Tami's Way

RobertJasiek · **#201**

Tami wrote:

You lose!

I win because
- a diagram of only one example is insufficient information while a definition has general information,
- it is unclear from your diagram what it wants to convey (could be, e.g., "making a superfluous play"),
- your diagram is a bad example (add a few white stones to improve it).

RobertJasiek · **#202**

John Fairbairn wrote:

you need to do the thinking work before the game

This is basically correct because one has much more time before than during a game.

Concerning most of the rest of your message, I have almost the opposite opinion (and experience), as discussed earlier, except that...

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Hard work

...I consider this a necessity but not the only important one.

Tami · **#203**

John Fairbairn wrote:

At the risk of overegging the pudding, I think it would be wise to add another nugget from the chess experience. Among perennially weaker players it is common for them to learn one significant item, such as a proverb, a formula or a new way of looking at things, and then to experience a surge of improvement. Almost invariably, however, they soon fall back to their old grade. A common response then is to buy more books or more snake oil in the hope of getting another "high". But chess or go proverbs and formulas work no better than drugs.

Depressingly, the best advice for playing good go is a four-letter word ending in k and wrapped up in a two-word phrase:

I agree with this completely.

Now, although I`m sure I have identified the most important thing to work on, I can say it`s not a "formula" or "hack" of the kind you have just mentioned. It`s not even a go skill, specifically. Far from reducing effort, it`s something that is very difficult indeed to do well; but I can imagine that the more you understand about go, then the more practiced one is in this task, the more it will support that understanding. Essentially, the thing I mean is like saying "in order to walk, you have to stand up" or "in order to sing you have to open your mouth". Because it`s on that level of obviousness, I feel confident of it. However, I often forget to do it, and so I end up playing go as though singing with closed mouth. I simply didn`t realise it before. Further, simply standing up does not qualify you for the 50km race walk, and neither does opening your mouth make you an opera singer, but who`d deny that they were essential?

As for the stuff about emulating famous players. It is indeed seductive to try to copy people we admire. But with my skills, trying to copy the players I like is comparable to trying to copy Leonardo with a pack of felt-tip pens and frostbitten hands :cry:

So, as far as possible, I try just to play the best I can in whatever position I see before me.

Bill Spight · **#204**

RobertJasiek wrote:

Tami wrote:

the role of words in chess thinking. They start off by being helpful, but eventually they become hindrances by overloading the working memory. [...] go principles are of great help, but they can also be great obstacles.

Bad words are a burden - good words are and remain helpful.

Bad principles are a burden - good principles are and remain helpful.

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verbal principles are something to be mastered and then transcended.

It can be an advantage (you furthermore claim "skill") to enable oneself to apply good principles so fluently that one does not need to mentally spell out them explcitily whenever using them. Even then, it is an advantage to be able to recall principles explicitly whenever needed for greater precision.

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Grandmasters think in a much more abstract, streamlined way, with minimal use of words to describe the relationships that they process in their minds.

I buy "abstract" and "streamlined", but not "minimal use of words", unless this shall just refer to what you call "transcended".

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For a long while, I have noticed how very difficult it is to keep reminding myself of verbal principles while considering a move in a real game situation.

The better the principles are the easier and more fruitful it becomes.

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The goal has to be [...] a wordless way that gets straight to the real relationships between stones.

This does not require wordless thinking. Quite contrarily, the better the words and principles become that one's thinking uses (on the literal surface or in a "transcended" manner), the better the "real" relationships between stones can be assessed.

On thinking in words, you two might be interested in the work of the Russian psychologist, Vygotsky ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky ), particularly on how language is internalized in cognition.

Along those lines, I remember how one of my go opponents in Japan would sometimes talk to himself while reading, "Kou, kou, kou, kou, kou." (Here, here, here, here, here.

)

Tami wrote:

What should a musician do before all else?

Make music.

NoSkill · **#205**

When you drive you trust your instinct and to focus on the moment, not too far ahead?

Bill Spight · **#206**

EdLee wrote:

"When you're eating, what's the most crucial thing to do?"

Swallow.

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"When you're sleeping, what's the most crucial thing to do?"

Wake up.

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"When you're crossing the street, what's the most crucial thing to do?"

Get across.

There is a theme here, isn't there?

Bill Spight · **#207**

Tami wrote:

snorri · **#208**

Tami wrote:

Tami · **#209**

Okay, I think I`ll put you all out of your misery. You probably think I`m just playing at being a mystic or, more like, just larking around.

By the way, most of your answers were not skills, but simply goals. For example, staying alive is a goal, and a very worthwhile one, but it`s not a skill in itself.

Anyway, here`s the thing:

Who`s going to tell me that a professional does not perform this skill extremely well when it comes to go? Who`s going to deny that a 7d is better than a 1d at it, or that a 5k is better than a 15k at it? I told you it was obvious, but I bet you`ve clicked or placed your move on thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of occasions without even thinking about performing this skill. I know I have.

Congratulations to snorri. His answer was by far the closest. I would not call it "pay attention" because sometimes that can result in "not seeing the wood for the trees", but still :salute:

RobertJasiek · **#210**

O. is not the most important skill. O. without understanding is as misleading as a purely visual perception of the position (without, e.g., understanding connection). So understanding is a more important skill than O. Where does understanding come from if O. as its origin is by far insufficient? Besides the agreement "from reading", some claim "from self-organisation of subconscious thinking" - I claim "from conscious knowledge".

snorri · **#211**

John Fairbairn wrote:

One is called (I think) self-identification - how you see yourself as a chess or go player. You may think of yourself as, say, an aggressive player. That will get you into the bad habit of learning only things that reinforce your self image. This is not only a severe limitation but may be the biggest problem of all. As we can see for ourselves on L19, many weaker players like to mention that they try to play like Shuwa, or whoever. Apparently the same syndrome exists in chess.

The other problem is over-confidence in one's reasoning, especially when it comes to drawing conclusions. Weaker players tend to be much more confident than strong players. The very strongest players actually are very wishy-washy. Time and again the chess writers report (and you can see this on chess sites where kibitzers are allowed, but of course also in go on kgs) that on being shown a new position weak players say things like, "White is winning" but a strong grandmaster will say,"Maybe White has chances". A very strong grandmaster will just say, "Hmmm". Actually this paradigm (which I gather applies to other fields of endeavour) seems to work so well that I suspect it may be how pros assess the grade of players they meet for the first time.

Ebooks are wonderful things. Now that I've actually read "Chess for Zebras" (at least at the very superficial level I can as a non-chess player) I see where you are coming from with those ideas. It reminds of those old books I haven't read in years, like Gallwey's "Inner Tennis" and "The Inner Game of Music." (I think the skiing one really did help me ski better.) I hadn't thought about those ideas in a while, maybe because they were based on early notions of left-brain / right-brain differences. But whether the physiology is correct or not there is something to the idea that too much thinking can get in the way of skill acquisition. I definitely think Go is more like a sport or like music than like an academic discipline.

Bill Spight · **#212**

John Fairbairn wrote:

Among perennially weaker players it is common for them to learn one significant item, such as a proverb, a formula or a new way of looking at things, and then to experience a surge of improvement. Almost invariably, however, they soon fall back to their old grade.

If there is a real surge, then that would be something quite interesting to investigate.

However, at first blush it sounds like normal variability plus selection. Case 1: Aha! experience, followed by better results, followed by return to baseline. Case 2: Aha! experience, followed by worse results, followed by return to baseline. The better results in case 1 are attributed to the Aha! experience, while the worse results in case 2 are not, and case 2 is ignored or forgotten.

Tami · **#213**

RobertJasiek wrote:

O. is not the most important skill. O. without understanding is as misleading as a purely visual perception of the position (without, e.g., understanding connection). So understanding is a more important skill than O. Where does understanding come from if O. as its origin is by far insufficient? Besides the agreement "from reading", some claim "from self-organisation of subconscious thinking" - I claim "from conscious knowledge".

You can have all the understanding a human could have, but if you`re not carefully

the position in hand, how are you supposed to make use of it? And do you think people found go principles before they

them in play?

Speedy Gearchange was the world`s most skilful racing driver. Unfortunately, on the 15th lap of last week`s Grand Prix he failed to

the oil patch ahead of him. Now Ron McCautious is the world`s most skilful racing driver.

snorri · **#214**

RobertJasiek wrote:

O. is not the most important skill. O. without understanding is as misleading as a purely visual perception of the position (without, e.g., understanding connection). So understanding is a more important skill than O. Where does understanding come from if O. as its origin is by far insufficient? Besides the agreement "from reading", some claim "from self-organisation of subconscious thinking" - I claim "from conscious knowledge".

Understanding doesn't help much if one can't deliver on it. For example, having a subtle understanding of thickness is not useful if, due to looking on the wrong part of the board, one is not paying attention to the implications of thickness elsewhere. Understanding (in the sense of knowledge that one comes in to the game with) is also insufficient.

There is preparation and performance. Both are crucial. You've spent many years reading go books and accumulating and consolidating knowledge. That's great. But a number of players do that to differing degrees with varying results, so there's also the question of what it takes to "bring it." Are you going to make the claim that you review all of your knowledge before every move? If not, then there is some aspect of selection of what's relevant and I think that part is a very important skill. How to improve that, though?

Bill Spight · **#215**

Tami wrote:

As for the stuff about emulating famous players. It is indeed seductive to try to copy people we admire. But with my skills, trying to copy the players I like is comparable to trying to copy Leonardo with a pack of felt-tip pens and frostbitten hands :cry:

I would not be too quick to dismiss emulating famous players. "Where would X play?" can be a good guide. Years ago I read about a primitive fisherman, who fished with a spear, pretending to be the god of fishing. In our modern society, as adults, we have forgotten the power of pretending. We are afraid that we will pretend to be Fred Astaire and fall on our face.

John Fairbairn · **#216**

Bill Spight wrote:

Quote:

If there is a real surge, then that would be something quite interesting to investigate. However, at first blush it sounds like normal variability plus selection. Case 1: Aha! experience, followed by better results, followed by return to baseline. Case 2: Aha! experience, followed by worse results, followed by return to baseline. The better results in case 1 are attributed to the Aha! experience, while the worse results in case 2 are not, and case 2 is ignored or forgotten.

Yes, this is all valid and is discussed at length by Daniel Kahneman, author of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" which I see one of our major bookshops in London is currently highlighting, so its contents may soon become mainstream. Kahneman mentions the skills needed by a chess player several times, but as regards the above his framework is a convincing discussion of "Regresssion to the Mean", although elsewhere in the book there is also much about the fact that our brains are apparently set up to ignore or forget or avoid what we don't like.

Bill Spight · **#217**

Tami wrote:

Anyway, here`s the thing:

Along those lines, I have recently started recommending to people who want to study tsumego intensively that they practice recreating the problem on an empty board. If you don't know what the problem is, what good does it do to know the answer?

RobertJasiek · **#218**

Tami wrote:

if you`re not carefully

What I do carefully is analysing / evaluating / judging. Nothing of these is o.

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And do you think people found go principles before they

No. That something precedes everything else makes it a necessity but not the most important.

RobertJasiek · **#219**

snorri wrote:

due to looking on the wrong part of the board

One must always be aware of the whole position.

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Understanding [...] is also insufficient.

Ok, good argument:) (Anyway, I have not said that understanding alone would do.)

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You've spent many years reading go books and accumulating and consolidating knowledge. [...] there's also the question of what it takes to "bring it."

Knowledge must be (about) correct and relevant. So profit from knowledge, one must identify which is correct and relevant and discard the superfluous, wrong knowledge. (Even little relevance (such as a minor principle for connections) suffices but knowledge essentially irrelevant for strength improvement (such as a precise knowledge of Japanese rules) can be ignored, although fun to study for its own sake.)

Furthermore, one must be able to learn from knowledge identified as correct and relevant. Recall it, apply it, keep recalling it, so that you can keep applying it.

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Are you going to make the claim that you review all of your knowledge before every move?

As I have explained several times, my knowledge is STRUCTURED. I call only that knowledge that needs to be consulted as possibly relevant for the current position. Besides my knowledge includes decision making knowledge (how to apply several principles, contradicting principles etc.).

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If not, then there is some aspect of selection of what's relevant

Yes.

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and I think that part is a very important skill.

Yes.

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How to improve that, though?

Acquire correct and relevant knowledge for structuring knowledge and for decision making.

Bonobo · **#220**

… somehow this reminds me of many discussions between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander Data :-D

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