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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

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.

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I write Go-ing Shodan, a blog about trying to get through the sdk's. If you want to check it out, tenuki.

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.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I was very confused by Terry's blog post.


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.

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.


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.

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Patience, grasshopper.

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:
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

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

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.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

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...

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David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

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:



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.

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David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

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.

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.

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Occupy Babel!

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.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

His history lesson is interesting. After thirty-one years in existence the American Chess Foundation (nothing to do with the USCF of course) was down to one employee in Flushing. However it jumped on the Chess in Schools bandwagon (apparently created by the FIDE in 1984) and never looked back. This year the EU officially endorsed the CIS program for European schools by the way. So Bob wants to blame amateur Go players in the U.S. for... what, exactly? Playing the wrong game perhaps?

I also found his bit about Broadway baffling. Given the nature of his blog posts, isn't the Go equivalent of the despicable, second-rate theater critics, er... Bob Terry?

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Yes.No need to be sorry; I just thought he did not say one has to be "very good" at Go to promote it well.
I hope you feel much better soon.

Yes, the article "Why Go has Failed to Prosper in the US" is a bit bizarre -- "failed at life" is too much.
However, and once again I may be among the minority here, I share some of his sentiments
and I find some of his observations and criticisms very accurate in his other blogs,
"How NOT to Promote Go in the US" and "Time for Go to Grow Up."

I think the real problem with the spread of Go is that nobody has heard of it, and many of those who have think it's the province of math professors, geniuses, geeks and Asians. They see it in A Beautiful Mind, or read things like Sarah Paretsky's The Takamoku Joseki, neither of which have much about the actual game or make it look fun to play. Hikaru No Go has done more to spread knowledge of Go than anything in the US, but again, that's a manga and anime, which attracts a niche audience. Whatever the AGA does about tournaments and events, most people will just say, "Go? Never heard of it." and go on with their lives.

Go needs to go mainstream in a way people will notice. My suggestion: try to get them to do an episode of Big Bang Theory where Sheldon enters a Go tournament. There is way more than enough cliquish nerdiness associated with Go to make it a natural for the show, and to provide fuel for all sorts of comedy.

And here's another thing that ought to be done to make Go more popular: get someone to crank out some dirt-cheap full-size go sets that can be sold in toy and department stores. Imagine you're a parent wandering around an actual store looking for a game that might get your kids to think. You can grab a chess or checkers set for $10 at the local Walmart, with a cardboard board and junky plastic pieces. If you're in a big enough city that they even HAVE a go set, even if you've ever HEARD of it, you're probably looking at spending at the very least $30. Which would you spend on an impulse purchase, not knowing whether your kids will even bother to play it? IMO, people are much more willing to try something on the cheap, and if they like it enough, they are willing afterward to upgrade to a better quality set.

I doubt that you're in the minority in sharing some of his sentiments. I think organized Go in the US is hardly in great shape. My question would be: what does Mr. Terry teach us about the causes or solutions to that problem, or even help us describe the scope of the problem?

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Occupy Babel!

The articles are pretty grim. They feel like a disguised rant.

However, i do believe we should look at chess and poker to learn how they spread. Saying "chess is successful because people know what it is" is precisely what we have to learn from.

Chess was unknown at some point, so how to get it to be known. The only way to create a really expansive community is to have a defined strategy for it and doing it so. There was an AGA comission looking into it, they seemed to be on the right track, and were looking for funding.

Having the first professionals is an important landmark, and there should be a joint effort into building a gigantic sport. Its for sure possible, if there are world competitions of cup-stacking, why cant Go get more known.

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