I've already talked about why I want to be a dan player. The post was nearly a year ago, but I still generally agree with what I said back then. What I find funny is that I specifically mention reaching 3 kyu, which is now my rank. It feels different from the 8k rank I had then, but I don't find that go has spontaneously become more enjoyable with each rank.

Yet I can say that the game is more interesting as you get stronger.

Think of it in terms of the difference between a 30 kyu player and a 20 kyu player. The 30 kyu is trying to figure out why a second line stone in atari is doomed to be captured and how a ladder works - they think on the scale of individual stones. It is not that this game isn't fun, but it isn't the same game that a 20 kyu player experiences. The 20 kyu player understands these things and is instead challenged by trying to work out the life and death of whole groups. The complexity of the game is always the same, but your perspective changes.

It is like in that scene from Hikaru no Go when he first plays against Koya Toyo. He sees the determination and spirit behind each move and desires to replicate that. When I look at a professional game, I can figuratively see their fingertips shining. I can see beauty in the moves they play.

And I want to be able to snap a stone like that...

_________________
"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

The essential difference - in my opinion - between a weaker and a stronger player is that the stronger one can appreciate pro games much more.

I replayed pro games as a DDK and quickly gave up because it was equivalent to doing colour by numbers. I did not resume until around 3-5 kyu, where I could finally make some sense of the moves. Now at around 1-kyu I feel I begin to really appreciate strong/thick shapes in pro games for the first time.

I'm curious what comes next =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I don't know about you, but I started to learn to draw by coloring inside the lines, and I found playing over pro games I didn't really understand well quite helpful in making me realize that I was locked into certain faulty patterns of thinking and directly attribute it to a lot of my improvement. It also helped me by giving me ideas about what to do in certain situations, like "in game X, so and so handled this type of invasion this way... does that work here?"

I want to be 5d so I can take a 3h against pros and have good chances of winning

Also being stronger means I can read deeper, which is where I want to be without doing any of the work. So... Yeah 5d please.

5d in what system. It certainly won't do it for you with the AGA rankings, but it may do with the EGF rankings. Assuming you mean a 1p pro.

_________________
Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Ah I hadn't thought of that. Well... we have 2 AGA professionals right? Haha, maybe with them the 3h would work?

If not I could be strong enough to take 3h against people who could take 3h against Pros. :]

I suppose in response to the original topic: there's a clear subset of players for whom progress is the key joy. Once they get past the easier hurdles and their progress slows down to some personal threshold, there is risk that they will decided the game is no longer worth their time. I've met a number of players like this in many different games.

Personally, I find the social aspect of Go (and Chess) is what keeps me playing. This can be frustrating to my opponents if they are highly competitive and feel that my casual play style is insulting to them.

I agree quite a bit with RJ, there are plenty of joy-giving aspects and what you get out of the games you play is a very personal thing.

As for wanting to be a certain rank, I plan on (eventually) being the absolute weakest ever KGS 1d (and beyond).

I learnt drawing by just drawing (no outlines, just colour) and later through teachers in drawing classes (in school). When I learnt about perspective and the illusion of depths through shadowing I first started to realize the real beauty (and art) in (some) "professional" paintings. Pretty much the same with pro games for me.

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I am as strong as I was when I started playing. Some other players have become stronger and some players have gotten weaker during this time.

I did try becoming stronger; read books and solved tsumego. It did not make me any stronger, but other people started making stupid mistakes around the same time.

I don't think having a particular rank would make me happy, but when I make noticeable progress I get excited. When I learn a new concept or really see the importance of one I didn't quite get before, or when I read something I knew would have made my head hurt previously, it feels good. Seeing the rank go up along with these revelations is nice, but it's the feeling of getting new things you didn't see before that makes improvement fun. When I hear why strong players made moves, it makes me excited to learn to see stuff like that. So it's having a positive derivative rather than a specific rank that makes me happy. If I get to 5k soon I'll be happier than I would be if I were to later be in a slump at 3d.

That said, having the label "dan player" definitely sounds cooler, and with the numbering system it would feel like the beginning of advanced progress rather than the end of a countdown to a fixed baseline.

Would near prefer remain DDK forever then be noodled by such notions.

_________________
"Tsumegos are for reading power and Tesujis for knowing which moves to read"