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How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
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Author:  Kirby [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 2:57 pm ]
Post subject:  How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
I have been in "study mode" with go these days, which means I have been trying to do a lot of go problems.

A little while ago, though, I played some students at my brother-in-law's university go club. I played a 2d and a 5d. When we finished playing, the 5d player said that he thought I was not very experienced. Maybe it's because I fell for a hamjungsu/hamete, but it's gotten me to wonder if I am taking the right approach to getting better at go.

When I study go, I do problems. Period. My mind works the hardest when I do problems, so it sure seems to be the most efficient way to get better. But maybe this is why I'm inexperienced.

I could play more games, but I sometimes refrain for two reasons:
1.) The old EGR adage - "You learn bad habits"
2.) If I've got an hour to spare and feel like playing a game... Why not do go problems? It makes my brain work and just feels efficient.

What do you guys think? How important is playing, if your goal is improvement? Why not do go problems instead?
Author:  oren [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Kirby wrote:
What do you guys think? How important is playing, if your goal is improvement? Why not do go problems instead?


I do a lot of "go studying" in various ways, but I never get better unless I actually play.
Author:  topazg [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Define better. If you want to be better at spotting corner L+D tesujis and techniques, study problems. If you want a better win % in your games, play games. Go problems won't teach all the sequences you simply need to be aware of in your games, and that comes with experience and repitition, being at either end of the sequence again and again and again.

It depends what your goal is that will make you feel like you've improved :)
Author:  Kirby [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
What about the "learning bad habits" bit? That always makes me afraid to play much. Is this fear unfounded?
Author:  oren [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
topazg wrote:
It depends what your goal is that will make you feel like you've improved :)


For probably 99% of people here, you know it means rank on xxx server or organization. :)
Author:  topazg [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Kirby wrote:
What about the "learning bad habits" bit? That always makes me afraid to play much. Is this fear unfounded?


If you are seeking the best move, and not just playing sequences because "they worked last time", then I don't think you generate bad habits. I believe that quite strongly, and knowing your desire to play strong moves based on accurate reading, I don't think you'll generate them either.

Even if you do, as you get stronger, you will start to get punished for those bad habits and start to realise the weaknesses of those moves. You can then unlearn them and learn some new ones ;)

Remember Kageyama often said how professionals criticised his moves as being amateurish - maybe they were bad habits of a different level too!

@Oren: Well, probably, but it's always worth checking :) If it's achieve xxx rank, then definitely play more games
Author:  BaghwanB [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
From my SDK perspective I'd say at least 1/2 of my "Go Time" should be spent playing as opposed to book learning or puzzle solving. I can read how "this is good and this is bad" but it'll take seeing it play out in an actual game at least a few times before it sinks into my head.

On the board familiarity with a situation is really the only thing that'll give me solid confidence in what I'm trying to do. Case in point: Just today, in 2 of my 6 DGS games I have a 4-4, 6-3, 3-5 corner enclosure. "Classically" enclosed corner, right? Both have just been hit with 3-3 invasions with minimal to no support from the outside and I'm still trying to figure out how to actually kill the thing off or keep it from becoming a ko. If I'd done and played this 3-4 times before, I'd know what works and what doesn't instead of saying "It shouldn't work" and having to go back to Reading 101 to figure out how to respond.

Please note that this is just my personal experience, but I feel that I can't be that far off from the "average" go player in this regard.

Bruce "Book 'em" Young
Author:  snorri [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
I suppose I would liken it to playing music. When you study a musical instrument, you can certainly spend a lot of time on exercises (scales, etc.) Doing so is important and helps drill the fundamentals. But it's not a complete substitute for playing actual music. And even playing actual music in a practice room is not a substitute for live performance in front of an audience. You have to eventually spend some time doing the thing that you actually want to improve. ;-)

As for bad habits, teachers can help you overcome bad habits. It's not like you can pick up an infinite number of them, anyway. But a teacher can do nothing to help you improve your reading. I find that playing games does not improve my reading. Only problems do that. But maybe that's just my experience. Some players seem to be able to push themselves enough during games that their reading actually improves with enough play and they don't have to study much, but I think this varies from person to person. On the other hand, there are clearly players who play thousands of games and don't improve at all.

If you only play people at your own level and rarely play stronger players, that's an issue. I think it's not so much picking up bad habits as not having your mistakes punished aggressively enough. Maybe the 5d felt that too many of his Jedi mind tricks were working on you, so it's maybe not lack of experience he's sensing but lack of experience playing people like him. :)
Author:  Monadology [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Kirby wrote:
1.) The old EGR adage - "You learn bad habits"


This seems bafflingly paranoid to me, almost germaphobic. You can still learn from bad habits. You can't learn anything outside of the domain of tsumego if you don't play.

Kirby wrote:
2.) If I've got an hour to spare and feel like playing a game... Why not do go problems? It makes my brain work and just feels efficient.


Because playing Go is fun? If you don't enjoy playing games of Go, then why dedicate time to solving Go problems? If you just like the Go problems, why worry about getting better at Go?
Author:  SpongeBob [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Regarding the learning of bad habits: Doesn't that mean that you are successfull with a wrong move just because your opponent is not strong enough to play the right response?

I do not think that this is much of a problem. By playing, you will improve and get better and better opponents. Sooner or later, an opponent will show you how your bad move is countered. Then you realize your mistake and learn from it.

Learning by experience like that is just as important as training your reading abilities imo.
Author:  Magicwand [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
go is not golf.
there is no bad habbit to pickup.
unless you get in habbit of not thinking or resigning too early.

experience will come after many hours of study and actual game.

i will say best way of improving is playing magicwand in 3 stone and beat him.
Author:  Kirby [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Magicwand wrote:
go is not golf.
there is no bad habbit to pickup.
unless you get in habbit of not thinking or resigning too early.


Yeah, I think that I resign too early, sometimes... Come to think of it, maybe I sometimes to not think enough.

Magicwand wrote:
i will say best way of improving is playing magicwand in 3 stone and beat him.


If I promise to think hard and not resign too early, would you like to play, again?
Author:  hyperpape [ Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
I saw the title of this thread and thought it would be about how important it was to play Go--some kind of question about balancing Go with the rest of your life.
Author:  Stable [ Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
hyperpape - I'm pretty sure none us us know how to do that anyway. :D

I don't know if it's relevant Kirby, but I notice that when I study tsumego and tesuji too hard I actually lose more games. Now, my reading and opportunity spotting abilities are definitely increasing but I think I lose sight of the bigger picture. Or perhaps I assume that I can solve every problem I encounter on the board, because there is a solution for every problem in the book. I don't know if you're the same, but maybe you have something similar going on.
Author:  Magicwand [ Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Kirby wrote:
Magicwand wrote:
go is not golf.
there is no bad habbit to pickup.
unless you get in habbit of not thinking or resigning too early.


Yeah, I think that I resign too early, sometimes... Come to think of it, maybe I sometimes to not think enough.

Magicwand wrote:
i will say best way of improving is playing magicwand in 3 stone and beat him.


If I promise to think hard and not resign too early, would you like to play, again?


i love to play you. all you have to is setup the board and let me know.
Author:  Kirby [ Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
Magicwand wrote:
Kirby wrote:
Magicwand wrote:
go is not golf.
there is no bad habbit to pickup.
unless you get in habbit of not thinking or resigning too early.


Yeah, I think that I resign too early, sometimes... Come to think of it, maybe I sometimes to not think enough.

Magicwand wrote:
i will say best way of improving is playing magicwand in 3 stone and beat him.


If I promise to think hard and not resign too early, would you like to play, again?


i love to play you. all you have to is setup the board and let me know.


Good deal!

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2860
Author:  jts [ Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How important is it to play go (with goal of improving)
In my own games I've noticed the "learn joseki, lose two stones" effect a lot - not just for joseki, but for all kinds of techniques. I suspect it's partly that I pick up bad habits from studying; every new tesuji adds a new dimension to my wishful thinking. But also, I begin to lose my sense of proportion; once I understand pushing fights better, suddenly I see the turn on the bottom side rather than the weak group on the top side.

(The best example of this is double ataris. The core 12k skill is reading out double ataris and avoiding them. I've improved vastly at go since then, but I get double atari'd all the freaking time. I assume it's because when I was 12k "don't get double atari'd" was about 90% of what I knew about go, so I devoted much more of my time to thinking about it. Hopefully as I continue to improve, seeing the double ataris will become effortless.)

So even as studying opens up new dimensions of the game for me, I need to play a lot before I can get the dimensions orthogonal to one another.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I think you can get bad habits from playing and from studying. Part of getting better at something is unlearning your old bad habits and picking up new ones. It's really just an unavoidable part of being good at something.

Maybe part of the problem is that you feel more mentally stimulated from doing go problems. Isn't a game just a huge collection of interconnected go problems? If you tried to think about it like that, would you have more fun playing?
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