Life In 19x19

Hi All,

After some games and reading, I am still trying to find out what Go is all about, over History and in the current time. There are some things I don't understand (yet), but they could be pending on Ego, and the knife stuck in a Go board during play.

Let me paint you the scenario, and I am waiting for your responses.

My Idea of Go was, that 2 people play a game together where the territory is divided based on skill and respect and a learning touch for the lower skilled player to keep them motivated and create players that in the future will be a much better challenge to the higher graded player. I could be wrong though based on what I see. (A win on 0.5 points is a win, does it really have to be a win with 200 points to show how fabulous one really is?) In my opinion, if you are that good, you can make that win based on the developed skills in the game that ones grade is pending on. It includes counting to enable you to make it a graceful win, not?

As a beginner one learns to make the right moves from books, corner, side, enter into middle territory. And the moment one runs into a player who is much stronger, they stop making the right moves that one could learn from for one reason or another and start making moves they know they can't get away with during play with a same level opponent. The whole game becomes fighting for every stone that appears on the board killing both motivation of the lower skilled player or the fun during play. (Talk about Challenge.)

I noticed a Dan player who challenged me to play and my sorry 10 lost out of 10 games. (I Had run out time to play, so I denied.)

A day later I notice same player demoted to 1Kyu+. Meaning he only wanted to play with me to score a fast win and keep his precious Dan grade. Is this really what the game is evolved in, a knife stuck in a board to keep ones grade? Where is the fun?

Your Opinions Please.

FredV wrote:Hi All,

After some games and reading, I am still trying to find out what Go is all about, over History and in the current time. There are some things I don't understand (yet), but they could be pending on Ego, and the knife stuck in a Go board during play.

Let me paint you the scenario, and I am waiting for your responses.

My Idea of Go was, that 2 people play a game together where the territory is divided based on skill and respect and a learning touch for the lower skilled player to keep them motivated and create players that in the future will be a much better challenge to the higher graded player. I could be wrong though based on what I see. (A win on 0.5 points is a win, does it really have to be a win with 200 points to show how fabulous one really is?) In my opinion, if you are that good, you can make that win based on the developed skills in the game that ones grade is pending on. It includes counting to enable you to make it a graceful win, not?

As a beginner one learns to make the right moves from books, corner, side, enter into middle territory. And the moment one runs into a player who is much stronger, they stop making the right moves that one could learn from for one reason or another and start making moves they know they can't get away with during play with a same level opponent. The whole game becomes fighting for every stone that appears on the board killing both motivation of the lower skilled player or the fun during play. (Talk about Challenge.)

I noticed a Dan player who challenged me to play and my sorry 10 lost out of 10 games. (I Had run out time to play, so I denied.)

A day later I notice same player demoted to 1Kyu+. Meaning he only wanted to play with me to score a fast win and keep his precious Dan grade. Is this really what the game is evolved in, a knife stuck in a board to keep ones grade? Where is the fun?

Your Opinions Please.

Regardless of the truth, it's not worth worrying about.

Ranks only matter to the extent that you want them to, and on places like KGS, can fluctuate a lot without you playing at all. Fixating on it too much will only cause anxiety and other problems for yourself. Your opponents won't care.

Furthermore, if you play someone significantly weaker than you and win, it doesn't have much of an effect on your rating, as it's the expected result. Would you think that say, Andre Agassi was an underrated tennis player because he can beat me in a match? With one hand tied behind his back?

It's also fairly difficult to tell when a particular game will push you over the edge of a rank in one direction or the other.

skydyr wrote:Ranks only matter to the extent that you want them to, and on places like KGS, can fluctuate a lot without you playing at all.

I got 2dan? on KGS by not playing! A known bug apparently.

For me rank is of use as a metric to measure the result of my study/effort.

Peaceful moves do not work particularly well in handicap games. If it's calibrated correctly, the stronger player needs to play to his ability and make use of his advantages, and that's often better reading and instincts in complicated environments. I play some unusual, fighty moves in high handicap games not to 'trick' a weaker opponent but as sign of respect, that I need to play my best to win this. In an even game I try to pull ahead even when I'm already leading, because I respect my opponents ability to turn the tables. If I'm already losing and have a group my opponent can kill, I want him to demonstrate that error so I can learn from it.

Sometimes we overlay our own fake rules on the game. A "proper" go game is all about fighting, or is all about peaceful jostling and a long endgame, or must be corner-side-center, or doesn't involve any trick plays. And then when an opponent violates that rule, we feel demotivated or mad at them, like they did something wrong. But none of those are rules of go and we should appreciate the reminder that this too is go. That if we want to be the best we can be, we need to be able to counter tricks and fight and play an accurate endgame and everything else. There is absolutely rude behavior, but I don't think there are rude moves (maybe mirror go ).

FredV wrote:I noticed a Dan player who challenged me to play and my sorry 10 lost out of 10 games. (I Had run out time to play, so I denied.)

A day later I notice same player demoted to 1Kyu+. Meaning he only wanted to play with me to score a fast win and keep his precious Dan grade. Is this really what the game is evolved in, a knife stuck in a board to keep ones grade? Where is the fun?

Your Opinions Please.

I'd be grateful that a stronger player offered to play me a teaching game and not impugn their motives. But that's just me.

Your definition of fun may not be the same as my definition of fun. Sandbagging and kicking beginners to the curb was certainly an enjoyable past time of mine in Go.

No matter where you go and what you do, the moment the group of your peers becomes big enough there will always be some jerks who have fun "sandbagging and kicking beginners to the curb." I have absolutely no clue as to the motivation of such people, but my experience tells me that they are everywhere to one extend or another. This is really unavoidable, especially in a semi-anonymous setting of the internet. Sad, but true.

The trick is to find and enjoy people you like, who behave nicely, instead of getting upset about those few jerks.

And all this bad stuff? You just let it slide and move on. Life is short, and they are not worth the bother.

FredV wrote:My Idea of Go was, that 2 people play a game together where the territory is divided based on skill and respect and a learning touch for the lower skilled player to keep them motivated and create players that in the future will be a much better challenge to the higher graded player. I could be wrong though based on what I see.

There are a couple of things mixed up in that statement. First, stronger players generally do encourage and teach weaker players and want them to improve. Second, go has a reasonably good handicapping system so that players of different strengths can have reasonably close games. Third, ranks and ratings are averages, and may not reflect the proper handicap between any two players. If you play the same person a lot, you should adjust the handicap according to wins and losses, not ranks or ratings. Fourth, go is a game of territory, but it is not a game of dividing up territory. There is no territory on the board until the end of the game. In practice, a player may be able to stake out and defend certain territory, but territory is made and solidified through fighting. Trying to stake out and defend territory is too slow; you will fall behind a competent opponent.

A win on 0.5 points is a win, does it really have to be a win with 200 points to show how fabulous one really is?

That is why we have handicaps. A win by 200 points indicates a high handicap, higher than most people find interesting, even if it makes for a relatively even game. If there is that much difference in skill, the higher player generally gives 9 stones and wins. The margin of victory is meaningless.

In my opinion, if you are that good, you can make that win based on the developed skills in the game that ones grade is pending on. It includes counting to enable you to make it a graceful win, not?

To repeat, the margin of victory is meaningless.

As a beginner one learns to make the right moves from books, corner, side, enter into middle territory. And the moment one runs into a player who is much stronger, they stop making the right moves that one could learn from for one reason or another and start making moves they know they can't get away with during play with a same level opponent.

Since they are much stronger, how can you tell? There are players online who like to beat up weaker players, but they usually pretend to be weaker than they are.

I noticed a Dan player who challenged me to play and my sorry 10 lost out of 10 games. (I Had run out time to play, so I denied.)

A day later I notice same player demoted to 1Kyu+. Meaning he only wanted to play with me to score a fast win and keep his precious Dan grade.

As has been pointed out, his uneven games against you had little or no effect on his rating. (Especially as he had a lower rating the next day. ) I do not know his motivation, but I doubt if he found those games interesting. He may well have regarded himself as being generous with his time. Since he left you feeling confused and discouraged, he was not a very good teacher, however.

When I was starting out there was a 2 dan who played me regularly and only gave me a 7 stone handicap. He creamed me for months. I was grateful to him then, and I still am.

Good luck!

Bill Spight wrote:To repeat, the margin of victory is meaningless.

You seem to make a blanket statement, while I think this depends on the context.

Wrt to the game result, and if this is the only thing you care about, you are right. So for rank determination and torunaments - sure.

Wrt the enjoyment of the game, and maybe the learning value, being completely overpowered by 200 points certainly feels less satisfactory than having a relatively even game which you lose by 0.5 points. For guessing on a proper handi the margin of victory can also be interesting to know. There migth be other reasons and other contexts.

Bantari wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:To repeat, the margin of victory is meaningless.

You seem to make a blanket statement, while I think this depends on the context.

Wrt to the game result, and if this is the only thing you care about, you are right. So for rank determination and torunaments - sure.

Wrt the enjoyment of the game, and maybe the learning value, being completely overpowered by 200 points certainly feels less satisfactory than having a relatively even game which you lose by 0.5 points. For guessing on a proper handi the margin of victory can also be interesting to know. There migth be other reasons and other contexts.

What you're describing isn't "margin of victory", but quality of game.

Bill is correct that the margin of victory is meaningless. A simple example is a capturing race involving two large dragons. The game quality might be quite high, and both players might be evenly matched. But the end result of losing a large capturing race could easily be a lot of points. In this scenario, though the margin of victory is high - probably win by resignation or by a huge number of points - the quality of the game might have also been quite good and satisfying.

Quality of game is independent of this. If an advanced player is trying to crush a beginner, it's possible that neither the beginner nor the advanced player gets much out of the game. This is the type of scenario we'd like to avoid. So we can conclude from this that margin of victory is meaningless, but quality of game is not.

Let's play high quality games.

Kirby wrote:

Bantari wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:To repeat, the margin of victory is meaningless.

You seem to make a blanket statement, while I think this depends on the context.

Wrt to the game result, and if this is the only thing you care about, you are right. So for rank determination and torunaments - sure.

Wrt the enjoyment of the game, and maybe the learning value, being completely overpowered by 200 points certainly feels less satisfactory than having a relatively even game which you lose by 0.5 points. For guessing on a proper handi the margin of victory can also be interesting to know. There migth be other reasons and other contexts.

What you're describing isn't "margin of victory", but quality of game.

Bill is correct that the margin of victory is meaningless. A simple example is a capturing race involving two large dragons. The game quality might be quite high, and both players might be evenly matched. But the end result of losing a large capturing race could easily be a lot of points. In this scenario, though the margin of victory is high - probably win by resignation or by a huge number of points - the quality of the game might have also been quite good and satisfying.

True, but this is not what the OP is describing, from what I understand.

So, as I say, it depends on the context - and all that you say is that the margin of victory is not the *only* metrics in the contexts I provided. But for some contexts, I would not call it "meaningless". Or no 10k would ever have any reason to be proud of losing to a 1d by "only 3 points" - and I would call this an achievement. If a 10k lost to 1d by 200 points, I would call it normal. So there is a difference in some contexts, at least to me.

To me, losing to someone 9 stones stronger by any margin doesn't matter, 5 points, 50, or somehow 500. They're so superior that after they're winning the game by move 20 or whatever, they can afford to relax and take the game easily. They don't have to win by the largest margin, just win.

There is someone who can beat me in 6H. In these games I naturally have a large starting advantage and he starts fights quickly and wins them easily. I then ask him, "When we play even games, why don't you play like you do in handicap games? If it works out for you well in games where I begin with 6 stones on the board, surely you'd win much more easily in an even game like this."

His response: "That would increase the margin of my victory, but playing normally in an even game would increase the probability of my victory."

Bantari wrote:Or no 10k would ever have any reason to be proud of losing to a 1d by "only 3 points" - and I would call this an achievement. If a 10k lost to 1d by 200 points, I would call it normal. So there is a difference in some contexts, at least to me.

Well, kind of. But as we probably agree on, this depends on the context - that's why I think "game quality" is a better indicator.

I'm reminded of a game I played a few months ago. My opponent was probably a bit stronger than me. He gained a big advantage in the opening, captured one of my groups, and the game was basically over. I kept playing, and I played some moves that absolutely should not have worked. In the end, somehow I captured a large group of his, and had a chance to win. I made a mistake in endgame, and lost by 0.5. For sure, this was a wild game. It was fun. But was it a game I played well? Absolutely not. The game quality was poor, and by fluke, I ended up bringing it to a 0.5 point game - this was only because of a very simple mistake by my opponent.

Looking back on this game, it's not one that I'm proud of. The result was a 0.5 point loss against an opponent that was stronger than me. But the game quality was trash.

Examples like these indicate to me that the point difference at the end of the game is meaningless. What matters is game quality.

I once won a game by about 200 points on the board. I was 3 dan or 4 dan playing against a player whom I normally gave 7 stones to, but in that game I gave him 100 points instead, and won by 100. It was not a fighting game. He built a large framework which I broke into late in the middle game. When I was a 3 dan I took a 50 point handicap from a 9 dan pro and lost by 100, 150 on the board.

Fred does not understand the vast differences in skill at go. He is a beginner, yet he appears to think that the only way a shodan could beat him by 200 points is to make bad plays. Not so. Even giving a 9 stone handicap it would not be unusual for the shodan to win by 200.

Kirby wrote:

Bantari wrote:Or no 10k would ever have any reason to be proud of losing to a 1d by "only 3 points" - and I would call this an achievement. If a 10k lost to 1d by 200 points, I would call it normal. So there is a difference in some contexts, at least to me.

Well, kind of. But as we probably agree on, this depends on the context - that's why I think "game quality" is a better indicator.

Yes, I can live with that. Game quality. Actually, this is pretty good, thanks.