is it just westerners are jealous that east Asians are so much better than go and therefore obsess over strength even with beginners? Perhaps, but I disagree with that method entirely. Although I disagree more more with the snobbishness the Nihon Kiin showed earlier on, considering their pros don't win anything and their 1p's are weak compared to the Hanguk Kiwon and Zhōnghuá Qiyuan. And the they snob the Kansaii Kin 1p?'s. I'm with Ke Jie on this, as usual. Perhaps if they spend less time snobbing and more time training their pros, to do well in international competition, they might get competitive pros. But since the Nihon Kiin is responsible for the birth of a modern go scene all around the world including the Hanguk Kiwon and helping the Zhonghou Qiyuan, it's their right to be however they want. We definitely shouldn't be being ungrateful by complaining to THEM for not helping US. I literally wrote before that the class of seriousness with which a player takes towards improving at go can be estimated from how good they already are. Of course, if you don't promote go to non-go players then a writer wouldn't think of the idea to write about go. Hotta Yuma wasn't necessarily a go player before she decided to write Hikaru no go, it was not even a hobby but a pastime--in fact it is precisely because she was so bad at it that she decided to write a story about having a ghost who could help you, in addition to admiration for young children reaching pro strength. Fortunately, or unfortunately, since I was 14 years old i 2013 I did have the idea of something like Hikaru no Go, but the embarrassing truth is that I simply went "what if Hikaru was a GIRL" with international themed humour in it, so yes that is one rare case in which I was more cringey when I was young, since generally speaking I'm a lot more cringeworthy now I'm older. But even then the level of extreme dependence on such a type of thing by some is disturbing.

Secondly, we really need to adopt a more Chinese attitude of universality among mindsports. the past few days I was developing a new idea to post on Fantasy tournament based on this concept!
Sports in the world --> football (soccer) has positioned itself in addition to athletics as a universal sport
So, mindsports in the world --> Go should position itself in addition to IQ-type puzzles as a universal mindsport that elevates the status of Chess, Shogi, and elephant Chess.
It's not a complex concept. This is a case where helping others helps you. Rather than the cringeworthy, low-brow tactic of aggressively basing your go promotion on how many chess players can you steal from chess to go since:

1 You're not really helping Chess players
2 You're taking the lazy way out and you know it since you don't want to do the hard work of convincing non-players of mindsports in general to play go.
3 If Go became popular among the general population who don't play mindsports, of course many chess players would be interested in learning go anyway. So what you're doing is actually zero work making zero progress UNLESS you work under the assumption that go would NEVER become popular in the mainstream, in which case you are what Catalin Taranu sensei thinks is the most problematic of people he calls those who can't help but want to help, and maybe should stop working on go promotion.

Well I say make the pie bigger rather than compete with chess for a bigger slice of the pie with chess.

Writers among you, write a script and sell it to Netflix!

Forgive me if I'm being a presumptuous brat here, but how many writers have you taught go to without pressuring them to "get stronger" to "properly appreciate" the game Hotta Yumi clearly showed that to appreciate the game you don't necessarily be strong yourself but have pros interpreting pro games for you.

We need something that penetrates the mainstream.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm picking on you--give me a Pound Sterling for every western go player who talks like this . . . Although given that we now have the Ounce it would just be a middle class income but I'm happy with that. What's more important is that the go world shares a collective ounce of common sense.

[Elom0]

Okay that's it: from the end of next meteorological spring, I'll start releasing chapters. In fact the entire format of the story is based on the rythm and alignment of the four seasons, with four different chapter metaphors based on which meteorological season the story is in. But it's based. However it definitely won't be mainstream since it's literally designed to be niche, so it probably doesn't count, but if people who can actually write properly and see it they might be inspired to make their own novel that might then become mainstream.

So am I harshly criticising reliance on a method while using that very method! Yep.

[kvasir]

People who show up at a Go club every time when there is an event are much more important than angry men with doubtful opinions. For an idea to raise the popularity of Go: take part in the closest Go event anyone is trying to organize.

[mart900]

@Elom0 >99% of people in the West simply do not know what Go is. An event that penetrates the mainstream and even just introduces the existence of the game to tens of millions of people will absolutely result in more players. It's a numbers game at that point. An event like this will affect the Western player base to a much greater extent than anything you or I can do locally. But that's not to say we can't do anything, and I certainly don't mean to imply that we should give up our local efforts and wait for this unicorn event. Realistically though, that is what we need.

I say that as someone who, coming from an RTS background, went to great lengths to introduce Go to my fellow strategy gamers through the internet. A number of them are still playing today. So don't get me wrong.

Forgive me if I'm being a presumptuous brat here, but how many writers have you taught go to without pressuring them to "get stronger" to "properly appreciate" the game

A few, actually. One of them is trying to sell a script to Netflix but it's not about Go unfortunately.

Who would pressure a beginner to get stronger? People with any experience playing games in general, and especially Go, should know better than to pressure a beginner to do anything at all other than play the game.

[gennan]

@Elom0 >99% of people in the West simply do not know what Go is. An event that penetrates the mainstream and even just introduces the existence of the game to tens of millions of people will absolutely result in more players. It's a numbers game at that point. An event like this will affect the Western player base to a much greater extent than anything you or I can do locally. But that's not to say we can't do anything, and I certainly don't mean to imply that we should give up our local efforts and wait for this unicorn event.

I don't think that raising awareness a great deal automatically leads to go becoming a popular game. Almost everybody in my country knows what chess is, but how many play at least one game per week? Maybe 0.1%? Does that mean chess is popular here?

Due to my efforts in the past 10 years in my village (population about 6000), I estimate that 10% knows about the game. I know that some 8% of its population (mostly youth) has played at least 1 game of go, and per week about 0.5% plays at least 1 game. Does that mean that go is popular here? I'd say no. There are countless activities here that are much more popular, such as sports, social media, computer games, playing an instrument, shopping, crafts, gardening, you name it.

Please understand that I'm not complaining. I just think this is all that can be reasonably expected. Go will never be really popular anywhere. It's not even really popular in Japan, Korea or China.