Popularity of Go

[oren]

I think people are placing too much importance on an American Champion.

I'm also a big fan of motorcycle road racing. It is extremely popular in Europe and somewhat in Japan as well. We have had many many US Champions, but when Nicky Hayden won the MotoGP Championship a few years ago, you would still see nothing in sports pages or news across the country. MotoGP marketing budget destroys what you see all of the Go prizes put together, so don't expect a Western Champion in Go to change anything about public knowledge.

[xed_over]

... It can be a really dispiriting realization that you'll have to take 9 stones from every single player at the club, and that this won't change for another 3 months of steady play. Playing people who can beat you is fine--playing with the feeling that you're out of your league is unsettling.

Very true. I'm about 10 kyu, and rarely go to my local Go club because there is rarely anyone weaker than 5 kyu, and, while I know that playing stronger players is the best way to improve, it isn't much fun being constantly outplayed (even if you manage to win the game because of the enormous handicap). ...

I understand your feeling (because I've felt that way myself), but its really, really sad. Most strong players I know enjoy helping you get stronger. And I've regretted not taking advantage of an open offer to play a much stronger player who lived near me, before he moved away.

Now, I try to get over my feelings of not wanting to get stomped into the board, and take advantage of offers to play stronger players whenever they're available. If I can quit worrying about losing and making mistakes, I'll keep getting stronger even if we don't always review the game afterward.

[Bantari]

Keep in mind that Fischer was the ONLY World Chess Champion from America. I haven't read anything that states that there was a chess boom in 1907 when Frank Marshall played for the World Title. Other than that, though, the only other World Championship caliber player is Gata Kamsky, and I do not remember a boom in the late nineties when he played for the FIDE title in 1996. However, due to the fact that the Chess world championship title was split from 1993 to 2006, I didn't expect a mini-boom in the late nineties.

I am not a chess historian, but only an interested amateur, but from the reading I have done on the subject it seems to me that there was a slightly larger interest in chess in the US during times when Americans have world class players and serious contenders for the championship. This might include Morphy, Fine/Reshevsky, Fisher (of course), etc. I might be wrong, but knowing people and media, I'd be very surprised if there was not a strong correlation. Of course, a really great 'boom' was only during Fisher's time, but I think this was artificially hyped up because of the politics involved, and if a Fisher surfaced today the boom would have been much smaller.

But I might well be wrong on the above, I'll bow to a good argument which disconnects the level of play from the interest in the game.

With a professional circuit, you get all three. Go is a very divided game. No World Champion, different rule sets, etc. Before a well established international professional circuit can exist, you need to solve these problems.

I am not sure an 'international' pro circuit is necessary.
Some countries seem to be doing just fine with national pro circuits.
My idea was to investigate how these circuits originated (in Go in Japan/China/Korea and in other disciplines, like Poker), find a common denominator (money, state support, both, or something else), and try to determine the best course of action from there.

International pro circuit I think is a much different problem than popularizing Go in a specific country.
As history shows.

Or, Michael Redmond takes all the titles in Japan and Internationally all at once and retires to go out on top.

Michael who?!?

I am joking, of course, but I feel that unless he is ready to do what Cho Hunhyun did - go back home and sacrifice years building up a solid player base, using his name and successes as a spring board (Schlemper did that too in Holland in the 70s, I seem to remember, and maybe Catalin is trying to do now in Europe), he is pretty much meaningless to American Go. The Asian players who reside in the US and play in tournaments have much larger influence on the Go popularity here than all the titles Redmond can win.

But again, my personal opinion only.

[Mef]

If you're a bad chess player, it's not so hard to find opponents near your level. I doubt I'm more than 20 kyu in chess, but four out of five times I play an aquaintance, I have the advantage. For Go, it's not so easy. It can be a really dispiriting realization that you'll have to take 9 stones from every single player at the club, and that this won't change for another 3 months of steady play. Playing people who can beat you is fine--playing with the feeling that you're out of your league is unsettling.

Not to mention in go, unlike chess, your loss is quantified. In chess if you're a beginner, you get checkmated, game's over, oh well. The guy sitting next to you who's been playing for years loses the same way (as far as you can tell). In go, your opponent gives you 9 stones, you play hundreds of moves out not sure if you're making progress, only to find out you not only lost....you lost by hundreds of points...and you're not sure how it happened. For someone new to the game, this can be quite frustrating.

[Suji]

If you're a bad chess player, it's not so hard to find opponents near your level. I doubt I'm more than 20 kyu in chess, but four out of five times I play an aquaintance, I have the advantage. For Go, it's not so easy. It can be a really dispiriting realization that you'll have to take 9 stones from every single player at the club, and that this won't change for another 3 months of steady play. Playing people who can beat you is fine--playing with the feeling that you're out of your league is unsettling.

Not to mention in go, unlike chess, your loss is quantified. In chess if you're a beginner, you get checkmated, game's over, oh well. The guy sitting next to you who's been playing for years loses the same way (as far as you can tell). In go, your opponent gives you 9 stones, you play hundreds of moves out not sure if you're making progress, only to find out you not only lost....you lost by hundreds of points...and you're not sure how it happened. For someone new to the game, this can be quite frustrating.

I'm a chess player, and I know exactly how bad (or good) I'm doing just by counting the material on the board. It's a lot easier to do this than counting in Go. Progress is also iffy. You can play several moves in an endgame in chess and have no clue what you're doing either.

Keep in mind that Fischer was the ONLY World Chess Champion from America. I haven't read anything that states that there was a chess boom in 1907 when Frank Marshall played for the World Title. Other than that, though, the only other World Championship caliber player is Gata Kamsky, and I do not remember a boom in the late nineties when he played for the FIDE title in 1996. However, due to the fact that the Chess world championship title was split from 1993 to 2006, I didn't expect a mini-boom in the late nineties.

I am not a chess historian, but only an interested amateur, but from the reading I have done on the subject it seems to me that there was a slightly larger interest in chess in the US during times when Americans have world class players and serious contenders for the championship. This might include Morphy, Fine/Reshevsky, Fisher (of course), etc. I might be wrong, but knowing people and media, I'd be very surprised if there was not a strong correlation. Of course, a really great 'boom' was only during Fisher's time, but I think this was artificially hyped up because of the politics involved, and if a Fisher surfaced today the boom would have been much smaller.

But I might well be wrong on the above, I'll bow to a good argument which disconnects the level of play from the interest in the game.

You might be right. I'm not really a chess historian either, to be honest. But what you are saying makes sense, at least to me.

With a professional circuit, you get all three. Go is a very divided game. No World Champion, different rule sets, etc. Before a well established international professional circuit can exist, you need to solve these problems.

I am not sure an 'international' pro circuit is necessary.
Some countries seem to be doing just fine with national pro circuits.
My idea was to investigate how these circuits originated (in Go in Japan/China/Korea and in other disciplines, like Poker), find a common denominator (money, state support, both, or something else), and try to determine the best course of action from there.

International pro circuit I think is a much different problem than popularizing Go in a specific country.
As history shows.

Maybe once we popularize Go to the extent that we are talking about, the international pro circuit will fall into place. Who knows?

Or, Michael Redmond takes all the titles in Japan and Internationally all at once and retires to go out on top.

Michael who?!?

I am joking, of course, but I feel that unless he is ready to do what Cho Hunhyun did - go back home and sacrifice years building up a solid player base, using his name and successes as a spring board (Schlemper did that too in Holland in the 70s, I seem to remember, and maybe Catalin is trying to do now in Europe), he is pretty much meaningless to American Go. The Asian players who reside in the US and play in tournaments have much larger influence on the Go popularity here than all the titles Redmond can win.

But again, my personal opinion only.

Makes sense. He's I'd say 15-20 years away from retiring, but the real question is does he have the correct personality for marketing the game like Cho Hunhyun did?

[Mef]

If you're a bad chess player, it's not so hard to find opponents near your level. I doubt I'm more than 20 kyu in chess, but four out of five times I play an aquaintance, I have the advantage. For Go, it's not so easy. It can be a really dispiriting realization that you'll have to take 9 stones from every single player at the club, and that this won't change for another 3 months of steady play. Playing people who can beat you is fine--playing with the feeling that you're out of your league is unsettling.

Not to mention in go, unlike chess, your loss is quantified. In chess if you're a beginner, you get checkmated, game's over, oh well. The guy sitting next to you who's been playing for years loses the same way (as far as you can tell). In go, your opponent gives you 9 stones, you play hundreds of moves out not sure if you're making progress, only to find out you not only lost....you lost by hundreds of points...and you're not sure how it happened. For someone new to the game, this can be quite frustrating.

I'm a chess player, and I know exactly how bad (or good) I'm doing just by counting the material on the board. It's a lot easier to do this than counting in Go. Progress is also iffy. You can play several moves in an endgame in chess and have no clue what you're doing either.

But if you're a beginner it's not as readily apparent (I doubt someone just introduced to chess is already counting material), and still the loss is just a loss, you don't lose by 150, or even lose by the material difference on the board, you just get a 0-1. It would be like if at the end of the game in chess, you not only were checkmated, but you had to sit through your opponent counting how many of his pieces were left and how many of yours had been captured just to verify...In chess is far rarer that you will be in an absolutely dominated position, yet have to continue for 150 moves just to verify that fact (this is assuming you don't have an opponent that is just toying with you). It would be similar to if chess had a rule where you must remove every other piece from the board before you could declare checkmate (even if they were in checkmate).

[henric]

Not to mention in go, unlike chess, your loss is quantified. In chess if you're a beginner, you get checkmated, game's over, oh well. The guy sitting next to you who's been playing for years loses the same way (as far as you can tell). In go, your opponent gives you 9 stones, you play hundreds of moves out not sure if you're making progress, only to find out you not only lost....you lost by hundreds of points...and you're not sure how it happened. For someone new to the game, this can be quite frustrating.

It might be of course, but not necessarily. As I recall from my own first months as a goplayer I found that kind of experience mysterious and intriguing, I think it added to the fascination of the game.

H.

[gromit]

It's fascinating, yes, and I suspect that a lot of people keep playing because they're fascinated rather than because they're having a lot of fun. Chess is fun even if you've only just learned the rules; at that level, Go is just bewildering and frustrating. My own theory is that chess becomes less enjoyable as you get stronger, whereas Go becomes more so (at least up to a certain point). A lot of people don't get to the point where Go is enjoyable enough to keep playing.

[topazg]

It's fascinating, yes, and I suspect that a lot of people keep playing because they're fascinated rather than because they're having a lot of fun. Chess is fun even if you've only just learned the rules; at that level, Go is just bewildering and frustrating. My own theory is that chess becomes less enjoyable as you get stronger, whereas Go becomes more so (at least up to a certain point). A lot of people don't get to the point where Go is enjoyable enough to keep playing.

I found both got more enjoyable the stronger I got. I'm a stronger go player than a chess player, but for me, they become fun as soon as you are in a position where you can always have a whole game plan, that evolves and adapts as the game continues.

[palapiku]

Am I the only one who doesn't find chess enjoyable? In go your moves do something. They may not do much, but at least it's not easy to ruin your own position with a move. In chess, a move is just as likely to make your position worse as to make it better, and, as a beginner, I can't tell one from the other. Most of the time I feel like not moving at all would be safest. But I have to move, so I try reading ahead, and the positions at the limit of my reading ability don't seem any better or worse than the original. I end up picking a move pretty much at random. Eventually a bunch of my pieces die and I have no will to play anymore.

In go, beginners very quickly get to a stage where they build walls and separate the board into huge territories - they may not be doing it correctly but at least there's some visible meaning to their moves.

[Stable]

You guys need a new acronym - IANACH - it even sounds good!

[nagano]

You guys need a new acronym - IANACH - it even sounds good!

What's this supposed to mean?

[Suji]

Am I the only one who doesn't find chess enjoyable? In go your moves do something. They may not do much, but at least it's not easy to ruin your own position with a move. In chess, a move is just as likely to make your position worse as to make it better, and, as a beginner, I can't tell one from the other. Most of the time I feel like not moving at all would be safest. But I have to move, so I try reading ahead, and the positions at the limit of my reading ability don't seem any better or worse than the original. I end up picking a move pretty much at random. Eventually a bunch of my pieces die and I have no will to play anymore.

In go, beginners very quickly get to a stage where they build walls and separate the board into huge territories - they may not be doing it correctly but at least there's some visible meaning to their moves.

In chess, it's much easier to see what your pieces do. At least that's the feeling I get when I play Go. Chess is probably a draw so with best play the evaluation shouldn't change much.

[hyperpape]

I am not a chess [something]? By analogy with IANAL-I am not a lawyer.

[Suji]

I am not a chess [something]? By analogy with IANAL-I am not a lawyer.

Historian. Look at mine and Bantari's posts again.