Growth

[jts]

Hailthorn, when you play weaker players, do you give a handicap? Part of the beauty of go is that whether you play a 1k or a 19 k, neither of you should crush the other, provided you use an appropriate handicap.

[Toge]

Playing weaker players can be as simple as accepting games from those who are one rank lower than you. You get adequate challenge without having to change your fuseki against handicap stones.

[palapiku]

For that matter, you don't necessarily need to give any advice to someone 1 or 2 ranks below you. It's not that big a difference in skill.

[oren]

Today, I was sitting at my desk with an Open Game, waiting for someone to challenge me. It's what I often do. Because I have a ~ most players won't accept my challenges, and so I wait for challenges to find me. And they often do.

Why not just hit automatch?

[hailthorn011]

Today, I was sitting at my desk with an Open Game, waiting for someone to challenge me. It's what I often do. Because I have a ~ most players won't accept my challenges, and so I wait for challenges to find me. And they often do.

Why not just hit automatch?

It doesn't bother me to wait. lol

[aurik]

Sometimes I feel bad about playing people far weaker that I am, so I set my automatch on KGS to only accept rank difference up to 3 stone handicaps.

Even then, occasionally I feel bad about "playing dirty" and getting away with overplays against people 3 stones weaker. In that case, usually I will go back after the game and point out where I got away with robbery, and perhaps a thought or two about how I would have responded if I were in their shoes.

And of course, if they are serious about improvement, they can take the game record and review it and come to their own conclusions too. Some of my most important lessons have been at the wrong end of a beat-down. Years later, I still particularly remember a game where a terribly thoughtless empty triangle I made led to a fatal weakness in a running fight over 100 moves later. It is so engraved in my mind, I know I won't be making that mistake again.

You just have to get in the mindset that by playing a weaker player (especially with the wrong handicap) is ultimately doing them a favor, as they will probably gain far more from the exchange than you.

[Laman]

i used to have the opposite problem, i was afraid of losing to stronger players, so i was only safely crushing the weaker ones (though with proper handicap, of course)

and just one interesting advantage of playing white in handicap games: you get to play unusual moves and try new things more often than in even games. i realized this recently when my go was reduced to mainly playing in the local go club with a couple of players about 5 stones weaker than me. first, trying new moves is 'safe', because even if i screw things up, there is still good chance to turn the game over later, and second (more important), when i play only easy, common moves, my opponents will know the correct replies and i will have little chance to win, but when i play something even i am not familiar with, i can bet they will be neither, so i can get advantage solely from my better reading if from nothing else

no great discovery, just one more reason to play weaker players

[hailthorn011]

i used to have the opposite problem, i was afraid of losing to stronger players, so i was only safely crushing the weaker ones (though with proper handicap, of course)

and just one interesting advantage of playing white in handicap games: you get to play unusual moves and try new things more often than in even games. i realized this recently when my go was reduced to mainly playing in the local go club with a couple of players about 5 stones weaker than me. first, trying new moves is 'safe', because even if i screw things up, there is still good chance to turn the game over later, and second (more important), when i play only easy, common moves, my opponents will know the correct replies and i will have little chance to win, but when i play something even i am not familiar with, i can bet they will be neither, so i can get advantage solely from my better reading if from nothing else

no great discovery, just one more reason to play weaker players

True. I guess it's easier to try things against weaker players than stronger players. In that regard, we're polar opposites lol. It's weird. I've always preferred trying new things against stronger players to see how they can punish it. And then I take that knowledge and find it useful in even games.

I suppose both ways are win-win, though!

[hailthorn011]

Sometimes I feel bad about playing people far weaker that I am, so I set my automatch on KGS to only accept rank difference up to 3 stone handicaps.

Even then, occasionally I feel bad about "playing dirty" and getting away with overplays against people 3 stones weaker. In that case, usually I will go back after the game and point out where I got away with robbery, and perhaps a thought or two about how I would have responded if I were in their shoes.

And of course, if they are serious about improvement, they can take the game record and review it and come to their own conclusions too. Some of my most important lessons have been at the wrong end of a beat-down. Years later, I still particularly remember a game where a terribly thoughtless empty triangle I made led to a fatal weakness in a running fight over 100 moves later. It is so engraved in my mind, I know I won't be making that mistake again.

You just have to get in the mindset that by playing a weaker player (especially with the wrong handicap) is ultimately doing them a favor, as they will probably gain far more from the exchange than you.

True, I like the idea of being able to help others like I've been helped. The problem seems to be doing it. lol But hopefully I'll improve at it.

[tapir]

Giving handicap teaches a different set of quite useful skills, that is part of growth as well.

Though, I would advise to ask ? players about their experience before playing. I don't mind teaching games, even when we play even instead of 5 or 9 stones, but if you don't have time to review afterwards referring to beginners room is probably a better idea.

[tapir]

common moves, my opponents will know the correct replies and i will have little chance to win, but when i play something even i am not familiar with, i can bet they will be neither, so i can get advantage solely from my better reading if from nothing else

no great discovery, just one more reason to play weaker players

imo that's good for winning handicap games, but makes it difficult for the weaker players to learn from them. of course you should try something, but if you play only fancy stuff you just keep the weaker players weak without a proper reason. you have 300 moves to win a handicap game, you don't need to trick your opponent in the first corner.

[xed_over]

I rarely accept the challenges of weaker players, however. Part of me always thought that I was afraid of losing my rank.

...

But today, I decided to break the mold and play a 15k. They requested an even game. I agreed with the knowledge if this was a sandbagger, I was doomed to fall back to 10k. However, I've noticed I don't quite mind that too much. I'm not as rank obsessed as I used to be

aside from all the tilde bashing (which I don't agree with)...

losing an occasional game to a weaker play won't drop your rank enough to notice -- because you already have a history of rated games, both won and lost, at your current level.

If you don't play very many rated games, then one win or loss could indeed greatly affect your rating.

Best is not to worry about it and just play. Your win/loss averages will... average themselves out.

[odnihs]

From a concern over rank, you should just play +/-1 from your rank, and you'll still get a good game either way. No need to go out of your way to play people several ranks down or several ranks up (unless you're interested in playing a handicap game). I find this works out pretty well, since you balance out your games between stronger and weaker players(for the most part), and you still have relatively challenging games that you can benefit from.

[Exologist]

My KGS rank is extremely outdated and I'm too lazy to play a ton of games to update it. All I do these days is play weaker players and teach what is good or bad to do. Quite a few just starting out too. Usually they'll take handicap, some of them insist on playing even because they think they can still beat me. I think you can get better from any game, even if you aren't the one playing it as long as you put in the work to read through why moves are being played and why something failed or succeeded. It's all about the move that does more than one thing at a time.

[mongol]

Of course I was sarcastic, but fundamentally, if everyone only plays people stronger than they are, there will be no games.

LOL - I've never understood the mentality of not playing weaker players. If you only play stronger players, then you're guilty of doing exactly what the weaker player is doing when he challenges you. YOU are the weaker player in that case. Also, the stronger player is doing the very thing you're trying to avoid - playing a weaker player.