Life In 19x19

The tournament organization was a bit of a mess across the board. I feel bad for saying this since I know the organizers had very little time and worked very hard to make this congress happen but the constant delays, confusion and conflicting information were unpleasant for the players. Perhaps a ...

I think that you are still implying that we have asked for something very improper. That there was going to be a sneaky vote, even though EGF constitution is fairly clear on introducing proposals in 'other discussions' and EGF practice is also fairly consistent.
I did not mean to imply that. Your ...

I think it misses the mark to question from the outset whether EGF has authority and responsibility, or even the willingness to deliberate carefully. [...] It is apples and oranges to claim decisions on lapsed EGF members were not deliberated carefully enough, if that is what you meant.
I would ...

If we accept (as we should) that comfortable satisfaction is the most appropriate standard of proof, then proving cheating is a matter of presenting evidence and arguments that are sufficient to sway the decision body. That could be witness statements, expert statements, investigation findings or ...

This has been discussed before but how does one prove that there was cheating? This happens to be an open-and-shut case because the cheater admitted his guilt but most of them aren't quite so honest afterwards. I would perhaps agree with harsher punishments in cases where there is no reasonable ...

Komi is 6 in a lot of Slovenian tournaments including the national championship. The reasons being something along the lines of "it's become a tradition" and "it's something different/interesting", I wasn't around when they decided this so I don't know what the original reason was. I've never been a ...

I agree that it's difficult to be a full-time pro, in the USA even more so than in Europe but there's plenty of other degrees between being a full-time pro and quitting go altogether. Of course, motivation may be a problem, but European pros haven't exactly had it easy either. The epidemic made the ...

Personally I'm happy to have my membership fee spent on pro qualifications and subsidizing their tournament activity. I think pro competitions are fun and exciting. But I can see why some people don't care. Regardless, the point is to promote Go in general and having pros promotes Go because they ...

I suppose your anecdote is your way of saying that you can know the patterns while not fully grasping how to use them. It usually takes a lot of time and practice before someone has internalised them enough to be able to use them so freely and effortlessly. I think you're right that the STEM folk ...

Dancing and calligraphy, to an extent, are performative arts where actual physical movement plays an integral part while in go any physical movement (e.g. placing a stone) is purely incidental. Any movement, flow or dynamics that we speak of in relation to the quality of the go game is imagined. The ...

I'm curious. Which one do you think makes you a better player? Seeing the board as photographs or a movie?

Here's something we haven't discussed yet. I agree that the words we choose to a certain extent reflect and influence the way we think about the world. However, we don't just think in words but also, for example, images and I'd posit that visual thinking is more important in go than verbal thinking ...

There's also "force before connecting" where an otherwise slow or ineffectual forcing move may be the correct move in this instance due to proper timing. I'd say that endgame moves are also to a large extent a matter of timing. Very small sente moves or moves that force a dame connection are not ...

Why would a dynamic view of shape be good and a static view of shape bad? Perhaps I've missed something in the discussion but from what I've read I'm not convinced. As Knotwilg has said "the board has no memory". I believe that it's a human shortcoming to see the board as telling a story, i.e. a ...

Are the players allowed to eat while playing?