Rank obsession

[jts]

Because most of the time when I ask the person if they would still enjoy 'learning' if they never improve, they look confused and seem to realize than they would not.

I'm confused by what you mean. If I spent all day with a history book open in front of me, but couldn't tell you anything about the material in the book at the end of the day, I wouldn't say I had learned anything. If I spent all day staring at a bunch of geometric proofs but, a week later, couldn't tell you why a²+b²=c², I wouldn't say I had learned anything.

Likewise, if I spent a lot of time reading go books, leafing through tsumego, and kibitzing on KGS, but didn't improve as a player, I might - in a self-important mood - call what I was doing "studying", but I wouldn't call it "learning".

So if your question is "Would you enjoy spending lots of time studying, and never learning anything?" I would answer, "No, that would be ridiculously frustrating." But that can't get you to the conclusion that people don't enjoy learning!

Preemptive reply to possible quibble:

(Whether this improvement can be measured in ranks is another question, but surely part of what you had in mind, Bantari. I would say that someone who has plateaued at 15k couldn't be learning anything new about Go, because at that level every new insight that you start applying consistently in your game causes your rank to skyrocket. On the other hand, I can imagine mid-dan players learning many new things about Go, leading them to play better games and to understand stronger players' games better, without gaining a rank. Furthermore, re-learning something can be more fun than learning it the first time, so to the extent that maintaining one's rank actually involves constantly forgetting things and then relearning them later, that could be enjoyable.)

[Toge]

All in all: yes, it is definitely possible to be too competetive and focused on winning. Yes, I would prefer to enjoy losses more, as long as it didn't prevent me from also enjoying things like learning and winning. Do you have any suggestions for how to change paradigms like that?

- I think being focused on winning and being focused on learning are contradictory. For example, if you're usually playing with influence-oriented style, your understanding of the game might be improved by playing territory-based game and vice versa. Someone who only wants to win plays moves that they are 100% sure about, like familiar joseki. I remember few stones ago when I started playing odd pincers just to understand them better and taking the kind of attitude that approaches don't necessarily need to be answered. Big thing about improvement is to challenge your own dogmas.

If all events are "actualizations" of a certain set of prior probabilities, and enjoying "actualized probabilities" is a bad attitude, then if I enjoy any event I have a bad attitude.

... am I following your train of thought properly?

- Yes that's the logic. What we ought to enjoy are the things beyond winning.

[Toge]

I disagree with the OP.

To say that the result is pre-determined... to me, just entirely undermines the effort that the players put into the game.

If everyone played the game so dispassionately, then sure, why bother rooting (sorry, not sure about this spelling, but no time to verify) for anyone.

(I know he said more than this, but I will have to wait until later before I can respond more, but this is what I had most wanted to say, anyway)

- What I find fascinating is how little one's attitude actually matters. Over the past year my rank has been somewhere between 1.5k - 0.5k . I've played on all days of week, all times of day, all states of mind. If you'd wake me up at night, I'd probably still throw a game at 1k level. There's no use trying to cheat the odds. Only playing at the very best condition and circumstances might give you another half a stone in strength, but conditions and states of mind are ephemeral. True progress is elsewhere.

[Wildclaw]

So, in the nutshell, what we really enjoy, most of the time at our basic primal level is to prove our superiority over weaker players,

I have always found the old mmorpg categorization of killers, achievers, explorers and socializers was a good one to highlight the differences between people.

Explorers and socializers doesn't really fit your description at all. Socializers would very much prefer if everyone improved at the same (slow) pace as them as it would give more opportunities to have fun socializing. As for the explorer, progress is tracked by the experience itself more than the final result. The main reason for an explorer to want to gain rank is so that he can get to play more interesting games.

[gowan]

P.S. Wanting people to not compete and indulge primitive notions of superiority isn't political correctness, it's hippy-dippy BS. Perhaps you dislike both, but they're very different things.

Glad to see you wrote "primitive notions of superiority". Unfortunately these primitive notions are ultimately responsible for most of the wars humankind has had to suffer, so hoping to rid ourselves of such notions is a noble idea. I've been fortunate to meet many strong professionals and been impressed with their attitudes regarding superiority. Though they may be strong go players most of them don't consider that that makes them superior people, they are quite humble in that respect.

[jts]

- What I find fascinating is how little one's attitude actually matters. Over the past year my rank has been somewhere between 1.5k - 0.5k . I've played on all days of week, all times of day, all states of mind. If you'd wake me up at night, I'd probably still throw a game at 1k level. There's no use trying to cheat the odds. Only playing at the very best condition and circumstances might give you another half a stone in strength, but conditions and states of mind are ephemeral. True progress is elsewhere.

Okay, but at some point between the first stone (when the odds of each player winning are .5) and the last stone (when the odds of one player winning is 1, and the other 0), something happens. Trying to track the probability as it changes is unpredictable and exciting, especially when the changes in the probability of one player's victory are changing as a result of amazing skill, rather than silly blunders.

[hyperpape]

@gowan I was badly paraphrasing bantari, who actually said "primal".

[Bantari]

I feel my ignorance in go when I watch a game of professionals, or much stronger players. I do not feel my ignorance when I play people of my own strength or thereabouts. At least I don't feel it that acutely.

But when I wish to learn and become stronger, I think about wanting to understand the professional games that I watch.

P.S. Wanting people to not compete and indulge primitive notions of superiority isn't political correctness, it's hippy-dippy BS. Perhaps you dislike both, but they're very different things.

1. You actually give a pretty intelligent and good reason for wanting to improve - and one that I can wholeheartedly agree with. To understand better and thus enjoy more the games of stronger players. Probably the best reason I have ever heard.

2. I do not want people to 'not compete and indulge'. I guess what I am trying to do is to convince people to stop hiding behind cheap pretense and platitude. If beating others and leaving them weeping in the dust is what you enjoy - more power to you! If overtaking those once stronger than you rocks your boat - great, keep doing it! If you derive some silly pride from the rank number by your name - go fer it, even if I find that sad! Just don't call it 'love of learning/improvement'. And don't expect me to bow to you just because your number is bigger than my number, lol.

[Bantari]

So if your question is "Would you enjoy spending lots of time studying, and never learning anything?" I would answer, "No, that would be ridiculously frustrating." But that can't get you to the conclusion that people don't enjoy learning!

Well, let me try to explain, since what you say is not really what I mean. First, some example questions:

1. Would you enjoy studying a joseki if you knew you will never have a chance to play it or anything like it?
2. More extreme - would you enjoy studying Go if you knew nobody else in the whole world will ever play it?
3. Or maybe - would you enjoy studying Go if you knew that you will never win a single game?
4. For your own example - Would you enjoy learning a formula if you knew it does not come up on the test and you will never use it?

My point is that for most people, learning is the means to achieve something, not the goal in itself. For most Go players, learning and studying is the means to beating other people. They think 'if I study hard and learn enough, i can beat him!' And so they learn and they study, and at the end they hope for the payoff - beating 'him'. If there was no 'him', most of us would not spend much time learning, we would be much weaker, and we would mostly play fun games rather than sweating over Go books.

So, what I was trying to say, is that I think that most of us do not really enjoy learning for the sake of learning itself.
All we want is to 'beat the sucker that clobbered us in that game last time' or some variation thereof.
And learning is the price we are willing to pay to get there.
And there is nothing really wrong with that.

But then we go all noble and PC and say 'we enjoy learning'.
Because saying 'we are mad at that guy and want to teach him a lesson and beat him good' would be somehow... cheap.

PS>
Present company excluded, of course.
Anyhow - this is what I was trying to say, more or less. Sorry for not making it more clear.

[Kirby]

There are a few topics in this thread, it seems, so I will only comment on one said topic.

Rank is important to me because it represents my chances of winning against a given person. Winning against a given person is important to me, because that is, to me, the objective of the game. Hence, if I improve myself to have a higher rank, I can win against more people, and be better at achieving the objective of the game.

If you don't play to win, you are just putting stones on the board. Monkeys can do that, too, but I doubt they get the same type of enjoyment from go as I do.

[Kirby]

...
But then we go all noble and PC and say 'we enjoy learning'.
Because saying 'we are mad at that guy and want to teach him a lesson and beat him good' would be somehow... cheap.

...

I would say that I enjoy learning for a purpose: to achieve the objective of the game. That is, to win.

I suppose there is also some satisfaction to solving go problems in the same way that I get satisfaction from solving puzzles, for example. When you solve a puzzle, you feel some sort of accomplishment, and it feels nice.

I guess I could compare it to fishing. I like fishing if I catch a fish. I don't like sitting with a line in the water if I have no hope of catching everything. Without the hope of catching the fish, I don't get much satisfaction.

I guess it's OK if I ultimately don't catch a fish, but at least I need hope that I could catch one.

I guess with go, it's OK if I ultimately don't beat my opponents, but at least I want to have hope that I could be able to.

[Bantari]

There are a few topics in this thread, it seems, so I will only comment on one said topic.

Rank is important to me because it represents my chances of winning against a given person. Winning against a given person is important to me, because that is, to me, the objective of the game. Hence, if I improve myself to have a higher rank, I can win against more people, and be better at achieving the objective of the game.

If you don't play to win, you are just putting stones on the board. Monkeys can do that, too, but I doubt they get the same type of enjoyment from go as I do.

Unless you play against the same people, regarding of your rank, this is flawed.
In real life, you usually play within a group of people with approximately the same rank as you. Thus your chances of winning each given game are approximately the same - about 50%. And this holds the same if you are 10k or 5d.

I assume what you are trying to say is that: rank is important for determining which group of people I should be part of and playing against.
Which i agree on. Rank is also important in determining handicap within this group.
But then rank is relative to this group only!
1d here can be 5k there and vice versa.

If you were literal in what you wrote, than such situation only existed in the past, when you were mostly confined within the small group of your fellow club players, and advancing in rank could really be a measure of how many people you can beat and how many can beat you. In other words - how many games a meeting you can expect to bring home. But in the age of internet and global village - this all looses its meaning.

[Kirby]

Well, the human population is finite, and fewer people exist at higher ranks (presumably).

So if I am a higher rank, I will have a better chance of beating a given individual, if his rank is unknown.

[Bantari]

Well, the human population is finite, and fewer people exist at higher ranks (presumably).

So if I am a higher rank, I will have a better chance of beating a given individual, if his rank is unknown.

Chances are - if you know the rules, you can already beat 99.9% of the planet's population.
Which pretty much mean 'any random person off of the street with the rank unknown'.

How much more hair do you wish to split?

[jts]

Well, the human population is finite, and fewer people exist at higher ranks (presumably).

So if I am a higher rank, I will have a better chance of beating a given individual, if his rank is unknown.

Chances are - if you know the rules, you can already beat 99.9% of the planet's population.
Which pretty much mean 'any random person off of the street with the rank unknown'.

How much more hair do you wish to split?

I think this is actually the strongest argument against your claim that the only component of go that all, or most people enjoy is knowing that they can clobber other people. I was most confident in my go abilities the day my dad taught me the rules, because I had figured out how ladders worked and he hadn't. Every improvement in my strength since then has further humbled me. As the percentage of the human population that I could beat rises, my feeling that I can easily crush other people slowly erodes. But that doesn't mean that I've been enjoying Go less and less. Rather the reverse, actually.

(To be technical, I think that as most people get stronger at something - doesn't have to be Go - the average ability of the set of people "who matter," the ones over whom a victory would be rewarding, rises faster than one's own ability.)

And I think I'm in the majority here. I'm not claiming that crushing people isn't fun; and it takes all types, so presumably there have been many people who enjoy Go exclusively to crush people (or because they make money off of it, or because it's a way to socialize, or as a non-negotiable part of social identity). But why is it that teaching games with stronger players (the stronger the better!) are so sought after, while playing with beginners is looked upon as a duty and an imposition? Why aren't we all sandbagging? On your theory, it's because we're really stupid and bad at getting what we want. On my theory, it's because a lot of players enjoy the intellectual aspects of the game more than victory for its own sake.