Helel wrote:DeaconJohn wrote:I knew most of the joseki in the Ishida edition when I was 1d AGA in 1991.
This is interesting! Am I right in concluding that this mirrors a real difference in the study methods of low dan players over the last 20 years?
Absolutely! There was very little English language Go literature back them. Ishida was one of the best books available. It was not at all uncommon for a 1d player to have studied, or at least be familiar with, every Go book published in the English language. I had about 5 fully commented professional games available to me. They were my second most valuable study resource. I also learned a lot by watching what my opponents were doing when they were stronger than me. Whether or not this is "study" is hard to say, but, it helped me more than any other single thing.
As I mentioned, many players at the 4d level had so completely exhausted the English literature that they had to turn to the Japanese Go journals. In one game I met a joseki variation that had only been published a few months earlier in a Japanese journal. I played my side of the joseki correctly in the local context, even though I had never seen it before, but misunderstood the significance in the global context and so lost the game. The journal article explained the global significance. (The article was translated into English several months later; that was how I found out what had happened.)
Another huge difference was that it was vastly more difficult to get to play Go with other people back then. A greater emphasis on study was required for those who wanted to improve. I attended every club meeting in the Washington DC area within 1/2 hour of my house and still could only get 3-4 games a week. I got a game every day at work, but, those were weaker players. Now I average at least 2-3 game a day!
The biggest difference was that there was no internet, no game database, at least not any that I knew of. DrStraw, one of the best American p-layers in Virginia, arguably the best at least for a while, says that he made huge progress by playing against himself.
On KGS, it is sometimes possible get free reviews of your games by stronger players, and free teaching games from stronger players. (For example in the KGS Teaching Ladder, in The Study Room, and in many other rooms.) There was nothing even close to this.
Today, there are many excellent teachers, like Kaz and Breakfast (Alexander Dinertchen) who often give lectures for a small fee (the price of admission to the KGS+ club). There was not enough interest in America to support the few Asian Go professionals who tried (and failed) to make a living teaching Go in this country.
For reviewing your own games, there was nothing like the sgf files and the CGoban KGS sgf editor. Often you had to record your own games, or remember them. Remembering them turned out to be more efficient. This was good for fuseki study, but not very helpful for complicated middle game fighting - the crux of the game. It was to difficult to get the complex positions exactly right from memory, at least for me.
This gives you some idea. There were many little things that we take for granted today and that were not available in the 1980's and that make a huge difference.
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