mart900 wrote: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.