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Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:12 pm
by ez4u
topazg wrote:Mike, the quality of a paper is not determined by its significance. That a paper finds a statistically significant finding erroneously does not make the paper itself bovine manure, nor does a marginally non-significant finding on an issue later determined to be a real effect (resolving power aside) make it bovine manure.

The quality of the paper often has little or nothing to do with the statistical power of the results.

On top of that, statistical significance is _not_ a precursor to publishing results. It is appalling publication bias to only allow positive papers into publication.

I suspect in both cases it was just a poor choice of wording, but it made my eye twitch enough that I had to comment :P
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Speaking of twitching eyes... Just change 'allow' to 'submit' above as in - "It is appalling publication bias to only 'submit' positive papers into publication." - and you have described the world as we know it pretty well. And doesn't this circle back to the original point that looking at only part of the data and deciding from it that you are in a 'slump' is counterproductive as we are more than likely only being fooled by randomness? :blackeye:

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:18 pm
by Mike Novack
Yes of course, sorry.

I was of course not at all meaning that the paper was published without proper justification, not that the paper was bovine manure, just that its truth value was. Or more precisely, that this was almost certainly so for some of them. But we can't know which. They are all equal in that regard.

Similarly we can't tell if what is experienced as a slump is a slump or pure chance.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:07 am
by SmoothOper
Mike Novack wrote:Yes of course, sorry.

I was of course not at all meaning that the paper was published without proper justification, not that the paper was bovine manure, just that its truth value was. Or more precisely, that this was almost certainly so for some of them. But we can't know which. They are all equal in that regard.

Similarly we can't tell if what is experienced as a slump is a slump or pure chance.


And in some cases highly significant results just mean they didn't put much effort into modeling the system, making assumption after assumption, using the best off the shelf software package money can buy. Collecting thousands of samples such that the color of the administered pill has a significant effect.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:31 am
by Unusedname
Maybe off-topic now.

But if you are in a slump try something different.

If you play long games, try blitz.

If you play defensively, play aggressively!

If you play on KGS try IGS.

Try Handicap games giving or taking.

If you normally get jealous of your opponent and invade too deeply, try reducing instead.

idk just do something different than what you normally do.
because you might be able to see a whole new side of the game you haven't seen before.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 3:23 am
by HermanHiddema
This was recently posted to Sensei's Library as part of Benjamin Teuber's reporting on the 6 months being spent in China by a group of European talents (http://senseis.xmp.net/?HalfAYearInChina). I thought it was relevant to this question:

...master Wang Yang interrupted the analysis and gave a very long speech that I'd like to summarize for you. He said our actual knowledge of Go and our reading skills are considerably good, but we all have a big problem concerning risk management and controlling ourselves during a game. That was quite an eye-opener for me, because while in theory I know about the following concepts, I wasn't aware how bad I actually am when it comes to practice. The first and most important lesson is: Always keep calm. People are very emotional, and especially playing this game of mind battling can cause a lot of feelings. I cannot count the number of times I lost a game in an altered emotional state. Maybe my opponent played a strange variation and I was angry about not winning easily against him now. Or I was too confident that almost any move would win this game. Or I was shocked by a good move I didn't expect, or still frustrated about an earlier mistake I made. Go is not just a game of skill. It also is a game of concentration, will power and self control. So no matter what triggers your emotions during a game, you need to try calming yourself down in order to continue playing the best Go you can. Of cause this is easier said than done and takes a lot of practice - even pro players are not immune to emotions. But they are better at controlling them, and top players like e.g. Lee Changho excel at this. As with almost everything, awareness is the first step on the path of improvement. So please think for yourself about how emotions affect your Go. Don't beat yourself up for having lost by a big blunder against a weak opponent who just wouldn't resign, but instead consider that the reason for your defeat might have been a lack of emotion control, which is a very difficult thing. Try to work on controlling your state of mind, and you will find yourself winning many more games than before.


I found this relevant because it reflects very strongly my own recent experience. I had been having something of a slump for about 2 years now, and have recently gotten out of it. The extent of the slump is pretty clear from this graph of my EGF ratng:

Image

After a peak in 2009-2010, my rating had been sliding for about two years. This year, it has been climbing again, and I find that psychology plays a big part in the change. I play with more confidence recently, and am better able to keep calm and focused. When I take a loss in the opening, my immediate thought is no longer "Panic! I need to catch up now!" it is "The game still has a long way to go, I know my opponent will be making mistakes, if I keep calm I can turn this around". And if I take the lead, my thought is not "Now I have to solidify this lead as quickly as possible", it is "Keep playing the best moves. I will make mistakes, but so will my opponent. Do not drastically change strategy".

Psychology is an important factor in go, and very important to get out of a slump.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 1:52 pm
by SmoothOper
HermanHiddema wrote:
But they are better at controlling them, and top players like e.g. Lee Changho excel at this.




I have heard this, about Lee Changho, but after reading his book Novel Plays and Shapes. There were a number of sections where he kept going on about how a players novel play lost this game and lost his title and didn't rank...(I'm paraphrasing so don't quote me). It sort of lead me to the conclusion that Lee Changho is fairly immature, though for a go player this may be as good as it gets.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 1:56 pm
by SoDesuNe
Chances are Yi Ch'ang-Ho didn't even write the book.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:39 am
by SmoothOper
SoDesuNe wrote:Chances are Yi Ch'ang-Ho didn't even write the book.


In any case I think it is aprapoe given Yi Ch'ang-Ho's years of slump, maybe if he were a little more emotionally balanced, he would still be at the top of his game. :lol:

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:10 am
by oren
SmoothOper wrote:In any case I think it is aprapoe given Yi Ch'ang-Ho's years of slump, maybe if he were a little more emotionally balanced, he would still be at the top of his game. :lol:


In a couple more years he will be unbalanced enough to start trolling message boards.

Re: what do you do about a slump?

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 11:58 am
by SmoothOper
oren wrote:
SmoothOper wrote:In any case I think it is aprapoe given Yi Ch'ang-Ho's years of slump, maybe if he were a little more emotionally balanced, he would still be at the top of his game. :lol:


In a couple more years he will be unbalanced enough to start trolling message boards.


Nah, he'll just go around calling people trolls and point out their spelling mistakes, to see if he can get them upset, so that he can demonstrate his superior emotional state.