How do you stop thinking about rank?

[kokomi]

only play people who's much stronger or much weaker than you are.

[Loons]

I had a conversation with Shygost a while ago that I found very inspirational. The gist of it was that he felt I should stop playing many moves I did, even though to varying degrees they "worked for me" and start trying to play moves that were (so far as I can understand) conceptually correct and in good style. He also suggested that this would likely make me lose more games at first.

Anyway, in my opinion, to have lost a hard-fought battle in good style against admirable enemy tactics is as wonderful a thing as winning it; moreso than a cheap win. The only painful losses are the blatant and foolish ones, in my humble opinion.

[SpongeBob]

Once again I would like to articulate a different opinion

I do not see the 'rank obsession' as a negative thing. Besides the fun that playing Go is, the other big motivator is improving one's rank. So, where's the problem?

O.k., if you say you 'worry' about your rank, then there might be a problem. It indicates that you are not content with your rank and you feel that you MUST get your rank up. But - there is no MUST. If you like spending your time with Go, fine. Continue to do so and probably your rank will show your progress.

For me, if I would feel that I MUST get my rank up but it DOES NOT get up, there would be only two options, I guess:
- try harder
- stop playing Go

I am KGS 3 kyu and already improvement is slow, due to the limited amount of time I can put into Go. However, I already feel that my current rank is an achievement, so I am in no hurry.

[Dusk Eagle]

Unlike some other people on here, I play Go for the sake of winning, not for some inner discovery or anything like that. I simply like beating others. As such, I do care about my ranking, and I don't want to stop caring. As I get stronger, there are more and more people that I can win against in even games and less and less who can beat me in an even game. Sure, I may only win ~50% of my games, but I know that I can win against more and more of the Go playing population the stronger I get.

As for your point, Kirby, about losing making all your studying in vain, I can not agree with that at all. Just because you lose one game doesn't mean you have lost all the strength you acquired through studying. You are still stronger as a result of your studying. For me personally, I am not even bothered by a loss all that much if I learn something in the process, because then that loss has made me stronger, and in the long run I will be able to beat more people as a result.

[MountainGo]

When I get too sucked into a game and start getting nervous, I take a step back and look at it as though it is someone else's game. I love watching a good go game, with all its push and pull and interesting ideas. So I start "spectating" my own game, enjoying the question-and-answer dynamic and smiling whenever a bold move or crushing tesuji is played, no matter by me or by my opponent. So I get to have all the fun of watching a game, and at the same time I get to interact with it and control it. So when I think to myself, "I wonder what would happen if Black played there," if I'm Black, I get to play it and find out. At the end, if you understood everything that went on and why the winner won, then it should be an enjoyable game. And if you don't understand, then that's what studying is for.

[Bantari]

Unlike some other people on here, I play Go for the sake of winning, not for some inner discovery or anything like that. I simply like beating others. As such, I do care about my ranking, and I don't want to stop caring. As I get stronger, there are more and more people that I can win against in even games and less and less who can beat me in an even game. Sure, I may only win ~50% of my games, but I know that I can win against more and more of the Go playing population the stronger I get.

Well... everybody has the right to treat their passions or their lives as shallow or as deep as they want.
Far be it for me to stand in your way or tell you to stop.

[Kirby]

It seems you don't like playing go. ...

This comment stuck out to me, so I thought about it for awhile before responding. "You don't like playing go". When I first read it, it sounds ridiculous. Of course I like playing go.

But then if I think about the phrase a bit more - "playing go"... I guess this is not the same exactly as saying, "You don't like go". It's a comment about "playing go"... Do I enjoy "playing go"? I guess this also depends on the definition of "enjoy", too. Defining what it means to "enjoy" something might be tricky, but I can at least comment on the feeling I have when I am "playing go".

When I am playing go - that is, when I am in the middle of a game - I know that I have a feeling of "comfort" when I am ahead on the board. When I feel that I am behind on the board, my feeling is... "concerned", maybe.

So if I think about the feeling that I have when I am "playing go", I guess that I am typically either feeling:
a.) Comfort, or
b.) Concerned...

Do these equate to feelings of enjoyment? It's hard for me to say.

What is "enjoyment"?

[Chew Terr]

Kirby, may I ask what you like about go? Perhaps focusing on what you enjoy about it will help you to relax more? I think that may be a bit of what topazg is getting at. If you like all of the intricacies and tesujis, try to learn some of those. If you like the depth of the professional scene, perhaps try to focus for a while on studying pro games and such (There was a mention of a variant of Malkovich games just to study pro games). If you can figure that out, that might give you a little more direction. You obviously love the game, but perhaps just playing games endlessly is distracting you from what you really like about it?

My problems with rank are more a matter of concern about the future. It's really fun to set goals and feel yourself, and rank is the best metric to show that you did. What I'm worried about is if I will have a harder time enjoying the game once I ride out the improvement curve and it becomes harder to tell when I learn things.

Until that point though, I just need to figure out how to mind less when I lose. I like the game because of its depth, and how there's always something to learn. However, though I enjoy playing, I get very into games, so when I feel like I have made stupid mistakes, it is really frustrating. I just need to figure out how to acknowledge mistakes and let it go. I think that's what I need to work on?

[walleye]

Some people who just started playing Go say that they don't want to play because they are afraid to lose. They are terrified. In the beginning many people feel elated when they win and miserable when they lose. The feeling is so strong that they refuse to play so as not to experience the misery and pain.

The only cure for this is to play more games. The more you lose the easier it becomes. The negative feelings after loss are quite understandable. You might feel stupid and worthless, and nobody likes that. However, after losing so many games in so many different ways, each exposing your deficiency and limitations, you are bound to stop worrying about it so much. Another loss will mean little. Another ten losses in a row will not stir you much either. This is when you stop worrying about your rank.

So my suggestion to you is to embrace losing. It is good. The more you have it the less it (and the rank that directly depends on it) affects you.

[Aphelion]

I think about my rank constantly and I am okay with it. I celebrate when I rise in rank and I am deflated when I drop or seems like I can't advance. I am okay with this, and I still enjoy the game itself. Part of it is treating the rank as a barometer of my skill, but I have discovered that I also enjoy the simple fact of the number being next to my name . I am happy that I am an sdk and not an ddk anymore, and I look forward to the time when I can see a "d" next to my name. It is motivational, and overall makes me feel better rather than worse. I don't find that I am not enjoying the game or the movement of the stones just because I am obsessed about rank, so I see no problem with this at all.

[ethanb]

...
Rank obsession has its roots in lack of humility - you supplement your value as a player by the number by your name.
...

Is this not natural? How does one value their play if they do not win? When I study go problems or read information on strategy, the objective is to train myself to play well, and in turn, to win. If I lose games, especially when I don't feel that I should have, it seems that my study and purpose has been ineffective.

How can I have value as a player without winning? If I lose a game, the outcome is the same as if I had never even studied before.

You don't study your own games after you play them. I obviously can't be 100% sure of this, but I know what kind of effect it had on me when I started to actually look at my moves and my opponents' afterward.

If you lost, you should probe, find out why. A lot of the time a "behind feeling" can be traced to a move quite early which was played in the wrong direction or without a clear objective.

If you won, you should probe, find out why. Find the move your opponent didn't that would have turned the game around and caused you to resign.

Negative side effect, at first: finding out that you only won because your opponent made a foolish oversight in a capturing race makes you feel foolish too.

Positive side effect: feeling foolish about a game you won is a step forward from thinking you won because you are better than your opponent. And it's a step toward not feeling foolish about winning or losing. If your opponent is equally talented, or the handicap is correct, you will each win 50% of the time.

Several pros have said that the study of Go is the study of Truth (or something to that effect.) By understanding more of it we come closer to the Universal Mind, or satori, or whatever you like to call it. That's the calling, not the numbers by your name.

But guess what? Even the Enlightened Individual may lose if he has worthy opponents - about 50% of the time. Before enlightenment, chop wood. After enlightenment, chop wood.


As far as valuing your play when you lose, one of my most memorable games ever was against a 7d in a tournament when I had just turned 2d. I took 5 stones and played fast over the whole board and took outside influence until he invaded my lower left corner. He was weak - I attacked. I chased him across the board to gain profit. I chased and chased. He cut me from behind but I had miai to connect to the left or right and he had to continue running. But I overextended. He was able to make his connection in sente. No problem, miai, right? But he played a stone in the very center of what I had been building - three spaces from anything else. I looked and said "huh, well, I can connect to the left." And then I did a double-take. My "wall" to the right was thin and eyeless. If he cut he could tear through it like tissue paper. If he squeezed it, it would die. If I protected it, my "attacking" string of stones would be cut off and would die. I read both variations as far as I could and couldn't find a way to make both live.

Every time my eye caught the white stone in the middle of the lower part of the board, my grin grew bigger and bigger. It was perfect. It was exactly the right spot. Nothing worked. It was terrible. It was beautiful. It was exhilarating. I resigned without playing another move.

A friend of mine squeezed my shoulder and said "that was a very manly resignation." But it wasn't. I couldn't make him understand. In the face of the Truth shown by that move I had no choice. It was amazing. It was the best thing in the world to be shown such a beautiful move. It was especially wonderful that the move would not have existed without the game that I helped to create on the board.

I don't always think like that, but when I do it makes everything worthwhile - winning, losing, studying, everything.

[cdybeijing]

For me, the easiest way to stop worrying about rank was to play on an account that no one I cared about knew of. There was no way for anyone to judge me, so I was free to just play.

You are being overly self-conscious and dangerously introspective.

Starting a thread like this on a discussion forum is not helping you.

[Kirby]

...

You are being overly self-conscious and dangerously introspective.

Starting a thread like this on a discussion forum is not helping you.

I figured that caring a lot about rank was not something that was unique to me, so it seemed like an appropriate topic to bring up.

I don't really understand what you mean by "dangerously introspective".

However, I do appreciate the ideas that you and everyone else here have brought up.

[palapiku]

Since Kirby asked the original question, it's only fair to quote his own signature:

Student: Why is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer for me to achieve my goal?
Master: The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the way.

;)

I'm guessing that to stop worrying about rank you need to stop wanting to improve. Does that sound sacrilegious enough?

Think about it:
* Wanting to improve means you're playing Go for a reason other than having fun playing Go.
* It also means you're currently unsatisfied with yourself. Not the healthiest state to perpetually be in.
* And if you don't actively want to improve, you're still going to improve, provided that you play and study. So ideally you should just want to play and study, not improve.

I suppose this is entirely unlike how pros approach Go. Which is why they say they hate it. And care about rank, a lot.

[Dusk Eagle]

Has any pro other than Cho Chikun said that they don't like / hate Go?