Life In 19x19

In this article we read 7 paragraphs about drama critics in New York. Those paragraphs have almost no connection to go. The author then tells us that drama critics, like go organizers, are failures at life.

Gotta say, I didn't really find this to be a very enlightening read.

Seems like a bunch of nonsense to me. With regard to both the critic and the Go organizer. Deliciously cruel, though. Towards the critic, yes, but even moreso toward the Go organizer: let's blame the people who give their time and energy to spreading the game and make fun of them because they aren't as good at the game they love as the people they're helping organize.

Anyway, that's how it seems to me. Cruel, and counter-productive.

Robert Terry is someone who has translated quite a bit of Japanese go material (books and articles) into English and therefore can be considered a somewhat influential voice in the Western go community.

The point is that some of the go organizers do frequent L19 and they should hear about criticism from people who have provided such services for the community.

Not that I agree with the criticism or have solutions to such perceptions.

I was very confused by Terry's blog post.

Terry wrote:Tens of thousands of players in America enjoy playing the [go] in their neighborhood clubs. But they do not assemble into a national force that could promote go effectively. Why not? Perhaps it is because they are not motivated by stimulating promotion.

Talking about promotion, in New York, Broadway plays command national attention. That is done by writers and producers who know the value of the craft. Perhaps go could take a hint from that.

It seems that Terry is suggesting that Broadway plays are promoted well as a whole and that the go world could learn from that.

Then Terry goes on to quote from Goldman's book.

Goldman wrote:Now, for the second misconception, that they are not very good: this is simply untrue. They are putrescent...And this is exactly why the critics are so execrable: they are the opposite of accurate. They do not report what’s there.

Before getting into specifics, I’d like to explain why this overwhelming critical inadequacy should not be surprising. There is one thing that 99% of critics share with one another: they are failures. I don’t mean failures as critics―my God, that’s understood. I don’t even mean that they are failures as people; I mean something more painful by far. These people are failures in life.

This doesn't come remotely close to being a praise of how well Broadway is promoted. I thought Terry intended to use Broadway as an example to emulate. Then he goes on to say the opposite: The promotion of go in the US has been unsuccessful because they have the same flaws as Broadway critics.

Terry wrote:The point to be made here is that go organization in the US has been managed too long in a similar way by failures.

I googled the book. Skimming through a few reviews suggests that the book is about how Broadway critics ended up ruining Broadway.

There probably is a good point hidden in the mind of Robert Terry, but he has articulated it in a rather schizophrenic manner. Perhaps there is some shared past history between him and his readers that makes it really obvious what he is talking about. If we looked at some random teenager's Facebook page, perhaps her posts would make no sense to anyone but her friends. Perhaps the post is him venting after a bad interaction with a go organizer that he deems to be a failure in life. Who knows.

Right now, the post is just confusing. All we can get out of the post is that he thinks that go organizers in the US are failures at life. He could have said that much more clearly in one sentence. I wonder if he will ever expand upon his original post.

Newer entry, in which Mr. Terry gets a bit more specific about what he feels the AGA has been doing wrong: http://gowizardry.com/?p=3285

I found the personal bitterness and negativity of his accusations off-putting, and while ranting is not the most constructive form of criticism, it can be a starting point for an examination of past policies. Here are his basic points: Organizers have chosen poor locations for their events, funds have not been used to effectively promote go, and there has been inadequate support of promotional efforts not initiated by the AGA.

Thanks for the update daal. I agree that the bitterness is kind of off-putting. The other facts that he is mentioning could be significant, but they could be anecdotes of rare mishaps or a pattern of mismanagement. It's hard to tell from his post alone. Nevertheless, there was one sentence that really caught my eye:

Terry wrote:Membership in the American Go Association has not grown in thirty years.

Is this really true? I have a hard time believing that it is. If it is, then that would indeed suggest that something went terribly wrong.

Also interesting is his look at how the US Chess scene grew and how it might be a model for the go community to examine.

Time for Go to Grow Up
http://gowizardry.com/?p=3273

tchan001 wrote:Also interesting is his look at how the US Chess scene grew and how it might be a model for the go community to examine.

Time for Go to Grow Up
http://gowizardry.com/?p=3273

It's because everyone in the US has heard of chess. And because chess is seen as something that can make you smarter, just as parents play Mozart to their babies because of the same false idea. Almost no one in the US has heard of go, and until there's a Bobby Fischer of go, with a major international match that pits two mutually-antagonistic countries against each other in a metaphorical war of attrition, this won't happen. In other words, probably never.

The notion that someone has to be strong at go to be successful in promoting it seems to be at odds with reality. It's also a little bit of an insult to some people who've worked very hard to spread this wonderful game.

Some of the best go promoters I've seen are about 10 kyu. Promoting go is mainly about increasing the number of beginners and even someone who's 25 kyu can be very successful in teaching the game to complete beginners. Sometimes more successful than experienced players...

gogameguru wrote:The notion that someone has to be strong at go to be successful in promoting it...

Mr. Terry did not say that, did he? He wrote,
"The AGA is led by a coterie of insulated people who know little about go and less of how to manage money." (from "How NOT to Promote Go in the US")
He did not say one has to be very good at Go to promote it (unless I missed it in his blogs? ).

EdLee wrote:

gogameguru wrote:The notion that someone has to be strong at go to be successful in promoting it...

Mr. Terry did not say that, did he? He wrote,
"The AGA is led by a coterie of insulated people who know little about go and less of how to manage money." (from "How NOT to Promote Go in the US")
He did not say one has to be very good at Go to promote it (unless I missed it in his blogs? ).

I didn't read that one Ed, maybe it clarifies things. That was just what I thought after reading this bit:

Robert Terry wrote: The point to be made here is that go organization in the US has been managed too long in a similar way by failures. People who have failed at go and at life. It is time to move on and move up.

It was in the original article tchan linked to. I'm off work sick today and have a high fever, so I'm sorry if you think I've misunderstood. I should be sleeping instead of reading about go on my phone. I'll try to reread it later when I'm feeling less out of it.

kirkmc wrote:It's because everyone in the US has heard of chess. And because chess is seen as something that can make you smarter

I agree that this is the big hurdle to overcome. When I was young my grandmother who gifted me with a chess set (I would imagine in subtle hopes it would encourage me to excel in school)...Now I might not have played a lot of chess, but at least a couple times a year I might play against my father, and at the very least am familiar with them game. No one in my family is a big chess player, yet I am familiar with the game and now own more than one set by way of gift simply because it's a game many in the US have heard of.

So what do we need to do? I think the biggest thing to do is play....Play a lot and play in public. Get more people introduced to the existence of the game, get more people able to identify the game even if they don't know how to play, because that's how it starts. Once you have enough people that can identify the game, then of course it would be to have go boards show up as more background props in movies, TV shows, etc but it needs to start from the point where enough people can recognize it first.

Of course the challenge here is that this type of promotion doesn't need money, it needs people and their time...two things the AGA seems to have trouble finding.

This is not my opinion. The statistics bear it out. Membership in the American Go Association has not grown in thirty years.

Mr. Terry really struggled on how to phrase "don't trust me, I'm don't know what I'm talking about, and can't be bothered to find out."

There is a nicely formatted spreadsheet floating around the internets somewhere, but for now, let's consider the 2002 and 2008 annual reports.

• 810 total members in 1985-86.
• 1350 in 1990-1991.
• 2400 in 2008.

Membership is down since that peak, but I don't know the numbers. Off the top of my head, I want to say that membership is now at roughly the levels it was ten years ago, but I can't recall for sure. If so, Mr. Terry is off by more a factor of three.

This article is awful.

Basically he made no argument as to why they should be analogous... and then after filling up the page with someone else's criticism, he doesn't even have the decency to explain which parallels he noticed.

Did not like, would not read again.

Disappoint.