what helped you improve?

[o00o00o]

-everything you said-

a very mature appraisal for one so young - you are young, aren't you?".

One small point: nothing you said applies exclusively to Go; it applies to whatever you do: football, yoga, rocket science, or skipping.

Except for one thing: i don't agree that it has to be blood, sweat and tears - on the contrary, if it feels like that, then it's not the game for you. Just about anything requires a certain innate talent; a certain type of mind. We can all enjoy Debussy's music or Hendrix's poetry, but we can't all compose like them, no matter how hard we try.

When i was young enough that younger people asked my opinion, and were wondering what career path or degree programme to follow, i told them the life philosophy taught to me by Lynn:

if it feels good, do it!

I'm 31, so im not very young but not very old...yet lol. I agree with what you're saying; im not saying its going to be a pain staking journey or anything like that, but like you said, its going to require a significant amount of discipline, hard work, and dedication to make any real progress, if you are serious about improving. I definitely agree with the sentiment of pursuing happiness (with a sound amount of stability of course). You're only alive on this Earth once, enjoy it while you can and make the most of it. P.s-I am a big Hendrix fan. Its cool that you posted that video; that guy was on another level

[o00o00o]

When it comes to his strategy how to improve, I agree with everything besides watching stronger players commented games - I believe that it is still better to watch commented pro games / very high dan amateur games than games with more mistakes. If you want to be a wine connoisseur no point in starting from 2$ bottle wine and gradually moving up

About the more psychological observations, also agree, the game shows much about the player (I guess that this is less and less visible as you get stronger, because you being stronger also means that you already tamed your agression/timidity/etc. when it comes to the game). I don't know if go contributed strongly to my "outside of the board" growth, but I think it had some impact.

I dont totally disagree with you, but for me, its been easier to study reviewed games of players a couple of stones stronger than me, than to study commented pro games. My only reasoning for this is, I dont have the knowledge and experience to understand what the reasoning behind why a specific move is played and why it is considered right or wrong. With players a few stones stronger, I either have experience playing those types of players, or the moves generally make more sense to me because i have enough knowledge of tsumego, etc. to see what is going on, so i have an easier time comprehending and reading what moves are made and why. I think commented pro games and videos, while fun to watch, are more beneficial to those who have a solid foundation and enough experience playing and reading complex moves (sdk, maybe high ddk?). I still have yet to build a solid foundation on fundamentals to truly appreciate dan level/pro games; they always look like a complete jumbled mess to me. In terms of the deeper aspects of go, its crazy how and to what degree it can affect a person's perspective on things

[Bill Spight]

The old quip that we never remember what people say to us, we just remember how they made us feel, seems to apply here.

An easy explanation for that is that people rarely pay much attention to what we say, usually thinking about what they are going to say to us after we finish talking. Anyway, if you do not pay much attention to something, you will not have much about it to remember in the first place.

I read an interesting article just a couple, of days ago which said that the latest human memory research suggests we are changing the way we use our memories. Where once we would make some effort to remember facts and ideas, we tend now to decide that we can look information up easily on the internet if needed and so make no effort to absorb it. I know I certainly do that. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The article cited the example of Socrates bemoaning the spread of writing because it would likewise encourage people to stop remembering. But in go it presumably is a bad thing?

A social worker with a Ph.D. once affirmed to me Socrates's saying about writing being detrimental to memory. His illiterate clients kept their coming appointments for weeks in advance in their heads, while he would be lost without his appointment calendar.

A traditional aide memoire around the world is the use of association with striking images. An example in weiqi is Golden Cock Stands on One Leg. I am sure that you can supply many other examples.

One of the points of playing through the game on a board using stones and using a game record is the benefit from finding the next move in the diagram. It is well known that T Mark Hall, one of the founders of GoGoD, ascribed significant increase in playing strength to transcribing pro games for GoGoD.

IMHO, the same benefit is available using a computer if you guess where the next play will be.

[Kirby]

People give more credit to their memories than they should, anyway. IIRC, it's known as "hindsight bias".

Had to google it to be sure.

[djhbrown]

If you want to be a wine connoisseur no point in starting from 2$ bottle wine and gradually moving up

Wine connoisseurance, like connoisseurance about any matter of taste, is Cargo Cultism [1].

With, inevitably, the odd exception: as a pimply sprog, i had been unofficially adopted by a French family, who weaned me daily on Corbieres red plonk.

Familiarity, far from breeding discontent, breeds affectionate bias. After a few years, the Papa of the family announced that i was ready for a "Grand vin" and produced, and opened with great ceremony, a dusty bottle of Mouton Rothschild, and sat back in quiet expectation whilst everyone else around the table held their breath, as i took my first sip.

"Oh, monsieur," i said, "C'est bon, mais je prefers le Corbieres".

From that moment on, i became "Sacre Davide" !

But Go is not like wine; it's not a matter of taste; it's a matter of fact. And that's why just watching Nureyev doesn't just entertain; it imspires; it educates.

However, it's not the only way to learn, as masters of their profession make moves whose aesthetics we can enjoy, but not necessarily comprehend.

[1]

[djhbrown]

ok, so, we've had responses from a variety of people, but they all say the same thing:
- study hard until your knees bleed from books, problem sets, videos, etc
- don't get mad at yourself

the discussion has so far been largely generic, so it's time to get down and dirty, and make it concrete, since the purpose of the Beginners subforum is to talk about things that interest Beginners.

So let's do that; let's see if we can help each other, sharing thoughts on a question that interests at least one other person, especially as he didn't get any answers when he asked it.

i've generalised the question a bit, but before presenting it, here are the rules for answering (please observe them, otherwise this experiment won't work):

Rule 1. grade yourself as follows:
Beginner = 30 kyu to 5kyu
Intermediate = 4 kyu to 2 dan
Advanced = 3 dan+

Rule 2:
The first answer must come from a Beginner; Advanced people must not answer until at least one Intermediate has answered. ALL answers must be written for Beginners to understand. No-one is allowed to comment on anyone else's answer (but see Rule 3).

Rule 3:
Beginners can ask questions anytime, but Intermediates and Advanced cannot ever ask questions, not even rhetorical ones!
Higher grades cannot make comments on lower grade answers, although they can answer Beginner questions.
the purpose of Rule 3 is to put Beginners in the Driving Seat (it's my pet theory that a teacher should follow a student, not the other way around as is usually the case).

Rule 4:
No cheating! No asking Leela or any other bot. We can do that together after our discussion is complete; the purpose of this exercise is to help others, not yourself.

Rule 5:
if any trolls come along, don't feed them


if you don't like the rules, start another thread with the rules you want.

Here's the question - it has 2 parts:

Black to play.

1. What's going on in the game?
2. If you were black, where would you play now, and why would you play there?

it's not a "right or wrong" question with only one answer - it's not a test. it's not a trick. it's just an arbitrary example to serve as a concrete platform for more broadly-based discussion.

where you would play is not the main point of interest - it's your reasons for choosing it - and, for Intermediate and Advanced answers, where you got your reasons from is of special interest in tune with the 'what helped you improve?' theme. Of course, often we can't immediately say what our reasons were for doing something, but having made your choice (or done something), you can ask yourself "why did i choose (do) that?" and something will come out.

the picture doesn't tell you what white's last move was. that's intentional.

iy102.png (365.13 KiB) Viewed 4837 times

[djhbrown]

this site definitely will help you improve https://goo.gl/pFzNGW

at the risk of repeating myself, there are lots of people telling you what to do etc...

you imply you learned something from the site - what was that?

i very much enjoyed History of Go Concept by Yunguseng Dojang, even if it didn't produce a noticeable improvement in my own game (but that might require a sledgehammer...)

PS Correction: Dojang's presentation of the virtues of the crosscut (that episode isn't listed on the site, but it pointed me towards it) reminded me of their utility, and i've noticed them turning up and seem to be coming away with more sente than i had been getting just previous.

[daal]

this site definitely will help you improve https://goo.gl/pFzNGW

at the risk of repeating myself, there are lots of people telling you what to do etc...

you imply you learned something from the site - what was that?

It is his site. That was just a shameless plug. OTOH, writing a blog about might help one improve....

[djhbrown]

a shameless plug.

to be fair, most of it isn't about him, and everyone has to make a living somehow by advertising commercial publications, don't they pookie?

OTOH, writing a blog about might help one improve....

it didn't do much for Mary; nearly got her head chopped off

PS don't you just love the way the woman commentator says the word "men"