I understand your feeling. It can be applied to other parts of life, too. In my current case, getting a PhD in math or computer science did not seem feasible given my family situation. But a master's degree did. So I ended up pursuing a master's degree, and found some feeling of accomplishment from it.

Still, this feeling was somewhat temporary. I know many people more skilled than me in both the fields of mathematics and computer science. My degrees or credentials don't change this.

So these days, I still think satisfaction in these areas can only come from doing something interesting in the field itself.

Anyway, good luck!

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be immersed

Despite the current hype of everything being possible, given dedication, I believe skills are depending on being gifted for a good deal. Not only will the potential be determined by gift rather than effort, but more importantly the motivation that fuels the effort, needs a decent amount of positive feedback, i.e. success. Myself I got this kind of success in things like writing, singing, maths, the game of go ... but not in for example playing the guitar. I have definitely put the hours in, I just coulnd't achieve the results some others, even kids, seemed to get effortlessly. It really doesn't suffice to put the proverbial 10 000 hours into it. These hours should be fun as well and fun comes from reward. Few are those who enjoy being beaten up on the goban for 10 000 hours.

So it IS possible that you're stalling at the beginner level. I definitely enjoy being a low dan more than being a beginner and while I'd enjoy being 5d, it's not true the level of frustration is the same as back when I was a 6k. I think 6k is a hard wall to hit. You've learned enough to make an image for yourself of what your go should be like, but you're still weak enough to be destroyed by a gifted youngster who learned the rules just a few months ago.

Heh. I understand. I have an eyesight problem; I'm on the verge of legally blind. Some people in our school system seem to equate that to being stupid, and my parents were given the advice to put me in school at a low level, because otherwise, I 'couldn't keep up.'

In the end, I refused to accept it and did *ALL* the levels, up to the master degree (in computer science), losing a year with each switch, which caused me to finish my studies at 26, almost 27, instead of the normal 21-22.

I'm thinking about doing a PhD in computer science, part time... but that will take 8 years at the very least. I don't know if I'm able to do it; I don't know if I'll have that sort of dedication. The pay is not high enough to do it full time at my current age.



Even if I ever do get a PhD, there will be people who know more, can do more, and are just better in the field of computer science. There always are. My intelligence is quite far above average, but it also falls far short of brilliance. I actually have to *STUDY* to understand stuff at master level... but with some people, it just looks like as if they just glance through a book and know everything that was ever invented about the subject.

I can't do in Computer Science (or computer chess) what someone like Ken Thompson has been doing since 1969. I sometimes feel as if the entire computer *and* computer chess world we know today are built by Ken Thompson himself. That guy is a living legend; a Da Vinci in the field of computing. I wouldn't be able to ever come close to what he did in the last 45 years, even if I had 450 years to live.

Such is life



Thanks, same to you.

Well, on playing on KGS... Damn.

I finally created an account there, and played against the bots in the computer room to get my rank settled so I wouldn't start out by sandbagging. After I lost a game against a 7k bot speedbot (10 seconds a move) in which I blundered away a 40 point dragon that needed one move to connect, my rank settled at 10k without a question mark.

In the review the score estimator reported I was at 30 points ahead, if I had played the proper move. So I'm probably stronger than KGS 10k, but still; I now have a settled rank.

OK, time to start playing humans.

The first one to accept said nothing and resigned.
The second said nothing and let his time on the first move run out.
The third one to accept a challenge just said "Hi dude" in the chat and resigned.

Sigh. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I instantly know why I've avoided online play since I tried it first (15 years ago) with chess.

Just bad luck - I had the same issue when I started, but since then I've not had a bad encounter except for one escaper.

You could also try other servers, like OGS - but there is no guarantee you won't come across poor opponents (in the poor manner sense), but they are vastly outnumbered. Try setting a game description that shows more of what you are after.

I've just been looking through some 8-12k game lists. There are a lot of "Forf" in there; either by themselves, or others. I wonder why people begin or accept a challenge and then immediately resign.



Maybe I'll have a look; there aren't too many people online during my time zone. Also, it bugs me a bit that all of KGS and Kiseido feels so old... as if it hasn't been updated since the 1990's.


===

I did finally get a game against a 9k though, at no komi (1 handicap stone), and what do I do? I panic, thinking I'm going to lose an entire corner+group, so I start a ko, giving up 15 to 20, points to actually win it; losing the game by 14.5 points in the process.

Just after I won the ko, I realised: "That would have been a seki." So I played through the game from the point I started the ko (which I shouldn't have done), and sure enough, I would have won by 3,5 points if I play the endgame well.

Against a computer, where I normally play without a time limit myself, I wouldn't have panicked and probably would have seen the seki before it even arose. It actually became possible because of a mistake I made a few moves earlier (which cost me another 4 points), while I was in byoyomi already.

Obviously this sort of crap is part of your playing strength against humans too.

If it's any consolation, I have a PhD. and postdoc half-math half-computer science, hopefully soon a assistant professor position, and I regularly feel like i've got no idea what I'm doing here. In my case it's not so much about brilliancy than about people that know so much, about so many different subjects, even stuff in my particular field that I should have read about during my PhD or earlier; but that I don't because I have terrible work methodology and waste most of my time (working on it).

The only way I mostly got out of this impression is that people started feeling the same way with regards to me.
That's human condition for you.

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La victoire est un hasard, la défaite une nécessité.

About human conditions, there is on that I relearned from my chess games. The weaker players often try some sort of crap.

They try to cut in places where the cut doesn't work, they try to kill groups that can't be killed, and they try to live in places where you can't normally live. They do it as soon as you're in byo-yomi, hoping that you make a mistake (which I still do), and thus win the game by trickery. (At least, that is my point of view.)

In chess, some players keep playing even if they're a piece behind, hoping you'll run out of time. They also give check endlessly, hoping to reach the 50 move limit (if no pawn has moved, and no pieces were captured for 50 moves, the game is a draw), a three-fold repetition, or some sort of double attack, which can only happen if you make a mistake due to lack of time.

It's one of the main things that makes me dislike competition against humans. A computer doesn't do this sort of crap. IMHO, if you know you lost the game if play would proceed normally, you should either resign or finish up to go to counting. (I don't have a problem with anyone playing out a game in which he/she's 30+ points behind.)

I think the terminus "crap" is a matter of the perspective. From point of view of the weaker player, the "crap" can be meant as a serious attempt to live or whatever. Even if a 1D player tries to live it might look like "crap" from point of view of e.g. a professional.

I would say that the games on our level (including mine of course) - if viewed from a true objective point of view - are all "won by trickery" (except jigos ), even if we do not always recognize it.

If you play a blitz game - say 5 min sudden death - you have agreed upon that time is an important resource besides the balance of material. I find it always odd that people who agreed to play with restricted timing beforehand complain afterwards if the opponent makes advantage of his/her better time management.


In the examples quoted above you could always find the main issue within yourself (e.g. not being able to punish an over-optimistic invasion, bad time management in chess etc.). If e.g. your life-and-death skills were more solid, you could enjoy punishing non-appropriate invasions and let your tricky opponents suffer a lot. If that is not yet possible for you, well... The key is always to learn from the losses and try to improve your own skill/attitude. Easier said, than done of course

Babelardus, it sounds to me as though you are electing to play with time limits which are too tight for you. No one who voluntarily enters into a game should complain about running out of time: it is part of the conditions you agreed to. Just play games with longer time limits.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I think you're still too worried about the win or loss. If someone did something you weren't prepared for and got a good result, you should learn from it. Because you play computers so much, you don't get experience with reading and punishing these plays.

That's another way of looking at it of course



I never play a game with a time limit below 30 minutes per side... but I did play two games with byo-yomi settings like 1x 10 seconds. Both people who went crazy/desperate during that time; almost as if planned.



My opponent just made a good endgame play that netted him a few points, so I said "good". However, he'd already counted out that I'll probably win (which is true, as I was ahead by around 25 points). I don't mind an opponent wanting playing a game to counting; I often do it myself as I'm not yet always 100% sure about me, or my opponent, being able to hold on to all of my territory.

At move 219, the game was done. I passed already. My opponent actually both announces that he has lost ("gg = good game"), but also says he's is going to try some desperate measures... trying to either get lucky on the board, or push me over the byo-yomi limit.

To be honest, I think it is impolite to try to win a game that way.



Indeed. I played one opponent that turned a game around by playing desperately and making me miss the correct answer (the seki guy above); next time, I'll watch out for something like that. Lesson learned: "Corner was too small to be a one-piece territory."



True. I have never experienced a computer doing things of which it already knows that they won't work. I'm not used to opponents trying desperate stuff anymore. I was, when playing chess way back when, but I didn't like it even back then.

Well, using myself and my my poor time management skill as an example I find that however long the main time it is the length of the byoyomi that makes the game - a game with 10 second byoyomi is blitz from then on, while a 30 second or even 1 minute byoyomi is comfortable (and much to my preference) - because however long the main time is it's never quite long enough.

I've also had to fight the mind-set you detail - and while I'll rage at my screen whenever I mess up the should-be dead 3-3 invasion or whatever when in byoyomi - or throw away 100 points on simple life and death, well, it's a part of the game and someday I'll actually be good enough that it won't work on me!

Years 1-9, play at the club. got to about 2k-1d AGA (realistically)

Years 10-14, got a teacher, played online and at a club, got to about 3d-4d AGA, 1k KGS.

i won't make this into a "you need a teacher" post, although i do believe that

instead

i will make this into a "you need to play more" post
if you play two games at your local weekly club, in a year that's about 100 games.
if you play those two games at the club and two a week online, that's about 200 games.
the more you play, the more experience you can gain towards playing better.

so. play more.




of course, getting better isn't everything. if you're only going to make this about "getting better" you're going to have a pretty frustrating time playing Go.

honestly i look back at my time as a 4k as one of the more interesting times i was a go player.

No-one would even dare to do such weird stuff against me over the board. I've got a katana hanging against the wall behind me! I won't tell them that it is a non-sharp training weapon though

At OGS (where I've just started out) I'm ranked at 11k.

Yesterday I lost an even game against a 13k by 28.5 points. Today, the auto-handicap on OGS gave 4 stones to a 14k opponent (shouldn't that handicap have been 3 stones?), and I won that game by 26.5 without ever getting into trouble.

Man. That's a 55 point difference within 24 hours, against opponents that play at three ranks apart. That feels like mood swings

I did make a fairly large mistake though, which should have cost me 6 points. Read, read, read... I should play here to not lose these stones... *click* *CRAP! MISREAD!* ... Uh... I hope he doesn't see that vital point either

At your level results have a large random component in them. 50 point swings between games is the norm. Try just taking some sort of running average and your results will probably be more reliable.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

It seems that you now start having the real fun .

To further intensify the experience and become less focussed on rank I also would recommend trying out the "Korea 1" server on Wbaduk. Try to register there as 10k and become SDK, which in my case took almost 3 years. Most of the players there are not focussed on beautiful go but on fighting resulting in many rather strange and messy games and a lot of potential fun.

While losing to a late invasion can certainly be annoying, I see the whole process a little bit differently.

First, if I quit every game after my first mistake that should cause me to lose the game, I'd rarely make it out of the fuseki. A big part of the game (not as big as in chess, but still significant) is not making blunders. That continues into the endgame, so my opponent has the right to see if I can correctly respond to his or her attempt to invade. At my level (and yours), it's often the case that the only way I can tell if an invasion works is to try it out, and that's true for my opponent as well. The only time I consider it rude to try an invasion is if the responses are obvious and the invasion is played just to drag out the game. If I make a mistake, then the response wasn't obvious to me under the current game conditions, and I get an opportunity to learn from the process.

Second, it's frequently the case that one player makes very solid territory and another surrounds a larger area that looks like territory but has significant weaknesses. If you can tell you have a big lead, it's often worth spending a move or two to shore up those weaknesses in your territory; then you don't have to worry about making mistakes during a speculative invasion. If you have a smaller amount of solid territory, you should look for places to take advantage of any weaknesses before your opponent has a chance to remove them. Choosing not to solidify the territory is a strategic decision that says to your opponent, "I can deal with any attempts at an invasion in this area." They have the right to make you prove it. Every one of us gets that decision wrong sometimes, but I think that mid level kyu players who are striving for greater efficiency are most susceptible to the problem.

Well, I did buy a few books.

1. Level Up Review 1 and 2 (just to see if I can do everything mentioned in the Level Up books already)
2. Jump Level Up 1-5 + answers
3. First Fundamentals and Fighting Fundamentals (by Robert Jasiek)
4. Tesuji by James Davies (I really need some more information on that; I feel I'm missing a lot)
5. Opening Theory made Easy by Hideo Otake (I need some more information beyond the 5-6 basic joseki and strategy I know)

So, I'll start working through these books, and in a month, I expect to be able to hold 1st dan on any Go server I care to register. If it doesn't happen, I'll write e-mails expressing great disappointment regarding the effectiveness of these books to their respective authors.





It always happens like that for me, even in Chess.

I read everything out to perfection, and know for 100% sure that it should work. Then I play the move, and the instant I release the piece (or let go of the stone), I see the one variation I missed that makes said move a mistake or even a blunder.