Principles and Concrete Knowledge - Question to the Strong

[Tami]

Hi all,
The following question is aimed at players over 3D. It's not that I'm being rankist, but rather that I would specifically like to know what the stronger players think makes them strong.

I'm nearly 40, and I have played go for 12 years, off and on. I have been knocking at the door of shodan (measuring by KGS, which seems a reasonably stiff standard) for about 3 or 4 years, but with breaks in between. I think that I should be able to reach 3D, and perhaps higher, as I have a track record of being a slow learner who gets there in the end (e.g., I am reasonably fluent and literate in Japanese, having started in 2001 and restarted more determinedly in 2006).

To improve my game, I am trying to do the following two things:

A) Accumulate Knowledge
B) Learn (and Relearn) and apply general principles

Up to now, I have had the tendency to try to learn everything all at once, to attempt to read a week's worth of material in an hour and to do 25 tsumego instead of just a few. Recently, I started being kind to my short-term memory and began studying things in frequent short bursts, focussing on small amounts of material, and this certainly feels like a more effective way to study. I cannot say for certain, as I have only implemented this change of study style in the last month, but I cannot help thinking that my impatient ways of old were the very reason I learned so slowly, in go and other things.

Now, I would like to know what you think about the following statements:

1) Strength in go is a mixture of technical knowledge (tesuji, L and D, joseki) and strategic understanding
2) You can improve by increasing knowledge
3) You can improve by deepening understanding
4) You can improve a lot by increasing knowledge AND by deepening understanding. That is, the thing that makes a top-level player (I mean the kind of player we like to watch on EuroGo TV) is not only understanding the principles of the game, but also being able to come up with the technical vocabulary to express them, in the same way that native-speakers of a language are marked not only by knowing the underlying principles, but when highly educated are also able to call into play idioms and allusions, and precisely chosen words).

And, especially

5) You should not attempt to apply technical knowledge consciously, but rather wait for the appropriate time - i.e., don't play a new joseki or probe sequence because you have just studied it, but only deploy it on a case-by-case basis.
6) You should, however, attempt to apply strategic principles consciously and generally, because they are much more broad-ranging.
7) You cannot apply all general principles consciously all of the time, but you can choose one aspect (say a weakness identified through reviewing your games) and focus on that until it becomes "automatic" and then select another. For example, at this moment, I want to engrave the words "play honte: guard while aiming" into my mind.

I acknowledge also that go strength is probably also closely related to emotional self-control and personality, but for now, I would like to keep the discussion limited to "pure go ability" as opposed to "meta abilities".

Thank you for your opinions!

[Solomon]

1) Strength in go is a mixture of technical knowledge (tesuji, L and D, joseki) and strategic understanding

I like to clump up technical knowledge and strategic understanding together, and say that strength in Go is a mixture of that and your reading abilities. It's one thing to be knowledgeable of certain tesuji patterns, it's another to be able to consider the patterns in your game while reading and understand when it's correct to apply it (e.g., just because there's an under-the-stone tesuji on the board doesn't mean it's necessarily the right move to play).

2) You can improve by increasing knowledge ; 3) You can improve by deepening understanding

They come as a set. Trying to do #2 without #3 is like me trying to improve at math by learning theorems without understanding the proof or spending time trying to derive it by myself.

4) You can improve a lot by increasing knowledge AND by deepening understanding. That is, the thing that makes a top-level player (I mean the kind of player we like to watch on EuroGo TV) is not only understanding the principles of the game, but also being able to come up with the technical vocabulary to express them, in the same way that native-speakers of a language are marked not only by knowing the underlying principles, but when highly educated are also able to call into play idioms and allusions, and precisely chosen words).

As I said earlier, to improve at all you need to do both. I'm not sure what to say regarding your linguistics example...sounds nice, but a bit confusing for me.

5) You should not attempt to apply technical knowledge consciously, but rather wait for the appropriate time - i.e., don't play a new joseki or probe sequence because you have just studied it, but only deploy it on a case-by-case basis.

I think repetitively doing it for a few games, regardless of whether it's appropriate in the global situation, can help in the long term because you will never forget it.

6) You should, however, attempt to apply strategic principles consciously and generally, because they are much more broad-ranging.

Sure.

7) You cannot apply all general principles consciously all of the time, but you can choose one aspect (say a weakness identified through reviewing your games) and focus on that until it becomes "automatic" and then select another. For example, at this moment, I want to engrave the words "play honte: guard while aiming" into my mind.

Sounds like tunnel-vision Go to me. Why not try to apply all general principles consciously, then when you review your game, see which principles you couldn't apply and reinforce on those instead?

[ez4u]

Tami, I think that you have posed a fundamental question that touches on the nature of Go and learning and knowledge. Personally, I think that I see the world a little differently.

Strength in Go comes down to winning against stronger and stronger opponents. That is the only meaningful measure and the only definition that can be reliably related to the outside world.

Principles are verbal rules abstracted from our shared experience of the game. As Wikipedia tells us, "Abstractions may be formed by reducing the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose." (emphasis added) Unfortunately, the particular purpose here is to teach Go to people that do not (yet) understand it well. The reduced information content is the game-specific details that ultimately spelled victory or defeat. So, we can learn general principles and we can apply them to our games. However, those concepts or rules of thumb will only take us so far because they do not include all that goes into deciding a game of Go. Beyond a certain point we will not get stronger by running through our mental check list of principles or by refining it. We must play, applying all the knowledge that we have in the time available. Then we must analyze what we did, whether it worked, what our opponent did, whether it worked, whether we anticipated it, whether we understood it when we saw it (if not, what was outside our existing knowledge?), etc. In that way we strive to understand and integrate into our game the missing information content that was abstracted out of our general principles when they were formulated. Ultimately Go is all about choosing where to place the next stone, and the next, and so on. We always have to choose among the available candidate plays and normally we have only limited time to make our choice. I firmly believe that Go is more like tennis than it is like philosophy or mathematics. Winning and getting stronger is about how hard you have praticed and how much knowledge and skill you can bring to bear on the challenge presented by your opponent, right here and right now.

[Kirby]

...I firmly believe that Go is more like tennis than it is like philosophy or mathematics. Winning and getting stronger is about how hard you have praticed and how much knowledge and skill you can bring to bear on the challenge presented by your opponent, right here and right now.

I like this quote, but it makes me ponder about the real difference between learning tennis and learning philosophy and mathematics. Mathematics and philosophy seem, to me, to be fields that require practice. A skilled mathematician or philosopher should probably also be able to exhibit their expertise in a "right here and right now" fashion.

I know that I agree with the idea of getting stronger simply by practice. But is there something more to acquiring skill in go that is different than getting stronger at math or philosophy? Or is this simply an example of how practical knowledge trumps theoretical knowledge?

[Bantari]

Since I am not very strong, I will just make a few general and mostly unrelated comments, if you allow. These are my opinions only.

---
From my own experience, the kind of thinking we call 'strategic' became more and more intuitive and subconscious as I grew stronger. For example, as a kyu player, I would think: 'I should not play here, since you should not play too close to strength'. With time, as I got to be a dan player, I mostly forgot such 'rules' and only struggle to bring them to mind consciously when I teach. My approach to moves right now is more like: 'Ugh, this seems close to his stones, I remember I got into trouble like this before, but lets read it out there might be something specific to this particular position.' Every now and then you see pros playing moves like that - close to walls, making empty triangles, and stuff like that. This is because they read it out and reading trumps generic principles every time!

---
Strategic principles, in general, is a statistical extrapolation of the knowledge of the past. But, like with all statistics, you can never be sure it applies to a particular case. Sure, the better the 'rule', or the more vague it is worded - the more likely it will apply to a particular situation. But also - the weaker you are, the less impact the discrepancy will have. And conversely, the stronger you are the more impact such discrepancies will have. For example: a weak player might call it a success to play the second-most efficient move which the 'rule' suggests and call it a success. A strong player is not happy with the second-most, but keeps reading until it find the best move, even if it goes contrary to the 'rule'.

---
One of the beautiful elements of Go is that, ultimately, it has elements of both art and science. Its sort-of like with the strategic rules - the art is mostly present because of our inability to read deep, but this does not make it any more factual. So we have a lot of not-quantifiable elements, like intuition, creativity, and stuff like this. I am not sure this can be learned, but I notice this is required at a higher level as you grow stronger. I am also not sure how it can be trained or acquired other than through experience.

---
Technique, seen as 'shortcut' for reading and confidence in one's own skill, also becomes more and more important and pushes the 'strategic thinking' into the background. So, a weak player would think 'I will make a strong wall because I know it is good strategy' while a strong player would think 'I will make a strong wall because I know I have the skill to convert it into advantage.' This is technique. Many times in my games I did not create such strong walls because there were elements in the position which made me suspect converting the wall into advantage would be problematic. This would assume you use some kind of 'strategy' to look for these elements, but I just call it experience - since it is more intuitive than derived from some well defined principle.

Bottom Line:
Strength in Go is ultimately based on reading. I.e. if you can read out each situation to its logical conclusion, you have no need for strategic principles, proverbs, etc. Of course, none of us in here is strong enough for this to apply, maybe (top) pros and some top amateurs play like that, maybe not. Still, what I am trying to say is that strategy is basically a crutch which should compensate for our inability to read sufficiently deep.

Thus, as you grow stronger, reading will come to the forefront and 'strategic thinking' will become more and more intuitive, converging with the creative aspects of Go.

Additionally:
I see you said something about playing Joseki patterns you have just learned. I think, the 'proper' way is to only play a sequence if it is 'appropriate' i.e. the position is such that this sequence is advantageous. This is all good and pretty if you are playing for money or something, but for most of us the reality is different. To understand a pattern at our level, we have to experiment with it, play it in all kinds of situations, until we know in what positions it works and it what positions it does not. And what the pittfals are of playing a sequence at a wrong moment. Other than spending 12 hours daily studying Go, this is the most efficient method for most of us to learn. So - i would say - try new patterns, experiment, and once you have some kind of understanding, add the pattern to your 'arsenal' for important games.

[Joaz Banbeck]

Use FireFox, not IE.

[Dusk Eagle]

Use FireFox, not IE.

Good advice, but that probably won't make you stronger (wrong thread?).

[dabird]

Use FireFox, not IE.

Good advice, but that probably won't make you stronger (wrong thread?).

It's great advice! When I switched to Firefox from IE:

1. I gained 2 stones in strength
2. I became more attractive to my wife
3. I lost 5 kilos in unwanted weight
4. Got a raise
5. And generally lived a more fulfilled life.

[Bantari]

Depends on the perspective.

Personally, I think the best value of Firefox is Firebug.
If not for Firebug, I would have been using Chrome or even Safari.

There are some very good reasons to use IE as well, as I am discovering...

[Tami]

Thank you, everybody, for your replies and thoughts.

I appreciate the point that technical knowledge and strategic understanding go hand in hand. For instance, the same tesuji that is "skilful" in one situation may be inappropriate in another.

What I meant, though, was acquiring either new principles or new understandings of known ones. As Bantari said, one probably invokes relevant guiding principles according to the situation. But, when you want to learn a new principle, don't you first have to go consciously looking for its place in the game, until it presents itself naturally when the appropriate circumstances emerge? When I learned to drive, I had to remember consciously to apply the "Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre" routine, and over time it learned to apply itself.

Araban suggested trying to apply all principles together, but I don't think I can do that. I cannot hold that many things in my working memory simultaneously; I can only deliberately effect a limited number of changes to my thinking patterns at any one time.

You severally mentioned the importance of reading, while I neglected it entirely. Thank you for highlighting this. It is a definite weakness in my game - I often seem to get good positions through applying principles, only to be tripped up by something I did not read through.

I know the old saying about memorising joseki and getting two stones weaker, and studying them to get stronger. It is still quite difficult, though, to restrain the desire to play a freshly learned sequence, even if you don't think it fits the position! Possibly Araban's saying that you do it anyway is a pretty good idea - play out the sequence, and even if it is wrong, at least you won't forget it. I suspect this highlights another reason people don't always improve as quickly as they would wish: they're not willing to lose, even throw away, a few games in the short term to achieve long-term growth.

There's always something to learn! And sometimes you're completely on your own, with no compass to help you find your way through the position at hand.

What a fabulous game!

[Bantari]

What I meant, though, was acquiring either new principles or new understandings of known ones. As Bantari said, one probably invokes relevant guiding principles according to the situation. But, when you want to learn a new principle, don't you first have to go consciously looking for its place in the game, until it presents itself naturally when the appropriate circumstances emerge? When I learned to drive, I had to remember consciously to apply the "Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre" routine, and over time it learned to apply itself.

For what is worth, here is what I think.

Acquiring new principles (or learning to understand old ones better) is not very useful in itself. It has to be done in the context of your game.

So, the question to ask is:
Could I have played better here or there?
Would a strategic understanding of a certain principle prevent me from mistake?
Would better reading?
And so on...

One could probably come up with quite a handful of principles, good or not, but only some have the power to educate you and make you stronger. At any given time. At a different time, other principles/methods might be more useful. It is all about what you need at the moment, and this you can find out from the way you play.

I do not believe there is an universal answer.
It all depends on the player and on the moment.

The best advice I can give you is not to go and study left and right, but observe yourself critically and honestly, both the won and lost games, and at each move as yourself if you could have done better, and if so - how? It helps if you can ask stronger players, but take their advice with a grain of salt - what they say might be applicable to them but not necessarily to you. I think honesty is the key. Honesty with capital 'H'.

And, most of all - do not take anything for granted!
This goes especially for any strategic principles you learn!

Go is such a wonderful game.

[tchan001]

http://tchan001.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... lculation/
http://www.igoindonesia.org/tutorial-go ... -hard.html

[daal]

...

There's always something to learn! And sometimes you're completely on your own, with no compass to help you find your way through the position at hand.

What a fabulous game!

Now that the strong have had their say, just out of curiosity, are you the same person that posted this on SL? I have the sense of recognizing the voice...

I liked the article quite a bit, and referred to it a few months ago here.

While principles are certainly enticing, I've come to the conclusion that they are quite valuable for suggesting lines of play but are doubtful advisers when it comes to making a decision.

[Tami]

Yes, it was me who came up with the Compass idea.

Basically, I thought it would be a good thing to have a visual metaphor for applying changes.

Recently, I have been studying research in memory and learning, and now I know that one pitfall is trying to learn too many things at the same time or trying to make too many changes at the same time. The reason is that the working memory has limited capacity.

In go terms, you could learn thousands of principles and how and when to apply them. You can obviously learn thousands of units of technical knowledge, too. Yet, the psychology would say that you cannot acquire them all at once. Rather, you would have to learn each thing separately, and then allow for consolidation, which can take not days, not months but even years.

I can speak with more authority about music. I spent years and years listening to and studying, and making pastiches of, all kinds of music. Now, if I want to write something, I can usually find the chord or melodic idiom I wish to hear very easily; but I had to learn each one, one at a time. Again, when singing or play the guitar, although I combine many techniques, I learned each technique individually, and then gradually in combination with other ones.

So, what I was asking originally was not so much "Do you apply any one guiding principle? (Now that you are strong)" as much as "Do you think there is any value for learning how to play go well in tackling strategy one principle after another?" For instance, should one pay special attention to thickness for a time, and then having got that into their system, should they turn say to preserving aji or making good shape?

If there is value in tackling the acquisition of strategic understanding in such a step-by-step way, then maybe the compass could be my original contribution, as a simple way of visualising some thing you want to be do (N) and something you want to stop doing (S).

Learning technique seems different, though, because it is far more specific. I think one could frame a game in terms of thickness or honte, but not in terms of an under-the-stones tesuji. I wanted to find it who agreed with me, and if they disagreed, why.

There are ways to elaborate the compass analogy (such as adding flags and sub-compasses), but then it might be very difficult to carry this in one's mind. In light of what psychology says, I think it's better to keep it simple.

[gowan]

I like the metaphor that learning go is like learning tennis. I think there is something about learning go that makes it like learning a language, too. If you have to think about grammar rules all the time you won't speak fluently. I would say that the goal in go is to "speak" it (play it) fluently. If you want to learn to speak a language fluently you have to speak it a lot until all the "rules" become internalized and can operate without conscious thought. In an immersion setting, such as living in a foreign country, we try things and imitate native speakers, receive correction and try again. That's how we can learn and get stronger at go.