Life In 19x19

Okay I've calmed down a bit now.

It would be really great if the top teams if the top teams in Japan could play with teams in the American baseball league. Even a fantasy of mine like that is more probable than go being super popular, so it wouldn't be fair that some group of people are to "blame, rather than it would be an impressive feat to achieve and we should aim to achieve it. We choose to make go popular not because it is easy, but because it is hard!

With regards to the sites in the "orient" I would orient towards the possibility of having one site in English and other European languages that posts all the Asian news based on translations of the Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Chinese official sites.

Yes, Chess and Shogi have the advantage of different pieces with different movements being interesting to children. But I don't see how that's any less interesting to a child as that fact that you can make any design you want on a go board if your teacher doesn't obsess over rules in the beginning.

GoTony's point about Japanese title matches, well matches what my hope is. In that there will be an international tournament that has both large enough prize money and smart enough organisation to attract Japanese pros and properly reward Korean pros. I thought of tournaments that combine Chess, Elephant Chess, Shogi and Go into one competition and calling them world Kuksu, Kisei, Meijin, Supreme Mind operating on alternating Quadriennual basis with also smaller ones like Judan, Tengen, Kio, Ei, Oi, Oza, Wealth Window and Go-only ones like the Seoule Sphere, Life Lens, Gosei.

If course I agree with GoTony and kvasir that the most valuable are those start school clubs and the like rather than me just sounding grumpy

I do agree with the sentiment of martin900's point, it's just that AlphaGo showed that it doesn't matter if something like that happens if the go world is not properly prepared for it, as some made much more out of the opportunity than others, and some western go players feel overall that AlphaGo wasn't fully taken advantage of.

gennan wrote:

mart900 wrote:@Elom0 >99% of people in the West simply do not know what Go is. An event that penetrates the mainstream and even just introduces the existence of the game to tens of millions of people will absolutely result in more players. It's a numbers game at that point. An event like this will affect the Western player base to a much greater extent than anything you or I can do locally. But that's not to say we can't do anything, and I certainly don't mean to imply that we should give up our local efforts and wait for this unicorn event.

I don't think that raising awareness a great deal automatically leads to go becoming a popular game. Almost everybody in my country knows what chess is, but how many play at least one game per week? Maybe 0.01%? Does that mean chess is popular here?

Due to my efforts in the past 10 years in my village (population about 6000), I estimate that 10% knows about the game. I know that some 8% of its population (mostly youth) has played at least 1 game of go, and per week about 0.5% plays at least 1 game. Does that mean that go is popular here? I'd say no. There are countless activities here that are much more popular, such as sports, social media, computer games, playing an instrument, shopping, crafts, gardening, you name it.

Please understand that I'm not complaining. I just think this is all that can be reasonably expected. Go will never be really popular anywhere. It's not even really popular in Japan, Korea or China.

I never used the word popular, and don't think Go could ever be popular in the West. It's simply too inaccessible and difficult to ever break through to that extent, especially with humanity's shortening attention span. Thinking games in general are in trouble in this social media era.

But if we manage to make even 10% of a billion Westerners aware of the game, and 0.1% of that starts playing it, that's 100000 new players.

I suppose my main point is that we need wide nets. As wide as we can make them.

But if we manage to make even 10% of a billion Westerners aware of the game, and 0.1% of that starts playing it, that's 100000 new players.

I suppose my main point is that we need wide nets. As wide as we can make them.

I think that's true as far as it goes, but it needs refinement. As others have pointed out, most people in the west are aware of chess but relatively few people play actively. We have already had many examples of so-called "mainstream" appearances of go. We even had a mega-star go player when Rod Stewart was introduced to the game by his doctor, a British dan-player, and countless examples of tv and film cameos. In Britain, thanks to the activities of Peter Wendes and his wife (ex-schoolteachers), we've has major exhibitions in the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum, and they travelled the length and breadth of the country teaching in schools, all with large audiences that attracted the attention of an education minister. I have heard of similar things in Europe and North America. They never take-off permanently. I think the example of the short-lived mah-jong boom in the 1930s (which was something much bigger than go has experienced) is instructive.

My interpretation of the state of play is that indoor games can have a sustained level of popularity (though at a minor level) only if they are regarded as part of the cultural fabric of a country. Which certainly applies to chess. Mah-jong ultimately failed because it was seen (correctly) as an oriental game, and its exoticness was both its attraction and its downfall, especially because this was the 1930s.

Go, too, waxes and wanes because of its exoticness. Very many western go players hanker after going on trips to the Orient, or decide to learn an oriental language, or do an associated oriental activity such as ikebana or taiji or taekwondo. But this very exoticness repels many more people, especially at times when attitudes to the oriental nations are complex. I was once fired from a student job for saying I was saving up my earnings to make a trip to Japan. The woman in charge had lost a fiance in a Japanese POW camp. Later, when I was starting in journalism and had to interview many people who were being given medals, bitter wartime experiences with the Japanese were often at the forefront (as they still are in China). Given the way the nisei were handled in Japan, I would imagine that feelings there were equally complex. Those anti-Japanese feelings have mostly gone but may have been replaced now by antipathy towards China for political or economic reasons.

What this seems to mean for go is that promoting the game as coming from Japan or China is, on the whole, significantly negative. Talking about the game with different names (igo, weiqi, baduk) and rulesets exacerbates that situation, quite apart from the confusion it engenders. It accentuates the idea of nationalism, too, which is one sure way to make sure the game does not become part of our own cultural fabric, especially now that the flaws of multiculturism have become evident.

I personally see no way forward for weaving go into our own fabric (even though I'm tickled pink by the idea that, for example, "clans" such as the Singh have their own registered tartans). But I have nevertheless made some minor attempts to promote inclusivity. For example, I have presented a paper on 300 years of go contact between Britain and China, which won a large first prize - but in China not Britain! I have written about women in go and promoted the Amazon thread here. But I don't think any of that has had any effect, even though I am prepared to be noisy. It is even worse if you look at the similar cross-cultural work of quieter people like Theo van Ees, Franco Pratesi and Jaap Blom. With the utmost respect to all those superb researchers, I'd confidently hazard a guess that most people here would say: who? And the more intellectually curious would then only say, where can I get the videos? Even though most of anyone's cultural heritage is in paper form! Videos, as much a bane of modern go as AI, are often just a way of putting our heritage into a wastepaper basket.

I am therefore not expecting go to be popular here, ever. Go videos may seem popular, but I'd say it's the video aspect that's popular, not the go content. Bling, bling!

I think the increased popularoty of video over text is relevant but not specific to Go. As a mathematician I'm following the channel of 3Blue1Brown, who as far as I'm concerned does a tremendous job explaining and visualizing high level math to the layman or at least to the interested former practicioner. The visualization aspect is key here. His 20 minute video on the Fourier transform is breathtakingly good. I wish I had seen it before I dived into the textbooks. Much of learning has to do with interfacing and video or AI-UI is often fostering understanding, not turning it into superficiality per se. But this is my experience and opinion. Research on the correlation between means and content will tell.

I do agree with John's assessment of the exotic aspect and wholeheartedly agree with the detrimental effect of the different and confusing rule sets. I would prefer we go back to what I think is the origin of the game, i.e. more alive stones hence inherent (but not made explicit) group tax. But that's not how the game has evolved and now we're stuck with bent four in the corner as a compromise for the beauty of omission.

Returning to visuals: the identity of the chess pieces and their relation to ancient cultural artefacts like castles, horses, knights and queens, is what makes a movie like the Queen's Gambit resonate in a major way and longer, even if it will eventually decay but then rise again from its ashes in one form of another. In every generation, at some point the equivalent of World of Warcraft is overdosing and people are called back into traditionalism . I have always thought that archery would one day see a sudden surge in interest, or horse riding, or folkloric dance ... but not Taekwondo, origami or tea ceremonies. Those will always have a small following, with small variations due to singular events. Go is like that.

Go is shrinking even in Japan. It can't compete with other entertainments which are more colorful, easy, quick and suitable to the small screen of smartphone. The lack of universal set of rules and those no-agree cheats on Go servers are additional hurdles for the beginner. Chess has no such problems, for example.

John Fairbairn wrote:
What this seems to mean for go is that promoting the game as coming from Japan or China is, on the whole, significantly negative. Talking about the game with different names (igo, weiqi, baduk) and rulesets exacerbates that situation, quite apart from the confusion it engenders. It accentuates the idea of nationalism, too, which is one sure way to make sure the game does not become part of our own cultural fabric, especially now that the flaws of multiculturism have become evident.

Exactly. The Lentear world has failed to internationalise in that it's still more beneficial Japanese professionals to prioritize domestic tournaments, and international tournaments stubbornly decide to arrange their system in an inflexible way. Diversity itself is not a strength it is potential strength, but it only becomes a strength under quality leadership that understands how to handle different factions, otherwise diversity becomes a weakness. That's what's going on.

hnishy wrote:Go is shrinking even in Japan. It can't compete with other entertainments which are more colorful, easy, quick and suitable to the small screen of smartphone. The lack of universal set of rules and those no-agree cheats on Go servers are additional hurdles for the beginner. Chess has no such problems, for example.

That is why the effort shouldn't really be towards making Igo popular, but making intelligent and considered thinking popular in society, and Mickey Mouseism balanced with slow Ghiblism in society. That would in turn make Lentears more popular. And have the minor benefit of reducing dangerous levels of polarisation in the world that might cause civil war in some countries or wars between them. If stop thinking small and see Igo as a tool for world peace Lentears would become popular as a side-effect.

I have to wonder whether resources are not better spent on retaining the go players we have rather than continually trying to recruit new ones. Hikaru No Go produced a significant boom in the go playing population, but most of those people wandered away to pursue other passions after a time. Seems like investing in membership retention would be the bigger bang for the buck (or volunteer hour).

pwaldron wrote:I have to wonder whether resources are not better spent on retaining the go players we have rather than continually trying to recruit new ones. Hikaru No Go produced a significant boom in the go playing population, but most of those people wandered away to pursue other passions after a time. Seems like investing in membership retention would be the bigger bang for the buck (or volunteer hour).

Yes. You need a good amount of regular Go activity if you want to see new people stay. It is also that many of the same things which make an enjoyable event for "old" players are the same things that attract new players. Old and new dabblers are concerned in my experience with if it is fun, how many people there are, are they friends with anyone that is going, and does it 200% perfectly fit their schedule. Another important motivation is if they are able to bring their friends and family into it. You will need a lot of time and circumstances to receive large numbers of beginners in the same period and I think that is almost always the limiting factor.

You have to strike a balance in these things. Recruiting new players, but obviously from all walks of life, and retaining your existing players, except if they're into HnG.