Crushing Beginners

[Polama]

Getting crushed, especially in a high handicap game, is like a personalized Go lesson. There's a treasure trove of things to learn in there. I've always been grateful when stronger players put in the effort to outplay me that far. I've found most players good enough for 9 stones or less on a 19x19 to be reasonable between us react similarly.

But when I know somebody doesn't take losses well, or they communicate that to me during the game with body language and exasperated sighs, I just simplify into a 10-20 point, easy win. If they don't want to learn what they're doing wrong, I'm not going to force them into it.

Once it's becoming a steam-rolling, I just try to be pleasant. I commiserate about how many times a monkey jump got away and destroyed all my territory too, or how you'll still miss the occasional atari at every level of play. I point out a few moves that, if they'd just done something simple a little different, would have left the game much closer, how it wasn't quite as one sided as it looks. And the next game you up the handicap or shrink the board size.

An absolute, been-playing-a-few-weeks beginner? I try to go a little easy, mostly because you never know how many handicap stones they're really going to need, even on 9x9. But a lower DDK I'd expect to have thick enough skin to lose bad, or at least the sense to resign if they don't.

[RobertJasiek]

my experience (even from the early 80s and late 70s when I started playing) is that it was the norm and common sense to handle it differently that you did.

Very likely. It would be a great surprise if all clubs in the world would follow the same style. (E.g., in Tokyo I was also in a club, where the manager arranged the opponent.)

this is sad,

Why? It was a great learning environment. It was also very much fun, because the games were seriously played with the intention to win.

And your implied claim that it was impossible to do otherwise

Sorry, but you need to be more specific: what was impossible?

[wineandgolover]

[Bantari]

Thus my conclusion that there might have been something special about the way you handled the situation, regardless of the scoring used.

Have you excluded the possibility that the difficulty of the position to be scored was part of the cause? I.e., when you had similar troubles, did you have equally difficult positions? (Open middle game position with ca. 3 dan difficulty of assessing death.)

Impossible to answer without seeing the position you are talking about.

I have had or seen all kinds of positions which were discussed in my 40 years of active playing. Some were trivial, some were complex, some were talked about for hours. But never did I see somebody leaving the club to never come back.

I am sorry, dude, until you present some very good reasons why it was not the fault of your interpersonal skills, I will remain convinced that the issue was not with the rules but between the chair and the board. The most I can admit to that it was possibly an issue of the student's character and the fact that he got offended for some reason independent of you. But this also would have nothing to do with the rules or scoring.

[Bantari]

Yes, because it was NOT a teaching game with the preagreed right to interrupt.

This particular aspect has nothing to do with 'preagreed right to interrupt' - you are really stretching here.

Its the most natural thing in the world to say: you don't agree that the group is dead, here, let me show you. This is done AFTER both passed and has nothing to do with any 'right to interrupt'. It does not change the winner or the loser, and even if it does - so what? *You* will know who won, regardless of the fact that rearranging stones might mess things up. Is that knowledge not enough for you?

I assume in such cases it might be better to say 'whatever' than getting into a situation which alienates a player from a club just so you can prove you crushed him. Sorry, dude, I am not letting you off the hook for this one. Even if you don't think there was nothing wrong with what you did.

As I said - we just have to agree to disagree here.

[shapenaji]

Since this appears to have arisen from RJ's comment in the rules thread,

I'd just like to add that I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with killing a newer player en masse.

But it has to be kindly and good natured. I tell the people I teach not to care too much about the score. The closeness of the game may not be represented by the score.

The cause of a person leaving is not going to be the level of death on the board, it's going to be the way death visits!

[lemmata]

On a 13x13 board with 4H, a dan player has a nontrivial chance of killing all of a DDK's stones without even trying---especially if the DDK is being aggressive. Heck, even just playing simple moves may result in such an outcome. In fact, against DDKs with an aggressive slant, a dan player may need to make an active effort to avoid this.

RJ's opinion about the causal relationship between the features of the Japanese rule set and the frustration of his opponent is certainly very debatable---as many of his opinions are. However, to admonish him for bad manners because he ended up killing everything against a beginner on a tiny board is ridiculous. Yes, the self-proclaimed 13-kyu player is a beginner if he cannot understand the life-and-death status of groups at what he himself agree was the end of a game (with the exception of bent-four and the like). Was RJ supposed to play bad moves intentionally? Given how many people on this forum seem to think that learning from examples (in particular, the moves of stronger players) is so effective, wouldn't seeing a high-dan player play bad moves actually hurt the weaker player?

Honestly, I find the story to be more informative about the counterproductive pride of his opponent. If that particular beginner's pride could not bear being crushed by someone with many more years of experience and time invested in the game, then I am glad that he quit. Sounds like the kind of person who would belittle weaker opponents once he got stronger.

Did RJ belittle his opponent with his speech because he was the stronger player? Was he playing inside his own territory to taunt his opponent with useless moves? We can even debate whether trying to crush your opponent is the best way to teach (Do we know that this was RJ's goal? Do we know how his opponent was playing?) Are people imagining details that were not mentioned in RJ's post from their preexisting opinions of RJ's character? Would people start criticizing the DDK if we replaced RJ's name with some pro's name? Would we perhaps even trot out some variation of "Asian players learn faster because they are willing to undergo trial by fire"?

Yes, RJ can be frustrating when you try to debate him, but that is no reason to essentially call him a dishonorable jerk based on his extremely brief description of the incident. Again, there's almost zero information in there. In fact, that's why the story doesn't support RJ's argument about Japanese rules. If we can recognize that, then we should be able to recognize that there is not enough information to impugn RJ's character either.

[Bantari]

I actually agree with pretty much everything you say. Two quick comments below:

On a 13x13 board with 4H, a dan player has a nontrivial chance of killing all of a DDK's stones without even trying---especially if the DDK is being aggressive. Heck, even just playing simple moves may result in such an outcome. In fact, against DDKs with an aggressive slant, a dan player may need to make an active effort to avoid this.

RJ's opinion about the causal relationship between the features of the Japanese rule set and the frustration of his opponent is certainly very debatable---as many of his opinions are. However, to admonish him for bad manners because he ended up killing everything against a beginner on a tiny board is ridiculous. Yes, the self-proclaimed 13-kyu player is a beginner if he cannot understand the life-and-death status of groups at what he himself agree was the end of a game (with the exception of bent-four and the like). Was RJ supposed to play bad moves intentionally? Given how many people on this forum seem to think that learning from examples (in particular, the moves of stronger players) is so effective, wouldn't seeing a high-dan player play bad moves actually hurt the weaker player?

Well, this is not necessarily so. As a so much stronger player, easily crushing your opponent, you can make the game the game more interesting by, for example, setting specific goals. Like: lets see if I can win by 1 point. Or, better yet, lets see if I can make such moves as to lead my opponent into saving his group. This can be quite challenging and often requires much more skill than simply killing everything in sight. And it can be very satisfactory if done right. And very instructional.

Remember HnG when both Akira and Hikaru attempted to get jigos in their simul games against much weaker opponents. I know HnG is fiction, and a poor one at that, but would you say that they 'played bad moves intentionally' and so robbed their opponents of a chance at learning by example? Or was their desire not to easily crush their opponents a much better lesson?

Honestly, I find the story to be more informative about the counterproductive pride of his opponent. If that particular beginner's pride could not bear being crushed by someone with many more years of experience and time invested in the game, then I am glad that he quit. Sounds like the kind of person who would belittle weaker opponents once he got stronger.

Slight issue I have with the above paragraph... As you say on one hand we have not enough information about the actual case, and on the other we *know* how very frustrating it can be to enter almost any kind of discussion with RJ, especially if it is a dispute. Based on this, my strong suspicion is that at least part of the problem is on RJ's side for... well, being RJ, his usual lovely self. Although I have also said that there is the possibility of the beginner's character flaws contributing to the sad outcome.

Did RJ belittle his opponent with his speech because he was the stronger player? Was he playing inside his own territory to taunt his opponent with useless moves? We can even debate whether trying to crush your opponent is the best way to teach (Do we know that this was RJ's goal? Do we know how his opponent was playing?) Are people imagining details that were not mentioned in RJ's post from their preexisting opinions of RJ's character? Would people start criticizing the DDK if we replaced RJ's name with some pro's name? Would we perhaps even trot out some variation of "Asian players learn faster because they are willing to undergo trial by fire"?

Yes, RJ can be frustrating when you try to debate him, but that is no reason to essentially call him a dishonorable jerk based on his extremely brief description of the incident. Again, there's almost zero information in there. In fact, that's why the story doesn't support RJ's argument about Japanese rules. If we can recognize that, then we should be able to recognize that there is not enough information to impugn RJ's character either.

[lemmata]

Well, this is not necessarily so...

Yes. My point is that both scenarios are reasonable possibilities.

Remember HnG when both Akira and Hikaru attempted to...

Yes, but that is closer to an issue of efficacy rather than one of morality. There are certainly enough stories of people hardening their skills through bangnegi, which sometimes involves crushing your opponent by employing unreasonable moves. Even Hikaru himself was viciously sliced to pieces by Sai in many practice games. Moreover, Akira and Hikaru had many motives for trying to get such results, and not all of them had to do with teaching someone else. In the case of Hikaru, he wanted to train himself in the endgame and counting. When Akira played the politician and his aides and one by 0.5 against all three, he actually seemed to be trying to demonstrate how strong pros were---in a way, his goal was similar to that which one might have when crushing a weaker opponent.

my strong suspicion is that at least part of the problem is on RJ's side...

That is not an unreasonable inference to draw in private conversations. I only object that this became the justification of a public denigration, which I believe requires a higher standard of proof. In a sense, I do understand how this can happen, because sometimes site like these do feel like private enclaves rather than public fora. Of course, you do not have to agree with these standards, but that's where I am coming from.

Look, you seem like an intelligent person if I read your other posts. You must know intelligent people with whom you can have a stimulating conversation. I just think that you and others will be happier if you talk to someone else. I won't insist upon this point any further now that I've gotten my two cents in. After all, whatever I say is only opinion as well.

Cheers.

[Bantari]

Well, this is not necessarily so...

Yes. My point is that both scenarios are reasonable possibilities.

Remember HnG when both Akira and Hikaru attempted to...

Yes, but that is closer to an issue of efficacy rather than one of morality. There are certainly enough stories of people hardening their skills through bangnegi, which sometimes involves crushing your opponent by employing unreasonable moves. Even Hikaru himself was viciously sliced to pieces by Sai in many practice games. Moreover, Akira and Hikaru had many motives for trying to get such results, and not all of them had to do with teaching someone else. In the case of Hikaru, he wanted to train himself in the endgame and counting. When Akira played the politician and his aides and one by 0.5 against all three, he actually seemed to be trying to demonstrate how strong pros were---in a way, his goal was similar to that which one might have when crushing a weaker opponent.

my strong suspicion is that at least part of the problem is on RJ's side...

That is not an unreasonable inference to draw in private conversations. I only object that this became the justification of a public denigration, which I believe requires a higher standard of proof. In a sense, I do understand how this can happen, because sometimes site like these do feel like private enclaves rather than public fora. Of course, you do not have to agree with these standards, but that's where I am coming from.

Look, you seem like an intelligent person if I read your other posts. You must know intelligent people with whom you can have a stimulating conversation. I just think that you and others will be happier if you talk to someone else. I won't insist upon this point any further now that I've gotten my two cents in. After all, whatever I say is only opinion as well.

Cheers.

Ok, all good points, I accept that. Will tone down my criticism, with apologies to Robert.

[RobertJasiek]

Its the most natural thing in the world to say: you don't agree that the group is dead, here, let me show you. This is done AFTER both passed

And this is what I did as part of the scoring.

regardless of the fact that rearranging stones might mess things up.

I do not recall if we did scoring by imagined sequences or temporary stones on the board. Maybe a combination of both.

I assume in such cases it might be better to say 'whatever'

Eh? You want me (and others in similar situations) to LIE about group status and to do so just in case the opponent MIGHT otherwise go away (something I had not even anticipated, because I had not seen it before)?!

we *know* how very frustrating it can be to enter almost any kind of discussion with RJ, especially if it is a dispute.
[...] Will tone down my criticism, with apologies to Robert.

Apology accepted.

[Bantari]

Its the most natural thing in the world to say: you don't agree that the group is dead, here, let me show you. This is done AFTER both passed

And this is what I did as part of the scoring.

regardless of the fact that rearranging stones might mess things up.

I do not recall if we did scoring by imagined sequences or temporary stones on the board. Maybe a combination of both.

I assume in such cases it might be better to say 'whatever'

Eh? You want me (and others in similar situations) to LIE about group status and to do so just in case the opponent MIGHT otherwise go away (something I had not even anticipated, because I had not seen it before)?!

we *know* how very frustrating it can be to enter almost any kind of discussion with RJ, especially if it is a dispute.
[...] Will tone down my criticism, with apologies to Robert.

Apology accepted.

Thank you.

[Bonobo]

Totally OT comment about how I perceive this here

Folks, methinks we all lack a few interpersonal skills. (Me in the first place because I comment on this )

First of all being the knowledge that any meta-talk which uses accusations, or more generally: … which uses “you” statements (as opposed to “I” statements) is bound to fail. Usually, “you” statements like “you’re doing this & that” are easily perceived as accusations, and then it goes back & forth with everybody telling the other side what they’re doing … <yawn> … seen this so many times, and usually it just ends with most everybody having a bad taste in their mouth.

I’ve been guilty of this many times. Now I’m trying to be aware of when this happens, and then I try to switch to finding out more about what I’m beginning to get agitated about. When I’m successful in this switch I usually find myself in a relaxed and calm situation after a while When not, well, that’s when I look like a fool