Life In 19x19

I guess I should hire Uberdude as a teacher!

daal wrote:Let me throw out another hypothesis: What is needed to become shodan is talent.

What is talent?

Is it some ineffable, indescribable thing which you have identified as you not having, that must be had?

Or do you feel it is some inbred, genetic advantage that some people have that makes them better than others?

200 years ago, the level of literacy was very low, less than 10% could read, it was believed by the literate population that people needed some kind of special talent to be able to read and only a small amount of population would be able to grasp this skill.

Today we have close to 100% literacy, and we know that it is nothing to do with talent and all to do with the access to education.

This idea of talent or breeding, or better genes, some people being better than others, is largely a myth.

In the past and even now it is used as an excuse to subjugate and repress people. But its also used as an excuse for failure.

I couldn't do it, it must be because I don't have talent, its not my fault, its my DNA, by breeding, my lack of talent.

If someone decides they can't do something, for whatever reason, then they will never be able to do so, because they have set themselves up with a mental barrier, if they say they can't improve at go because they need 'talent' then they will never improve, because they have invented an imaginary barrier they can never cross.

There are two things that control what a person can do, motivation and opportunity.

The opportunities for learning go are low, because we don't live in Japan, China or Korea when were were born. And the learning materials don't exist.

However that doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Motivation, a really broad term, its not just the will to improve, but maybe also the will to change, the will to accept you are wrong, maybe very much so. And the determination that if you are wrong, you find out why and how to improve.

When I talked about motivation I've also included a structure of learning, being wrong, finding out why, and then thinking how to improve.

If someone is frustrated for some reason, stressed, or angry, how to deal with it? There are things leading to those feelings, causes, removing those causes can remove those feelings. Introspection on what has lead to a situation, will give information on why it is happening, and perhaps give clues on how to proceed.

But if someone is no good at this process, if they can't identify the cause, and work out ways to avoid it in the future, they get stuck.

If you are trying to improve at go, but you get stuck, and you can't work out what to do better.

Maybe you don't need to improve at go, you need to improve at analysing a situation, identifying the cause, what lead to it, and how to avoid it in the future.

Reading, tsumego, tesuji, etc. These are just the obvious visual indications of go, like the fin of a shark, appearing above the water, you can get really good at these things, but there is more to being a good go player, just as there is more to the shark. And those skills need to be developed as well.

aiichigo wrote:

daal wrote:Let me throw out another hypothesis: What is needed to become shodan is talent.

What is talent?

Is it some ineffable, indescribable thing which you have identified as you not having, that must be had?

Or do you feel it is some inbred, genetic advantage that some people have that makes them better than others?

200 years ago, the level of literacy was very low, less than 10% could read, it was believed by the literate population that people needed some kind of special talent to be able to read and only a small amount of population would be able to grasp this skill.

Today we have close to 100% literacy, and we know that it is nothing to do with talent and all to do with the access to education.

This idea of talent or breeding, or better genes, some people being better than others, is largely a myth.

In the past and even now it is used as an excuse to subjugate and repress people. But its also used as an excuse for failure.

Is talent "some ineffable, indescribable thing?" No, that is not what I meant. What I meant is the ability of an individual to do something better than others given a similar amount of training and effort. To claim that such talent does not exist is tantamount to claiming that everyone is identical. We don't live in some ideal world where everyone is a blank slate. People are different and yes, they are born different. Some are born bigger than others, some are born deaf, some are born as women in a patriarchal society. To deny that some people have an advantage at birth only makes sense if you think we live in some utopia.

I do think that genes play a role in how well an individual can perform a task. Is it a myth that taller people are more successful at basketball than shorter ones? Clearly genes function to create individuals, in other words, people who are not the same. This is however not the only force that causes people to be different than one another. One's familial and social background also contribute to an individual's interests, inclinations and abilities. And talents.

Is talent the only factor to be taken into account when asking how good an individual can get at a particular task? Also no. Of course motivation, hard work and opportunity play an important role in how well someone can do something. My point is that there are some people, individual real people, who find it more difficult than other real individual people to grasp the basic concepts of go and to perform at a high level. Sure this can be compensated by hard work etc., but only to a certain extent.

When I say that perhaps talent is what allows people to reach shodan, I am not trying to make an excuse for my failure, but rather to find an explanation. Do you believe that failure is not possible? I did not make this hypothesis after trying to reach shodan in a year, but after having played for quite a few years and also after having been stuck for quite a few years. Perhaps you are right that I need to get better at analyzing my deficiencies, but what do you know about me as an individual that allows you to imply that I do in fact possess the innate ability just like everyone else to play at shodan level?

Hi Daal

Completely agree with you: talent IS a factor and talent is NOT the only factor.

Talent comes in multiple ways though and accordingly differnt ways of training can make up for it. Using a metaphor:

- the talented will run faster than the not so talented, when both are untrained
- the talented might still run faster than the trained not so talented, but not by a big margin, and not forever
- but in more complex affairs than running, the not so talented might discover that the talented has spontaneously tied his shoelaces first, and does not fall every few meters, like the untalented does

This is why I suggested to focus on the more circumstancial aspects of go for a while, things that the "talented in go" may unconsciously do already, like not giving up easily, always use their time and remain focused throughout the game. There is probably a bigger gap to cover there by training than the pure knowledge gap.

Proverb: "if you still run slowly compared to a gifted runner, despite all the training, inspect your shoelaces"

daal: I finished the book The Rookie last night. The conclusion is a mixture of hope and disappointment, but the answer there to your original query seems clear enough, viz. "Why do some people never reach shodan?" - They don't do the work.

Spoiler alert: those who intend to read the book themselves may wish to skip the rest.

To recap, as a book project, freelance author Stephen Moss devoted three years of his life to see whether, as a middle-aged chess weakie, he could improve enough to be considered an expert. In go terms, my guess is that he wanted to get from about 4-kyu to 3-dan. In those terms he got to about 3-kyu despite immersing himself in chess. Immersion means he played twice a week in club matches, and entered quite a few tournaments. This included travelling to USA, Russia and Europe. He acquired a teacher and reviewed all his tournament games with him. He played blitz games constantly online. He bought and read books and carried problems books with him to tournaments. He interviewed a huge slew of players, mostly grandmasters, about their own experiences of improving. Most of the time their experiences mirrored his own. He was a bright guy, too (Oxford graduate).

But he (and the stalled grandmasters) didn't do the work. For example, people who played the English Opening against him always creamed him. He never got round to studying that opening. He had a tried and trusty opening as Black but it gave him draws not wins. He never got round to studying an alternative, though under pressure from his coach he did successfully try a couple of new openings only to revert quickly back to his old favourites. He played blitz or drank beer, read chess history or shot the breeze with famous players, and even got reviews of his games from some. His understanding and appreciation of the game certainly went up. He made lots of vows. But he never got down to a sustained period of hard study. He never got a hold on his mental discipline off the board.

More significant, perhaps, he never got a hold on his mental discipline on the board. He got into constant time trouble, fell prey to blunders. He played the man and not the board. He fretted over his grade and took draws rather than risk losing.

The most interesting insight in the book for me was that for grandmasters, too, mental discipline on the board was a major problem, and maybe the main reason they declined. According to one grandmaster, when young they learn to harness nervous energy, and it is this which gives them discipline off the board, so that they can do the work. But as they get older this nervous energy becomes too much of a handful and turns into a negative force on the board. Grandmasters then can mask the effects by playing safe moves, but they have lost their creative energy and so don't win quite so often. That leads not just to poorer results and ratings, and fewer invitations to top events, but to a loss of motivation. It even leads to a fear of losing. Many take up coaching to live, but it seems that teaching makes you much weaker. Weaker players seem to follow a similar journey, but of course on the low road and not the high road.

As to how far anyone can go, a constant refrain was that after a long period of sustained study a player would improve noticeably, and was totally confident he could get even better. But he also in the process discovered how much work was needed to add that extra improvement and just couldn't face it. It was wasn't entirely laziness, although one guy pointed out that chess players are basically lazy - that's why they play chess to avoid going to work. The decision to pull the plug was mostly economic for the grandmasters. If you can't break into the top 100 in the world you can't make a decent living from playing. For amateurs it was a desire to do other things or spend time with family.

Talent hardly came up as a factor. What seemed most of all to differentiate one player starting from the same level as another was how much in love they were with the game. Being in love with the game seemed to be equated mostly with the feeling of freedom it gave. If the game makes you feel truly free, you work hard at it.

Whether any of that applies to your situation I obviously can't say, but I freely admit that I recognise almost all of it in my own experience and that of other players I know well. For me the beer drinking part is alien, and I can't say I've ever sensed freedom in either game, but the laziness and the delusion that immersion is work certainly apply to me.

But the good news is that Stephen appears to have reached a state of contentment. Even if he doesn't rack up wins on the scoreboard, he understands both the game and himself better, and now gets even more satisfaction from the chess scene in the widest sense. I can emphasise with that, too.

As to the book itself, for me it began as a 5-star work but gradually slid downhill, mirroring the author's quest. I have a feeling this may be intentional (the author is a literature graduate as well as professional writer) because the book remained a page-turner to the end. The downhill feeling also may be no more than the growing self-awareness it evokes!

it began as a 5-star work but gradually slid downhill...
the book remained a page-turner to the end.

Does it mean:
- starts at 5 stars ;
- drops to 4 or fewer stars, as a literary work ;
- despite that, still a good read

?

John Fairbairn wrote:daal: I finished the book The Rookie last night. The conclusion is a mixture of hope and disappointment, but the answer there to your original query seems clear enough, viz. "Why do some people never reach shodan?" - They don't do the work.

Many others have drawn similar conclusions in this thread, and it does seem plausible to some extent, though as I said above, I also see talent (and starting age) as limiting factors. But let's just assume that my limiting factors prevent me from reaching 4d, but I still haven't done the work to get beyond 4k. What is the work to be done? (Not just a question for JF) I very much like Knotwilg's approach, which is to assume that I have the knowledge but not the playing ability of a dan player, and that by improving my soft skills (time management, attitude, concentration) I could play up to my knowledge level. This is what I am working on now, but I also suspect that there are technical barriers to overcome, and I don't know how to do so. Among these deficits are: poor reading ability, not knowing whether the outcome of a sequence is good or bad, poor reading, forgetting learned sequences such as tesujis or josekis (probably because they reappear too infrequently and I don't know which ones to prioritize), and poor reading ability. Did I say poor reading ability?

Perhaps this all mirrors what you said later in the post, that some people realize the amount of work necessary to be done and can't face doing it. While I admit that I get distracted by writing posts like this one or studying something else, I have been spending an hour or so a day studying go - doing problems, playing out out the examples in books on the board to think about them better, replaying pro games only guessing the next move after examining connection and liberty issues, but all in all, I have the feeling that I'm just treading water, and not getting closer to overcoming the aforementioned deficits. There is indeed an awful lot to be learned, and while I wish that someone would create a canon of go knowledge and prioritize it, that wouldn't make it any smaller. After all, isn't prioritizing knowledge what authors of those 70+ go books on my shelf do?

Talent hardly came up as a factor. What seemed most of all to differentiate one player starting from the same level as another was how much in love they were with the game. Being in love with the game seemed to be equated mostly with the feeling of freedom it gave. If the game makes you feel truly free, you work hard at it.

Perhaps one's love for something is an element of one's talent. In any case, a lovely explanation of why we do some of the things we do.

John Fairbairn wrote:The most interesting insight in the book for me was that for grandmasters, too, mental discipline on the board was a major problem, and maybe the main reason they declined. According to one grandmaster, when young they learn to harness nervous energy, and it is this which gives them discipline off the board, so that they can do the work. But as they get older this nervous energy becomes too much of a handful and turns into a negative force on the board. Grandmasters then can mask the effects by playing safe moves, but they have lost their creative energy and so don't win quite so often. That leads not just to poorer results and ratings, and fewer invitations to top events, but to a loss of motivation. It even leads to a fear of losing. Many take up coaching to live, but it seems that teaching makes you much weaker. Weaker players seem to follow a similar journey, but of course on the low road and not the high road.

I have read that Carlsen has a knack for causing his opponents to blunder in games that should be even (http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... match.html). Specifically, he steers the game towards positions where he can play accurately, but where it is very difficult for an opponent to do so.

One obvious difference is that tournament go has no draws, so there's nothing exactly like a position where both players are completely comfortable. But that doesn't mean that the idea of playing for sharper positions isn't relevant.

[0] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... match.html
[1] https://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-t ... d-champion

But that doesn't mean that the idea of playing for sharper positions isn't relevant.

Indeed. In Moss's experience, following his coach's advice to play sharper lines led to better results, but it seems that required much more nervous energy, and that was apparently too much of a strain for him, which is why he retreated back to his duller openings.

This idea of nervous energy is interesting. I've met Kasparav a few times and had dinner with him, and it was tiring just to watch him, he buzzed so much. But I met Karpov and many other top chess players of that era, as well as having met lots of go and shogi pros. None of them exuded that sort of energy off the board except for one shogi player who did not reach the top, and Yi Se-tol in go. Cho Chikun showed it during play but not away from the board.

I suppose, though, if Moss's grandmaster is right that top players learn to harness nervous energy when young, many of them may be good at hiding it. After all, in Cho Chikun's case, the evidence was not in himself - it was in the pool of broken matchsticks he left round his seat, and I've seen some players squeezing rubber balls or hand presses. Stuart Dowsey claimed that Sakata's tell was to pick his toenails.

Ed: Yes the book's a good read. I found the drop in stars (for me) was a lack of rigour in explaining his many observations. He typically quotes just one grandmaster when I believe others might well say other things. But on the principle of less is more, maybe that's why the book stays so readable.

Yes the book's a good read.

Thanks.

Stuart Dowsey claimed that Sakata's tell was to pick

Not to mention smoke-suji:And tea-suji:

John Fairbairn wrote:teaching makes you much weaker.

IMX, no. Rather: stronger.

daal wrote:poor reading ability, not knowing whether the outcome of a sequence is good or bad, poor reading, forgetting learned sequences such as tesujis or josekis (probably because they reappear too infrequently and I don't know which ones to prioritize), and poor reading ability. Did I say poor reading ability?

So you know some of your tasks. For learning whether the outcome of a sequence is good or bad, study positional judgement. Elsewhere, you have indicated to postpone it. How about its immediate study?

isn't prioritizing knowledge what authors of those 70+ go books on my shelf do?

No. Not if you speak of 70+ books.

While prioritised knowledge is very useful, I have said elsewhere that every topic is needed; neglecting a few topics to some extent can be compensated by other topics up to low and maybe mid dan level but you should not neglect topics entirely.

John Fairbairn wrote:teaching makes you much weaker.

RobertJasiek wrote:IMX, no. Rather: stronger.

That is my experience, as well.

daal wrote:isn't prioritizing knowledge what authors of those 70+ go books on my shelf do?

RobertJasiek wrote:No. Not if you speak of 70+ books.

While prioritised knowledge is very useful, I have said elsewhere that every topic is needed; neglecting a few topics to some extent can be compensated by other topics up to low and maybe mid dan level but you should not neglect topics entirely.

I agree.

In daal's case, it seems to me that he has learnt a good bit of go knowledge. His main problem now is learning to apply what he knows.

I think teaching can make an amateur stronger, because it leads to more involvement in the game, in unprecedented ways, but makes a pro weaker, because they are already involved 100% and now need to use their time to articulate their accumulated, intuitive knowledge, which doesn't lead to a better understanding.

If a pro is forced into thinking about, say, thickness, in a descriptive way, then they may start thinking about certain positions in that descriptive way, rather thank the intuitive accumulated way they've been used to, and make mistakes. More importantly, they spend time explaining, which they would otherwise use for understanding.

Knotwilg wrote:I think teaching can make an amateur stronger, because it leads to more involvement in the game, in unprecedented ways, but makes a pro weaker, because they are already involved 100% and now need to use their time to articulate their accumulated, intuitive knowledge, which doesn't lead to a better understanding.

If a pro is forced into thinking about, say, thickness, in a descriptive way, then they may start thinking about certain positions in that descriptive way, rather thank the intuitive accumulated way they've been used to, and make mistakes. More importantly, they spend time explaining, which they would otherwise use for understanding.

I think that how one teaches makes a big difference. If you simply say, Don't do that, do this, what have you learned?

Let me illustrate with an example of my 7th grade English teacher. We were learning to diagram sentences, to identify parts of speech and to learn about grammatical structures. The textbook diagramed please in a way that I thought was wrong. They put it on a little pedestal, treating it the same way as an interjection. I thought that it should be diagramed as an adverb, since it indicated how to do something. E. g., "Please come here," meant to come here in a way that would please me. After some consideration, my teacher said that please was in fact, the main verb and was imperative, that "Please come here," meant, "Please me to come here." To me, please was a request, not a command, so I did not agree. She was right, OC. But she learned something that day.

Knotwilg wrote:I think teaching can make an amateur stronger, ... but makes a pro weaker, because they are already involved 100% and now need to use their time to articulate their accumulated, intuitive knowledge, which doesn't lead to a better understanding.

Do you have evidence/examples for this? Most cases of pros getting weaker in the West (e.g. Catalin Taranu, Guo Juan) are also associated with them no longer actively participating in pro tournaments, study groups, training themselves etc. So I would put most if not all of their weakening down to no longer being active pros. Are there many cases of active pros teaching without reducing their active pro work? e.g. imagine Lee Sedol used to spend an hour each evening playing world of warcraft but then switched to teaching on Tygem/skype, or in person. His pro playing/studying activities remained the same. Would he get weaker? When he took time off and wrote his book, which could be viewed as a form of teaching, he appeared to come back stronger/rejuvenated, with a few months winning streak including demolishing Chang Hao in the BC Card Cup. I can think of Meng Tailing doing lectures on WeiqiTv. Didn't that start around 2013, he seems to be doing ok since then: https://www.goratings.org/players/410.html .