become a dan player or die

DrStraw · Post by **DrStraw** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:01 pm

PeterN wrote:I seem to get the general impression that a number of people feel they won't enjoy the game to the fullest without reaching dan level as well, though nothing concrete to base that feeling on.

The oddity though is that the stronger you get the less you feel you know!

PeterN

"The only people who really know anything are those who know they know nothing."

Aidoneus · Post by **Aidoneus** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:30 pm

DrStraw wrote:"The only people who really know anything are those who know they know nothing."

I think that I know why Socrates was poisoned.

often · Post by **often** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:32 pm

i think it's more important to figure out what it means for you to become a dan.

if starting tomorrow, everyone called you 1d would that make you feel better?
if you were on some ranking system that was 1d but weak compared to all the other rating systems, would that be good enough?
if you were good enough to win against all the kyu ranked people in the world would that be good enough?

if no, then is it about the go that you play?
and if so, i'm sure all ranks here dans or kyus feel a great dissatisfaction with their plays and want to get better

the people who care most about "becoming a dan" are the ones that feel like its some great mark of accomplishment

but it really isn't

at the end of the day it's just an arbitrary rank/number

xed_over · Post by **xed_over** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:43 pm

often wrote: at the end of the day it's just an arbitrary rank/number

its not entirely arbitrary -- it means we on the right side of the bell curve

Loons · Post by **Loons** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:48 pm

I started this post to say what xed_over just said.

So when someone says "dan", you can make implicit ballpark assumptions about eg. their reading ability and joseki/fuseki knowledge.

Which might not be that far from saying "2 or 3 kyu"* but is in stark contrast to "9k" or "16k".

*Actually thinking about 2 & 3k, it's quite far indeed, isn't it.

My neurotic editing:

You don't win a prize for reaching 1d (well, I mean, you do, someone issues you a swanky certificate, you learn the secret handshake and get a gift basket of bath salts and tsumego collections that players who can't touch you on the board claim to solve easily).

Once you reach 1d you don't just stop playing (deliberately), the goal just becomes ~"4d" and is exactly the same. It's about striving for progress in your go, which, frankly, does become more majestic as you climb higher.

moyoaji · Post by **moyoaji** » Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:30 pm

I've already talked about why I want to be a dan player. The post was nearly a year ago, but I still generally agree with what I said back then. What I find funny is that I specifically mention reaching 3 kyu, which is now my rank. It feels different from the 8k rank I had then, but I don't find that go has spontaneously become more enjoyable with each rank.

Yet I can say that the game is more interesting as you get stronger.

Think of it in terms of the difference between a 30 kyu player and a 20 kyu player. The 30 kyu is trying to figure out why a second line stone in atari is doomed to be captured and how a ladder works - they think on the scale of individual stones. It is not that this game isn't fun, but it isn't the same game that a 20 kyu player experiences. The 20 kyu player understands these things and is instead challenged by trying to work out the life and death of whole groups. The complexity of the game is always the same, but your perspective changes.

It is like in that scene from Hikaru no Go when he first plays against Koya Toyo. He sees the determination and spirit behind each move and desires to replicate that. When I look at a professional game, I can figuratively see their fingertips shining. I can see beauty in the moves they play.

And I want to be able to snap a stone like that...

SoDesuNe · Post by **SoDesuNe** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 12:43 am

The essential difference - in my opinion - between a weaker and a stronger player is that the stronger one can appreciate pro games much more.

I replayed pro games as a DDK and quickly gave up because it was equivalent to doing colour by numbers. I did not resume until around 3-5 kyu, where I could finally make some sense of the moves. Now at around 1-kyu I feel I begin to really appreciate strong/thick shapes in pro games for the first time.

I'm curious what comes next =)

skydyr · Post by **skydyr** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:01 am

SoDesuNe wrote:The essential difference - in my opinion - between a weaker and a stronger player is that the stronger one can appreciate pro games much more.

I replayed pro games as a DDK and quickly gave up because it was equivalent to doing colour by numbers. I did not resume until around 3-5 kyu, where I could finally make some sense of the moves. Now at around 1-kyu I feel I begin to really appreciate strong/thick shapes in pro games for the first time.

I'm curious what comes next =)

I don't know about you, but I started to learn to draw by coloring inside the lines, and I found playing over pro games I didn't really understand well quite helpful in making me realize that I was locked into certain faulty patterns of thinking and directly attribute it to a lot of my improvement. It also helped me by giving me ideas about what to do in certain situations, like "in game X, so and so handled this type of invasion this way... does that work here?"

Unusedname · Post by **Unusedname** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:08 pm

I want to be 5d so I can take a 3h against pros and have good chances of winning

Also being stronger means I can read deeper, which is where I want to be without doing any of the work. So... Yeah 5d please.

DrStraw · Post by **DrStraw** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:31 pm

Unusedname wrote:I want to be 5d so I can take a 3h against pros and have good chances of winning

Also being stronger means I can read deeper, which is where I want to be without doing any of the work. So... Yeah 5d please.

5d in what system. It certainly won't do it for you with the AGA rankings, but it may do with the EGF rankings. Assuming you mean a 1p pro.

Unusedname · Post by **Unusedname** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:43 pm

DrStraw wrote:
Unusedname wrote:I want to be 5d so I can take a 3h against pros and have good chances of winning

Also being stronger means I can read deeper, which is where I want to be without doing any of the work. So... Yeah 5d please.
5d in what system. It certainly won't do it for you with the AGA rankings, but it may do with the EGF rankings. Assuming you mean a 1p pro.

Ah I hadn't thought of that. Well... we have 2 AGA professionals right? Haha, maybe with them the 3h would work?

If not I could be strong enough to take 3h against people who could take 3h against Pros. :]

Marcus · Post by **Marcus** » Fri Jun 20, 2014 11:23 am

I suppose in response to the original topic: there's a clear subset of players for whom progress is the key joy. Once they get past the easier hurdles and their progress slows down to some personal threshold, there is risk that they will decided the game is no longer worth their time. I've met a number of players like this in many different games.

Personally, I find the social aspect of Go (and Chess) is what keeps me playing. This can be frustrating to my opponents if they are highly competitive and feel that my casual play style is insulting to them.

I agree quite a bit with RJ, there are plenty of joy-giving aspects and what you get out of the games you play is a very personal thing.

As for wanting to be a certain rank, I plan on (eventually) being the absolute weakest ever KGS 1d (and beyond).

SoDesuNe · Post by **SoDesuNe** » Fri Jun 20, 2014 3:34 pm

skydyr wrote:
SoDesuNe wrote:The essential difference - in my opinion - between a weaker and a stronger player is that the stronger one can appreciate pro games much more.

I replayed pro games as a DDK and quickly gave up because it was equivalent to doing colour by numbers. I did not resume until around 3-5 kyu, where I could finally make some sense of the moves. Now at around 1-kyu I feel I begin to really appreciate strong/thick shapes in pro games for the first time.

I'm curious what comes next =)
I don't know about you, but I started to learn to draw by coloring inside the lines, and I found playing over pro games I didn't really understand well quite helpful in making me realize that I was locked into certain faulty patterns of thinking and directly attribute it to a lot of my improvement.

I learnt drawing by just drawing (no outlines, just colour) and later through teachers in drawing classes (in school). When I learnt about perspective and the illusion of depths through shadowing I first started to realize the real beauty (and art) in (some) "professional" paintings. Pretty much the same with pro games for me.

kex · Post by **kex** » Sat Jun 21, 2014 3:23 am

I am as strong as I was when I started playing. Some other players have become stronger and some players have gotten weaker during this time.

I did try becoming stronger; read books and solved tsumego. It did not make me any stronger, but other people started making stupid mistakes around the same time.

DalekSnare · Post by **DalekSnare** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:26 am

I don't think having a particular rank would make me happy, but when I make noticeable progress I get excited. When I learn a new concept or really see the importance of one I didn't quite get before, or when I read something I knew would have made my head hurt previously, it feels good. Seeing the rank go up along with these revelations is nice, but it's the feeling of getting new things you didn't see before that makes improvement fun. When I hear why strong players made moves, it makes me excited to learn to see stuff like that. So it's having a positive derivative rather than a specific rank that makes me happy. If I get to 5k soon I'll be happier than I would be if I were to later be in a slump at 3d.

That said, having the label "dan player" definitely sounds cooler, and with the numbering system it would feel like the beginning of advanced progress rather than the end of a countdown to a fixed baseline.

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