Bantari wrote:I don't know your circumstances, but I know from personal experience that once you reach a certain level you need to study to stay there. Sometimes you study and your skill still deteriorates. Examples abound...
Check aging chess grandmasters, since this is the area you are into. Most of them reach their peak and then their play deteriorates. I assume that they still study a lot and fight hard to stay at that peak. Same goes for Go pros. There are exceptions, but not many.
But ok, I myself said pros are not a good example for that.
So take regular players. I think most people would probably agree that if you stop playing and stop studying for a while, your strength will go down and you will need to overcome this by 'getting back into the game' which implies playing and studying.
I know this from personal experience. And it did depend on my level.
* When I took long breaks from the game when I was 10k or so, there was very little negative effect. I guess because there was little to forget.
* when I was around 3k, I needed to work at it for a while to get back to 3k after a break.
* when i was 5d, I did not have time to study enough to stay at that level, and dropped to 4d. Now I don't study at all and the occasional game I do play shows me that there is a negative effect.
The above is part of the basis of what I say. One might say that part of the issue was lack of play instead of lack of study, but what is playing other than just another way of studying?
Maybe you are an exception, or maybe your chess style relies more on intuition and attitude than on solid knowledge. I have no way of knowing. But I would be interested how many strong dans think they can afford to take a few years off of Go and not suffer any negative effects. How many SDK players?
Maybe I am wrong... but this is what I think.
It also touches of the first point you disagree with.
Okay, all of the above makes sense. I do rely a lot on intuition for chess. I rarely, if ever, calculate things out. And when I do, it's only to make sure that I'm not missing any simple tactics. I don't really have the patience for tactical puzzles, which could be why I'm stuck at a certain level.
With regards to losing skill, after you posted your reply I got thinking about Minesweeper. I know it's unrelated to Go, but I got to a point where my play deteriorated even playing a significant portion of the day. I hardly play now and I'm nowhere near the "strength" I used to be.
With regards to studying to maintain one's level, maybe I'm not at a high enough level, at least with chess? See above with Minesweeper. I, too, would be interested in players that think that they can take time off without negative effects. Yes, rust is an issue for everyone, but how badly? It seems to effect different players differently. One could set up a study with a control group, 1 month off group, 3 months off group, 6 months off group, and a year off group. It'd be interesting to see the results after such a test.