What are the Skills of Go?

[Magicwand]

i believe
reading and attitude and knowledge are only three skills in the game.
every part of the game can be catagorized into reading.
and attitude is what gives you a mistakefree game and high concentration level.
memorizing joseki or life and death can be a knowledge which is different from reading.

[SmoothOper]

Hi all, (after a relatively long silent period)

To me the most important skill in Go is what Tami calls the "meta-skills" like positive attitude, respect, enjoyment, etc. Otherwise, I find playing pointless unless you are pro.

If, on the other hand, the question relates to skills for improving (or being strong) at Go, then I would say it is the applied knowledge and visualisation (to my understanding reading = applied knowledge + visualisation).

At some level you have to promote the game to get better. If you think about the ranking as a rating and that rating is based on the number of people which you are rated above, and if you are the top then the only way to improve your rating is to get more people to play the game, likewise getting more people to play the game that are weaker than you will also improve your rating. Though specific meta-skills may be seen as unimportant in different cultures, so emphasis on these may alienate as many people as they attract. For example tami didn't list open mindedness and willingness to learn other cultures language, which I would value over any of the meta-skills tami listed.

[thirdfogie]

A brief thought about Tami's category "Applied Knowledge". Thanks to the inscrutable workings of the McMahon system,
I was recently drawn to play an opponent graded 3 stones weaker, and on another occasion, an opponent graded 4 stones
weaker. They made certain mistakes that I would not now make: both had a tendency to "Squeeze out the toothpaste"
relentlessly; one opponent could not see a one-point jump without peeping at it, and the other liked to invade everywhere.
Conversely, an opponent 4 stones stronger than me would be able to see my blind-spots clearly, though I might be unable to
properly understand them even if he explained them.

What all this means is that Applied Knowledge is important, but you can't say what any piece of it is until after
you have learnt it and integrated it. And that makes it frustratingly difficult to benefit from the concept.

[FlameBlade]

Big two skills to me:

1) Attitude
2) Reading
3) Reviewing

If you enter game thinking you will lose, you will lose. If you don't want to play, but play anyway, you will lose. Of course, unless...your opponent wants to lose harder than you. Keep positive attitude throughout the game, and keep thinking that you will win...often, that will keep you from faltering, and your opponent, thinking he has upper hand will get complacement, and then a golden opportunity to get on the top.

Of course, in order to find such opportunity, keep reading! Never stop reading. More information you get from reading, more you can make plans. Granted, stronger players will see more and make more plans/counterplans, but hey, if you keep reading, you will learn from your opponent, and absorb his powers into your power.

Of course, there are other things..knowledge-related, but those are more for enjoyability than serious playing...more you read during josekis, more you learn, I think. I don't bother with josekis these days...of course, if a certain someone keeps trying to trick me...I'll be ready.

Also, big skill is learning how to review. Pick few spots where you thought your game went to the grapes, and focus on these and see if you can figure out what you could have done better. If you can't find anything, chances, are, something went wrong few moves back. Also, all of three are best thing you can do to yourself if you are trying to improve.

[Garuseimasahi]

Reading.

[illluck]

Judgement, reading, and shape.

[Kirby]

1.) Positional Judgement
2.) Reading
3.) Arguing on go forums

[otenki]

I'm going to add one because I think it has never been mentioned before. Not sure if you guys will agree though.

- Creativity

I think it is not strictly required to be creative BUT if you look at some pro or ama games I notice that sometimes they will adapt to certain situations in very creative way. I'm not saying that they did not read it but just that they required quit some creativity in order to come up with a move that is different from where you would normaly start to read.

Because lots of times this result could better than the "normal" response, I think creativity is a real asset in go.

Cheers,
Otenki

[SmoothOper]

I'm going to add one because I think it has never been mentioned before. Not sure if you guys will agree though.

- Creativity

I think it is not strictly required to be creative BUT if you look at some pro or ama games I notice that sometimes they will adapt to certain situations in very creative way. I'm not saying that they did not read it but just that they required quit some creativity in order to come up with a move that is different from where you would normaly start to read.

Because lots of times this result could better than the "normal" response, I think creativity is a real asset in go.

Cheers,
Otenki

I agree with creativity being valuable, but I feel it tends to get run out by the narrow minded 4-4 handicap conventional approach crowd.

[Magicwand]

I'm going to add one because I think it has never been mentioned before. Not sure if you guys will agree though.

- Creativity

I think it is not strictly required to be creative BUT if you look at some pro or ama games I notice that sometimes they will adapt to certain situations in very creative way. I'm not saying that they did not read it but just that they required quit some creativity in order to come up with a move that is different from where you would normaly start to read.

Because lots of times this result could better than the "normal" response, I think creativity is a real asset in go.

Cheers,
Otenki

way i look at it is that creativity is a part of reading.

[SmoothOper]

I'm going to add one because I think it has never been mentioned before. Not sure if you guys will agree though.

- Creativity

I think it is not strictly required to be creative BUT if you look at some pro or ama games I notice that sometimes they will adapt to certain situations in very creative way. I'm not saying that they did not read it but just that they required quit some creativity in order to come up with a move that is different from where you would normaly start to read.

Because lots of times this result could better than the "normal" response, I think creativity is a real asset in go.

Cheers,
Otenki

way i look at it is that creativity is a part of reading.

There is more to creativity. Creativity, also has to do with working out the variations and lines of play to novel moves, not simply reading out one game.