For some people, this approach definitely works. For others, it holds them back because self-criticism won't entirely translate into productivity. Their anger at themselves will persist even when they use it to motivate them and the result will be frustration and low self-esteem. It will also back-fire for some if they start practicing and don't see results.

On the flipside, the approach Bantari suggested doesn't equate to pity, though it might work out that way for some people. It's not so much assuming that you're a particular rank as acknowledging that you will never really understand Go and using that recognition to let go of identifying with your rank. In a certain way, it's Socratic. Socrates certainly wasn't one for self-pity.

tl;dr: Different approaches will work for different people.

I had wondered where DarWIN had got to. Welcome back.

Maybe one of the wonderful things about Go is its endless number of faces: to some it can be just a board game, something to occupy the mind and pass some friendly time. And to others, a source of a lifetime obsessive study, driven by existential angst, fascination or the need to pay the bills!

All of those things are brought to Go by the player, not the game (or even the community). If Go inflames your angst, don't play it, but it's your angst. I suspect you are aware of that though.

(Also, kind of a tangent but I really like the response from the person who said ranks are best seen as an indicator of whom it would be fun to play, rather than some absolute calculation of your worth as a human being. Do you find that a helpful idea? If not, you can always go to KGS and play as [-]).

_________________
Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Yes, I do like that idea of ranks, and part of my being this critical and annoying was there's this guy at my Go club who talks during games and even though at first he was saying, since he knew the game better than me, he was being helpful, I feel like he's just trying to psych me out, and sometimes he can just say things that are just really rude and he hurt my feelings the other day. Sorry for taking it out on you guys.

Hi darWIN, Sorry to hear that. Your options include:

• Don't play him; yes, if your club is small, this may be annoying;
• Have a chat with him, let him know politely and calmly that kibitz during a game is very bad form; see how he takes it.
• If he says very rude things, you can call him out on it right away.
• Work very hard, improve way past his Go level, and completely crush him on the board. (Unfortunately, for some people, even this will not shut them up. )
• Any combinations of the above.

What's his Go level? (Go level is independent of other levels in life; I'm curious. If your descriptions of him are accurate, then his level is not good in some areas.)

Ha, yes, we've got a chatterer at my go club as well. I don't know about yours, but as far as I can tell ours just doesn't have a filter between his brain and mouth. It's tricky too, because he'll kibitz and say "oh, that's the only move", but he's often wrong, so you have to separate out what he's saying from your own strategy and reading, and it's a bit confusing. Even just having him talking about other topics right beside me elevates my blunder rate as my brain jumps around.

People like that you can just politely ask to shut up, explain that it's distracting you and that you'd be happy to review after the game. My approach is to view it as another facet of go self-cultivation. Now that I know his chatter reduces my ability, I'm trying to learn to play my top game with it around. I figure if I can focus with that, I can focus in any environment I find myself playing go at. Same idea if your opponent is rude: it's incredibly satisfying to play a bad sport who tries to get you off your game and just calmly ignore him and wend your way to victory. You'll find a few folk you just can't mesh with in any activity and any coping skills you develop for them will help you immensely in life.

Hi Polama, yes, seems to be not uncommon. Same question: what's your guy's Go level ?

Well, he says he's a kyu, but he's never been specific, and I've never been curious. Another guy who says he's a 2 kyu did the same thing, I'd get his stones to a place where they were in serious danger of being captured, and so I'd continue to capture them, and he'd say, "that's alright you can do that later." but he just said that so he could save them later, I realized after the game when I lost a fight I was winning. Later I got so angry because I listened to him, just because he said he was 2 kyu. I've still taken pieces of his though. So ha ha.

I mean, there are nice people there too, who I've played, who don't chatter during a game. Let the stones do the talking.

I mean, I don't mind chatting after the game, just during I do not like. Actually the guy who tricked me into letting him escape, is fairly interesting, he said he learned Go in the military in Korea and that the military gave him LSD. I am still unclear as to why, but he also says he has met the actual Baba Ram Das, one of the chemists who made LSD and took it and then went all crazy about Yoga. I've never touched the stuff, but apparently a possible side effect is becoming an Asian.

Ah, would be most helpful to have the game record. Otherwise, impossible to know exactly what was the situation on the board.

Not sure what this means.

Doing lsd makes you think you are Asian.

So you do not believe me? I'm telling the truth, he was trying to make me think they were stones which were in a position to be taken off at the end of the game, when they weren't, or that it was a move that I could make later, and would take away "sentei" or something, but actually I would have been far better off, had I made sure those stones had no way of escape. It's called a capture race not a capture snail. Basically he told me my move was bad when it wasn't, he was just losing. I don't like people giving me bad advice under the pretense of being older and wiser and teaching. That's slimy and dirty and especially despicable considering I'm a young woman and he's an old man.

You don't have to believe me though, I don't care, I've had enough people treat me unfairly to be used to it.

Or maybe you think he was trying to give good advice and I just didn't realize it at the time because I wasn't good enough at the game. Well, if his advice made me lose an entire corner of the board and part of the middle, it couldn't have been that great.

Well, depending on the board, the comment he made could be quite legitimate. Early on in the game, for example, it may be possible to capture, say, a group of 10 stones. When you make the capture, though, to keep the stones dead, your opponent may be able to get a lot of forcing moves on the outside. In addition, you give up sente to kill, so your opponent gets the pick of the next place to play on the board. Sometimes it's worth it to kill right away, sometimes it isn't, because if your opponent spends a move living you'll get two free moves in other places on the board, which may be worth more.

The hardest part, of course, is not only resisting killing right away, in that situation, but figuring out the timing to come back and kill it. Too early, and it's not worth enough. Too late, and your opponent will save them but you won't get enough compensation in other places.

If this happens, I would definitely ask them about it. It may be that you got the timing wrong after the initial suggestion, or it may be that they misjudged it originally (strong players aren't infallible), or it may be that they tried to psych you out. It's also possible that they lived, but you didn't take the biggest points in compensation and so you lost out. As Edlee mentioned, it's hard to tell without seeing the exact board positions. Regardless of the answer, hopefully it will be a learning experience: either to a better understanding of go, or to the realization that this person is full of it and not worth playing again.

EDIT:
I missed your followup message, but if that's the case, there's no requirement to play them again, and I'm sorry you had to deal with them.

Thank you for your kind words. I still like the game. It's a nice distraction for me, and actually it has cheered me up during bad times. I think I learned an important lesson though. If I want to get good at this, I have to learn by playing, and that is always fun, the silence, the puzzles you create on the board. I will not listen to anyone's advice on how you play ever again. Because if I've learned anything it's that I can only trust you to be untrustworthy.

Although, I think that a Go player at their best I can also trust to be a friend who likes to play, patient, shy and retiring perhaps. Is that too optimistic?

I'm sorry for your recent bad experiences, but you're jumping off the deep end here. Some people lie; some are mean; many people are genuinely helpful. You can be spiteful, suspicious, isolated, and alone, or you can shrug it off and move on. Do you see yourself as too fragile or weak to endure the occasional insult or loss?

You say he was stationed in Korea: I wonder if he was a frequent Bang Neki player (gambling Go). If so, that might explain bad sportsmanship, as people get cutthroat when money is involved. If that was his background, he may even have intended the swindle as a positive thing, that you trick young players very explicitly so they learn not to trust stronger players during a game. I don't know, but gambling groups develop weird social norms.

Absolutely you should try to ignore advice during a game, because it's your game to play. And I wouldn't trust other people's advice in general either: not because they are trying to trick you (I think people are much happier when they give each other the benefit of the doubt), but because you learn so much more when you take any advice and prove it for yourself, turning it over in your head, attacking it critically. Knowing a sequence is liked by strong players helps your game, but not as much as dissecting it and understanding intuitively why it's a preferred way of playing. So question advice critically, because it could be wrong and because it'll stay with you better when you've studied it deeply looking for flaws, but not because you think everybody is trying to get you.

I'm sorry you're so stupid that hearing one story makes you think I'm jumping off the deep end. I'm sorry that one story of a moment of suspicion makes you think these qualities define me.

And to answer your question, if I was too fragile to endure the occasional insult or loss, I would have killed myself long ago, not from games, but from the joke that was my very existence. If you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all.

I suggest you re-read this when you wake up tommorow.

You don't know me. You don't know what my life was like. You don't know how much I have suffered. I think I'm right to have my opinion of all other people be that they are selfish and despicable and worthless. If I'm wrong you'll have to prove to me your goodness. But I see no reason as of now to doubt this analysis of the human species.

I'm not saying anything about you; you're just assuming that I think you have no right to think X or feel Y; I'm not even saying you're wrong. What I am saying is that you're yelling and complaining about how horrible the human race is on an internet comedy forum go forum. When you calm down tomorrow/in a week, you'll see what I mean. It's just silly to be angry at no one in particular here.