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 Post subject: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #1 Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2022 5:48 am 
Oza

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Cho Hun-hyeon is now largely absent from the go scene, as a result of becoming a politician and having formally to avoid clashes of interest. But he is of course able to talk about go in his political work, and he was a principal author behind a report published in December 2021 by the government agency responsible for culture, physical education and tourism.

Taking as a slogan the idea of go being a mind sport appropriate to the coming age of centenarians, the report highlights five areas that need attention. These refer, as I see it, mainly to Korea, but globalisation is mentioned. The problems are certainly not the ones we would draw up if we made our own list, I think.

The first problem mentioned is the complex system of grade certification. This has evolved from the growth of online go. Five servers are mentioned. They all have different systems and even different ranges. Some have 1 to 9-dan; others have 1 to 7-dan. Some handle kyus down to 30, others only to 18. This is also contrasted with the practice in meat-space go clubs which grade kyus (or geups) but not dans - that is reserved for the Hanguk Kiwon. Clearly this is a problem we would not identify with easily.

The second topic is the mismatch in rules and terminology. The report highlights the stand-off between Japan and China on rules, but does not take a position on Korean rules. These are basically Japanese rules, but it may be relevant that many of the top Koreans are playing often in China (and so this is an important market for them, with diplomatic overtones). But, along with go terminology (shicho and atari were mentioned) this is obviously seen as more of a globalisation issue.

The third issue is the declining go population. The decline is quite sharp, apparently, and go in Korea is turning into an old man's game. 30% of the go-playing population is over 60. Only 9% is in the age range 20~30. They seem to think that it's less of an educational issue - young people learn go easily - and more of a problem of creating opportunities for young people to take part in tournaments.

The fourth area is seen as involving professional players. Obviously Cho has been grinding the Hanguk Kiwon axe, and this is another problem we don't easily relate to, but broadly speaking they are adumbrating a future go world in which pros have to expect to be teachers, commentators, judges etc as well as tournament players, and this is also seen as being tied up with creating a satisfactory retirement system.

The final area, again not one we can always relate to, is the huge gap in investment in AI go between China and Korea. The report calls for more investment. This seems to me more about national pride than about promoting go among humans - a sort of arms race. The Evergrande crisis might solve that problem for the Koreans, of course.


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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #2 Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2022 9:59 am 
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Does any of this report address the issue of active (amateur) players who are not connected in any way with the formal go organization(s)? In the USA there are many young-seeming players on servers who are not members of the American Go Association. Of course, it is sometimes difficult to determine the nationality of online players. As for governmental support, naturally during the Edo Shogunate in Japan there was governmental support for the major Houses, and "pros" gave lessons for pay. But how much go activity was there in that era? Without having any historical reading, I wonder whether growth of amateur go in Japan might really have begun with the establishment of the Nihon Ki-in. No doubt other pre-Nihon Ki-in go societies, such as the Hoensha, contributed. Amateur go developed at least in part to create support for pros. I've noticed that young people play video games rather than "meat space" board games. There a quite a number of Youtube go teachers. Does anyone know how well they are doing? Patreon makes it possible for people to make a living playing or demonstrating on Youtube.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #3 Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 10:39 am 
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I think all of these are pretty relatable in the West, or at least in the United States.

The fact that different servers have different ranking systems has always been confusing to beginners, and the significance of achieving a dan rank means that knowing which one is "the real ranking" is significant for more advanced players, too. I think a lot of this could be handled by making it easier to get a rating from the AGA. In particular, they need to figure out a way to allow rating adjustments in online games. I think that making this possible would also vastly increase participation in the national association. For the many people who play primarily online and rarely (if ever) make it to a face-to-face club or tournament, there is very little reason to join the AGA.

Rules differences are also confusing to beginners, and anything that confuses beginners makes it harder to get new players. I think that is the biggest issue facing go (which aligns with Cho's third point). There is always going to be a limited pool of players; there is just so much competition for people's attention, and relatively few people are willing to invest the time it takes to appreciate a game with the depth of go. (I do know plenty of people who play face-to-face board games, but most of them play a wide variety of games where new players can be reasonably competitive right away. I like those sort of games too, even if go is my favorite.) I think Cho's comment about tournaments highlights that keeping new players will depend, in large part, on a healthy community.

To the last point, one thing that has changed a lot since I started playing is that people on a go server are a lot less likely to interact with one another. Part of that correlates with the development of AI. It used to be common to review a completed game with one's opponent, but now that anyone can get a strong review from a computer immediately there's less incentive to do so. I've noticed that even common greetings are less common, though that could be related to the culture of the particular server I've been playing on recently. There are still places to engage with the community outside of the games, of course, but I'm curious how these types of cultural shifts will affect the future of the game. I think that the AGA figuring out online rated games/tournaments could help with this, as it will provide a shared experience for many people. Face to face experiences are even better, but they are inaccessible for many.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #4 Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:07 pm 
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I think that the character of the game is changing. Before the development of go servers that allow playing on line there were differences between geographically separated groups of players. In the USA it used to be the case that the meaning of AGA ratings differed from East to West coast communities. Similarly there was a differrence between European go ratings and AGA ratings. The development of go servers could tend to homogenize go since people are not mostly restricted to playing in their geographical community. There used to be differences between styles of go in Asian countries even for pros, only for about the past few decades have there been opportunities in the world at large to play with Korean or Chinese players. As for the standardization of go ranks, the existence of the top level AI players allows measurement of ranks relative to,say Katago for example, so that the same rank would have the same meaning in playing strength all over the world. Such a standard might mean that an amateur shodan everywhere might need 11 or 12 stones versus Katago.

Something was said asking to have AGA include online results in rating calculations. There are well known problems with using online results in "official" ratings. Some of these problems include cheating and substituting a stronger player for a weaker player in rating games.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #5 Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 8:16 pm 
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Yes, online ratings could be manipulated by cheating. But the stakes are so low, I think it’s worth it for the AGA to allow rated games online. As long as professional events and prestigious tournaments (e.g. the US Open) are held in-person, nothing is really lost by having a few people falsify their online rating. As it is, folks who are only occasionally able to participate in face To face events probably have to use their rank on one of the go servers to enter the tournament, since the official rating is likely to be woefully out of date.

And I think it’s key to remember that this stance is intended to aid in the promotion of go in the US. I think the AGA is the organization best equipped to do that, but it’s difficult for them to fulfill that mission when they are irrelevant to the majority of players.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #6 Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 5:16 am 
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John Fairbairn wrote:
Cho Hun-hyeon … the report highlights five areas that need attention.

Thank you for the posting and the translation. Is this report public available?

greetings from Germany

Wilhelm

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #7 Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2022 1:02 am 
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1- and 2- A universal ruleset could use both territory and area scoring can both be used to calculate score, and the average between those two is considered the true game result. Most of the other differences and complexities involve passes. If passes are disallowed, rulesets naturally coalesce, and it's easier to teach beginners. So make it so that when a player ceases playing, they can not play anymore moves. I that measures itself from the second strongest human at a value of e^10.00 down to e^1.00, and within, so a 1 dan is e^0.00 to e^1.00. And 1 kyu is e^-1.00 to e^0.00, and so on.

3-Increasing non-competitive go activities too might be a good idea, in addition to acess to tournaments. On a slightly different though related note, from the perspective of a family living in a large country like america, a lot of small tournaments and one or two big ones a far superior to a moderate number of medium sized ones and a few big ones, Although this is not so much a problem in small countries like Korea. In fact in America I would strongly recommend the AGA holding tournaments for janggi and xiangqi. Since both go, xiangqi and especially janngi are not high populations in western countries, it is strategically expedient for these communities to work together with regards to a sparse population spread out over a wide area and specifically reach out to each other, and Chinese-based mindsport tournaments and joint go-xjianggqi tournaments would significantly increase the number of available tournaments for both playing populations. In addition, Women's go or at least interest always ends up increasing youth go down the road, so that is a vital priority if the stats are what it is.

4- and 5- Continuing from 1 and 2, an elom-euler 1 dan would be equivalent to about EGF 3 dan. Going by mamumamu and goratings new pros in Asia qualify for the pro exam at about 6 to 7 elom-euler dan. I thought of basing pro dan ranks on the highest dan rating achieved to a certain degree of certainty, however that will mean all pros that qualify through the open exam would start out at 6p. However I then thought there is a good situation when you want to make a a euler 1d-5d a pro by recommendation, and that is when they've achieved expertise in a field that would directly benefit the pro organisation, knowledge and skills that would help promote go and run an organisation, especially like a PhD. The more valuable the skillset, the lower the dan needed to be recommended to pro. So a person with a skillset valued at 1 can be recommended at 4d minimum, while a person with a skillset value of the maximum of 5 only needs to be 1d in skill to be allowed to become pro, in addition to knowing pro etiquette first. As for AI, I'm not sure if investment in AI itself will be as useful as research on how to best learn from AI as Antti Törmänen is doing, or make AI that can better explain to humans their 'thinking'.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #8 Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:17 am 
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Since Elom0 brought this back up I'll mention something that I've been thinking about.

There is often talk about promoting Go. But isn't Go actually more popular than ever before? Just judging by the number of professional games. I have no idea how amateur play has changed over time. And isn't it surprising that Go is so popular considering that there are vast more games available to play than ever before and the amount of other entertainment and diversion besides games is ridiculously prevalent.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #9 Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:48 am 
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jeromie wrote:
The fact that different servers have different ranking systems has always been confusing to beginners, and the significance of achieving a dan rank means that knowing which one is "the real ranking" is significant for more advanced players, too.


I find the confusion itself quite puzzling. I recall when I was a kid the discussions of belts and martial arts and such. Does a black belt from this martial art beat that other? And so on. It's... sorry, childish. We know certain universities have better results than others. We know, to use a current example, some corporals are strategic while others.. NOT. We know some "olympic-level" athletes are better than others (anyone recall that tropical skier some years ago?). Why do we insist on turning Go dan ranks into some sort of absolute? Why do we keep almost apologizing for it? And kyu players... well, check the kyu standards for Judo (and only Judo) across the world; not even the same colors.

Quote:
Rules differences are also confusing to beginners, and anything that confuses beginners makes it harder to get new players.


There are no rules differences. Not seriously. Sure, KO and counting. Has no-one ever read an RPG manual (games, not ordnance?)? Go players are not stupid. Why is it that the average RPG player can deal with "house rules" and we keep bouncing back to "oh, woes, we need a single ruleset!" ?

Frankly, from what I see on reddit, new players are more confused trying to see if the game was over, and whose territory is whose, than they are by territory vs. area or triple Ko.

Take care.

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 Post subject: Re: Cho Hun-hyeon on promoting go
Post #10 Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:26 pm 
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Ferran wrote:
jeromie wrote:
The fact that different servers have different ranking systems has always been confusing to beginners, and the significance of achieving a dan rank means that knowing which one is "the real ranking" is significant for more advanced players, too.


I find the confusion itself quite puzzling. I recall when I was a kid the discussions of belts and martial arts and such. Does a black belt from this martial art beat that other? And so on. It's... sorry, childish. We know certain universities have better results than others. We know, to use a current example, some corporals are strategic while others.. NOT. We know some "olympic-level" athletes are better than others (anyone recall that tropical skier some years ago?). Why do we insist on turning Go dan ranks into some sort of absolute? Why do we keep almost apologizing for it? And kyu players... well, check the kyu standards for Judo (and only Judo) across the world; not even the same colors.

Quote:
Rules differences are also confusing to beginners, and anything that confuses beginners makes it harder to get new players.


There are no rules differences. Not seriously. Sure, KO and counting. Has no-one ever read an RPG manual (games, not ordnance?)? Go players are not stupid. Why is it that the average RPG player can deal with "house rules" and we keep bouncing back to "oh, woes, we need a single ruleset!" ?


'Olympic Level' seem intuitively to refer to the average, and fighting is not something invented by humans so maybe complicated cantradictory dan grading and rating systems that are different from loclity to locality (weight classes and split world championships in certain ones are). On the other hand this might be more of a problem in a mindsoprt. Then again I might be wrong. However, it's good that a universal system wasn't developed before AI, because now AI can give one. Although I think one based purely on win probabilities with the second strongest human at e^10.00 is what I think is best and is more elegant as a grading system than one based on handicap stones.

Similarly I'm against unification until a ruleset exists that is obviously better and more elegant than all of the major ones used today in all aspects, so I just removed passes entirely. It's good that rule unification has been avoided so far since any agreed-upon ruleset would likely have included passes due to tradition, and passes are a most ridiculous rule in a game like go, pardon my bad tone. I mean chess and shogi does without it, and it makes more sense in those games. Passes are specifically bad in go. Not to make this an overly-specifc rant about different rulesets, I guess AGA rules are best overall, but the pass stone isn't so elegant, so I removed passes entirely and switched to allowing making a play that would result in no liberties for one of your groups as long as the opponent can't do so on their next turn, and having the opponent remove that group at the beginning of their turn. I agree though about ko though, as when I was a beginner ko was an intuitively sensible rule; obviously you need it to prevent games from going on forever! I never understood how it could be considered problematic for beginners.

Ferran wrote:
Frankly, from what I see on reddit, new players are more confused trying to see if the game was over, and whose territory is whose, than they are by territory vs. area or triple Ko.

Take care.


100% agree. On terminology too, I doubt that having three or four different words for the same concept hampers communicating the game. To me it's the opposite that seems obviously true, not to mention some terms being specific to certain languages, and I now think learning terms is more important than learning proverbs, are more important too than solving opeen problems, and almost as important as solving problems In fact, I personally would rather Korean and Japanese pros stop using Japanese terms when teaching westerners and just use the ones in the language they normally use, that would be a good thing for learners in the west!

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