Life In 19x19

So, I'm trying to get my little brother to play Go with Operant Conditioning. We play and every several moves I'll give him a gummy bear, which he loves, and then we will keep playing, but he seems to rush through the game and run off to play tiny wings. Any suggestions?

Saturation of taste receptors seems to be the problem, which causes positive stimulus to be less effective. Have you tried small electric shocks if your little brother tries to leave the table for more enjoyable activities?

Toge wrote:Saturation of taste receptors seems to be the problem, which causes positive stimulus to be less effective. Have you tried small electric shocks if your little brother tries to leave the table for more enjoyable activities?

I thought about it, but physical punishment causes aggression in the receiver, and also instills a sense of fear in the giver

Once he starts playing those kind of games, it'll be hard to drag him back to Go unfortunately...even the older Go players are starting to get hooked.

Your general theory is correct. You just need to tweak the details. Gummy bears are not enough. You need heroin or nicotine.

Ok, it's working so far. He is now excepting games on a regular basis as opposed to completely rejecting the game. However, I can't get him to listen to why Ho's moves are good / bad

How old is your brother? He's a beginner so as long as he's playing he'll learn from his mistakes and from watching how you play. If you want to try to get hiim interested in improving you could try giving him small rewards for winning or solving problems (start with very easy problems) since it worked in getting him to play.

bazilikan wrote:Ok, it's working so far. He is now excepting games on a regular basis as opposed to completely rejecting the game. However, I can't get him to listen to why Ho's moves are good / bad

Forget teaching. He'll pick things up as he is interested. Lecturing is likely to be negatively reinforcing.

Bill Spight wrote:

bazilikan wrote:Ok, it's working so far. He is now excepting games on a regular basis as opposed to completely rejecting the game. However, I can't get him to listen to why Ho's moves are good / bad

Forget teaching. He'll pick things up as he is interested. Lecturing is likely to be negatively reinforcing.

yeah, depending on the age, sometimes its enough that they just take turns, or play on the intersections
and its not important to win either. challenge yourself to make the score as close as possible (which means sometimes you'll have to make some really slow moves). smaller boards are great for this so they don't get too board too quickly.

xed_over wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:

bazilikan wrote:Ok, it's working so far. He is now excepting games on a regular basis as opposed to completely rejecting the game. However, I can't get him to listen to why Ho's moves are good / bad

Forget teaching. He'll pick things up as he is interested. Lecturing is likely to be negatively reinforcing.

yeah, depending on the age, sometimes its enough that they just take turns, or play on the intersections
and its not important to win either. challenge yourself to make the score as close as possible (which means sometimes you'll have to make some really slow moves). smaller boards are great for this so they don't get too board too quickly.

You're probably right. I'll stop lecturing him. I also try not to beat him up which is easy because he is surprisingly good for his level. I'll report back if anything happens.