useless questions

HermanHiddema · **#41**

Toge wrote:

Analogy:
To type a sentence, you have to understand what each word means. Typing a sentence here is production. Arranging words in correct order to have meaningful result. In order to type a sentence, you don't need to invent any words. They're all in dictionary. You've heard all the words you're using somewhere before. That's knowledge. Same goes to game of Go: you hear the proverb "hane at the head of two stones is a good move" and the first move you'll consider in situation like that is hane. This knowledge makes weak players stronger.

I think that in general, the language analogy is very good. Go is a lot like talking. It is no coincidence that go is also called handtalk sometimes

Learning to play go is like learning a new language.

Learning shapes, tesuji, probes is like learning words, expanding your vocabulary.
Going over pro games is like reading books, seeing how words are used by native speakers.
Learning joseki is like learning set phrases, like "Can you tell me the time?" or "How much for those apples?"
Doing life & death is like conversation practice: "At the hotel", "At the airport", "In the shop".
Standard openings are like standard conversation starters, like "How was work today?"

But playing a game is like having an actual conversation. You still have to tie all of what you've learned together. Which words are appropriate to express what thought? What response is appropriate to which question? Is this consistent with the rest of what I've been saying? Even though you're using the same words, every conversation is unique.

Having an actual conversation means you have to think about what you are saying. That is what reading is in go. All those memorized components will make your conversation better, easier and faster, but you do have to think about how to apply them.

topazg · **#42**

Magicwand wrote:

i play hane at the head of two stone because i read what happens after not because i memorized it.

I think you're slightly missing the point perhaps. For example, in the below diagram:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Wc Move 1 $$ --------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . 1 , B . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

How often have you even bothered to read variations starting with Black 2?

It is memorising (call it experience if you'd rather) that gives us a valuable initial selection of moves to bother reading further.

EDIT: Also, I can think of a number of Malkovich game moves where you've basically said "Don't know if this works, haven't read it, but it looks right" or something like that

topazg · **#43**

HermanHiddema wrote:

I think that in general, the language analogy is very good. Go is a lot like talking. It is no coincidence that go is also called handtalk sometimes

Learning to play go is like learning a new language.

Learning shapes, tesuji, probes is like learning words, expanding your vocabulary.
Going over pro games is like reading books, seeing how words are used by native speakers.
Learning joseki is like learning set phrases, like "Can you tell me the time?" or "How much for those apples?"
Doing life & death is like conversation practice: "At the hotel", "At the airport", "In the shop".
Standard openings are like standard conversation starters, like "How was work today?"

But playing a game is like having an actual conversation. You still have to tie all of what you've learned together. Which words are appropriate to express what thought? What response is appropriate to which question? Is this consistent with the rest of what I've been saying? Even though you're using the same words, every conversation is unique.

Having an actual conversation means you have to think about what you are saying. That is what reading is in go. All those memorized components will make your conversation better, easier and faster, but you do have to think about how to apply them.

This is awesome!! You've taken a generally reasonable analogy and made it a fabulous one. This needs recording somewhere on SL or something..

Harleqin · **#44**

Magicwand wrote:

Toge wrote:

Same goes to game of Go: you hear the proverb "hane at the head of two stones is a good move" and the first move you'll consider in situation like that is hane. This knowledge makes weak players stronger.

I play hane at the head of two stone because I read what happens after, not because I memorized it.

And why do you even begin to read the hane? (Besides, I thought you did not like to read.)

karaklis · **#45**

Toge wrote:

A 20k is not 20k because he can't read. He's 20k because he has no idea what to read.

Exactly that, and it has to be emphasized once more.

You can also put it the other way around: You can only get strong at reading if you know lots of shapes and tesuji.

To abstract it: Suppose you can read 100 positions. When you're 20k, there are about 10 eligible positions to play on every move. Then you will be able to read out two moves, your move, your opponent's move, that's all - reading depth: 2. When you're a dan player, there are 1-2 eligible positions. As for the others you *know* that these are bad. Assuming 1.5 positions per move you will be able to read out a move depth of 11-12.

Once I read an article about what professional chess players makes so strong. To find out about it, their brain activities were examined during play. It turned out that their long-term memory was much more active than that of ordinary players. This finding led to the conclusion that professional players read out/assess the game by accessing patterns from their long-term memory. This makes perfect sense for go as well, since go is even more related to pattern recognition than chess.

So to get stronger you need to internalize lots of patterns in your long-term memory.

Magicwand · **#46**

karaklis wrote:

Toge wrote:

A 20k is not 20k because he can't read. He's 20k because he has no idea what to read.

Exactly that, and it has to be emphasized once more.

You can also put it the other way around: You can only get strong at reading if you know lots of shapes and tesuji.

To abstract it: Suppose you can read 100 positions. When you're 20k, there are about 10 eligible positions to play on every move. Then you will be able to read out two moves, your move, your opponent's move, that's all - reading depth: 2. When you're a dan player, there are 1-2 eligible positions. As for the others you *know* that these are bad. Assuming 1.5 positions per move you will be able to read out a move depth of 11-12.

Once I read an article about what professional chess players makes so strong. To find out about it, their brain activities were examined during play. It turned out that their long-term memory was much more active than that of ordinary players. This finding led to the conclusion that professional players read out/assess the game by accessing patterns from their long-term memory. This makes perfect sense for go as well, since go is even more related to pattern recognition than chess.

So to get stronger you need to internalize lots of patterns in your long-term memory.

i forget eveything that happened yesterday.
so it must not be my memory

badukbaka · **#47**

1. Yes, after reading a good baduk book.

2. Depends on the opponent.

daal · **#48**

Magicwand on May 23rd wrote:

reason why your game done look like the problem is that you are not playing joseki.
many corner problems appears in actual game.
study life and death of corner and memorize them.

L&D is good for you because it will familiarize you with critical points.
in actual game you will learn to see good attack points and defending points.
you will also learn killing points of the shape so you do not waste your reading on something uesless.

trust me that anybody can reach 5D kgs level.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 9100#p9100

Magicwand on May 26th wrote:

how many instance in your game memorization actually help?
few opening moves and josekies perhaps..
rest of them are reading.

Magicwand on May 27th wrote:

i forget eveything that happened yesterday.
so it must not be my memory

dfan · **#49**

Magicwand wrote:

i play hane at the head of two stone because i read what happens after not because i memorized it.

Yet you often make comments in Malkovich games such as "His move must be bad... I am not sure why yet" or "This must be the only move, I will read later" (I didn't look up actual quotes, these are paraphrases). It seems like in practice you use your intuition a lot (and do very well with it!).

Kirby · **#50**

dfan wrote:

Magicwand wrote:

i play hane at the head of two stone because i read what happens after not because i memorized it.

Yet you often make comments in Malkovich games such as "His move must be bad... I am not sure why yet" or "This must be the only move, I will read later" (I didn't look up actual quotes, these are paraphrases). It seems like in practice you use your intuition a lot (and do very well with it!).

Perhaps it is important that one reads the result at *some* point. Maybe Magicwand really has read the result sometime in the past, but experience allows him to chunk the result. I have no idea, though. It's just my guess.

Magicwand · **#51**

dfan wrote:

Magicwand wrote:

i play hane at the head of two stone because i read what happens after not because i memorized it.

Yet you often make comments in Malkovich games such as "His move must be bad... I am not sure why yet" or "This must be the only move, I will read later" (I didn't look up actual quotes, these are paraphrases). It seems like in practice you use your intuition a lot (and do very well with it!).

intuition is a reading skill.
also i read alot deeper than low kyu players in less time.
but when it is complicated you can not read all variations then you must rely on your intuition.
is intuition = memory? i think it is closer to reading skill.

his move must be bad : usually because i can see some other variaton that is better
i am not sure way yet: because it is that complicated i am not sure.
This must be the only move: process of eleimination will tell me that.

woops i gotta go now...edit later.

karaklis · **#52**

Magicwand wrote:

intuition is a reading skill.

I'd rather put it this way: intuition is the skill that makes reading much more efficient, so it is a skill related to reading, but not a reading skill as such.

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