Can amateurs have their own style?

Calvin Clark · Post by **Calvin Clark** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:14 am

Jonathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras offers some strong opinions on the disadvantages of getting hung up on style. He saw a number of problems when teaching and in his own games where a sense of identity, e.g., 'I am an attacking player' or 'I am a master of sacrifice', got in the way and ended up causing some ridiculous blunders. He sees this flaw as related to 'egoism', one of the 7 Deadly Chess Sins from an earlier book of his.

Personally, I don't think it's easy or even necessary to be selfless robots while playing. We are all going to have certain types of positions we are more comfortable with and that's part of the luxury of being an amateur. But there is something to be learned by recognizing that when we avoid certain game stories, it winds up to be more about covering up weaknesses than fixing them. This is why some teachers advise their students to deliberately try to play in ways that are uncomfortable for them.

But the actual board is always a reality check. I've seen some of Dwyrin's Youtube videos on 'Basics', which are pretty good but can be misleading because he is usually sandbagging massively. But even when he declares that, e.g., he will try to just build in this game and not fight or not go for a kill, he often can't resist the temptation, because no matter how much stronger he his, his opponent plays half the moves, and some positions just provide such an obvious path to a win that it's absurd to think about it in terms of style.

Tami · Post by **Tami** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 11:07 am

Calvin Clark wrote:Jonathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras offers some strong opinions on the disadvantages of getting hung up on style. He saw a number of problems when teaching and in his own games where a sense of identity, e.g., 'I am an attacking player' or 'I am a master of sacrifice', got in the way and ended up causing some ridiculous blunders. He sees this flaw as related to 'egoism', one of the 7 Deadly Chess Sins from an earlier book of his.

Personally, I don't think it's easy or even necessary to be selfless robots while playing. We are all going to have certain types of positions we are more comfortable with and that's part of the luxury of being an amateur. But there is something to be learned by recognizing that when we avoid certain game stories, it winds up to be more about covering up weaknesses than fixing them. This is why some teachers advise their students to deliberately try to play in ways that are uncomfortable for them.

But the actual board is always a reality check. I've seen some of Dwyrin's Youtube videos on 'Basics', which are pretty good but can be misleading because he is usually sandbagging massively. But even when he declares that, e.g., he will try to just build in this game and not fight or not go for a kill, he often can't resist the temptation, because no matter how much stronger he his, his opponent plays half the moves, and some positions just provide such an obvious path to a win that it's absurd to think about it in terms of style.

While I maintain that even us mere amateurs can actually have a style, I take your point, or rather Rowson's point. I think the issue is not so much to do with whether one has a style or not as being unhelpfully attached to one's preferred style. When there's clearly a good move to play or a bad one to learn how to avoid, then "style" should not enter in the discussion.

I think there's also a big difference between style as in one's conscious beliefs and preferences, and style as in the things one tends to do without even being aware of it (and these don't inevitably have to be bad habits just because we are mere worms...I mean amateurs).

You're right about Dwyrin's videos. I greatly enjoy watching his lectures about pro games, but I tend to get bored of watching him beating up weaker players. If you're really going to attempt to illustrate through streaming a style or principle or some other idea in action, then I think you should try it out on people who can give you some resistance. Suppose one decides to play a game to show how to handle, say Shusaku's fuseki, then even losing could be beneficial to the viewer, i.e., showing what kinds of effective counter-measures exist. I hope Dwyrin does it.

schawipp · Post by **schawipp** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 12:06 pm

I think it works much more simple: As most people don't like pondering too much about their mistakes, they are interpreted as a personal 'style', maybe like this:

Making overly cautious moves, giving away sente --> calm and solid style
Cutting in hopeless positions before thinking --> fighting style
No feeling for direction of play in fuseki --> middle game guru
Letting opponent live too easily --> cosmic style
Cannot read out ladders --> AI like style
anything else...?

Tryss · Post by **Tryss** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 12:38 pm

schawipp wrote:
anything else...?

Sandbagger -> Perfect Style :mrgreen:

Tami · Post by **Tami** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:08 pm

schawipp wrote:I think it works much more simple: As most people don't like pondering too much about their mistakes, they are interpreted as a personal 'style', maybe like this:

Making overly cautious moves, giving away sente --> calm and solid style
Cutting in hopeless positions before thinking --> fighting style
No feeling for direction of play in fuseki --> middle game guru
Letting opponent live too easily --> cosmic style
Cannot read out ladders --> AI like style
anything else...?

The error this makes - and the OP makes - is thinking that each and every move an amateur makes is a hideous mistake.

This is not so. Amateurs make more mistakes than pros, who make more mistakes than AIs, who in turn will be found to make more mistakes than better AIs when such are developed, and so it goes. But so long as go is far enough from being solved that there is room for variety and self-expression in it, then there will be room for players of all levels to have something that might be described as a style, whether one founded on conscious choices or one that evolves naturally and unforcedly.

So, suppose there are typically three ways you can choose: one has a 51.23578% winrate; another has a 51.23577% winrate; the third has a 51.235765656565656565656565% winrate. You choose the third because it appeals to your sense of style, to your tastes, to what you like. Just the fact that it is now arguably a mistake compared with the other choices (according to Geezer 9.0) mean that you have no actual style - that you are just another braindead amateur blundering on in complete ignorance?

I actually feel quite passionate about this. I jolly well do have a style. You're not going to take that away from me. In fact, I rather feel that gaining a sense of style is a big part of improvement in many skills. It's not the only thing - technique is more important still - but it's real and it's important.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:14 pm

schawipp wrote:I think it works much more simple: As most people don't like pondering too much about their mistakes, they are interpreted as a personal 'style', maybe like this:
{snip}
Cannot read out ladders --> AI like style

emeraldemon · Post by **emeraldemon** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:21 pm

As with so many questions, google knows the answer.

Knotwilg · Post by **Knotwilg** » Fri Sep 14, 2018 4:24 pm

Tami wrote:The error this makes - and the OP makes - is thinking that each and every move an amateur makes is a hideous mistake.

Oh really.

jlt · Post by **jlt** » Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:34 am

Likes knight's move.

Schachus · Post by **Schachus** » Sat Sep 15, 2018 3:19 am

I think every sort of pattern or element of play that you like to do more (or less, though its appearent, that you need to other things less often if you do some thing more often) than others of comparable strength makes up your style. These can be things that are mostly good, mostly bad, almost always good or even always bad, they will still be part of your style.
I propose to measure against others of comparable skill and not all others, becasue it dont think every 20ks style is "miss ataris" and "die in gote".

But there will be some 20ks who test every hopeless thing to the end more than others would and then "die in gote" is part of their style imo. Other 20k will not do that and maybe in comparison there style will be "never invade" because they think things would be hopeless even if they arent so they would even try an invasion instead of trying until it died in gote. I would consider them to have pretty different style. I would consider it very arrogant to say "they play so bad, they have no style".

Also note, that with this definition your style will typically contain both things that are good and things that are bad (and things that are neither good nor bad), because if the things you do more often then others of your or comparable level were all good or all bad, then you would be better or worse then those others respectively and they wouldnt be your level

Kirby · Post by **Kirby** » Sat Sep 15, 2018 4:44 am

There was a 1d pro from China who used to live in the Seattle area a couple of years ago. I chat with him at a party where various members of the Seattle Go Center were attending.

I asked him about improving at go, and he thought playing games was important. But not just playing games to win. His view was that it's more efficient to focus on a style or technique that you are weak at, and play games that give you practice with said style or technique.

For example, if you are bad at handling invasions, play games with big moyos so you get practice when your opponent invades. If you are bad at fighting, try to start fights in your games. If you are bad at endgame, try to keep the game close to get practice on endgame. This, he claimed, was more effective for learning than just trying to win.

I don't know if his advice is working, but it seems to suggest an element of style that players can aim for during games.

Tami · Post by **Tami** » Mon Sep 17, 2018 4:50 am

I am rather emotive about this thread, because I believe that developing a sense of a style was instrumental in bringing me to dan level on IGS. I was already trying very hard to get a grip on fundamentals and to remove gross mistakes from my game as far as possible, and I continue in this effort, but making the conscious decision to play in a certain way (I suppose extremely influence-oriented if you had a describe it in a few words) has given me something extra.

I try to put my money where my mouth is, so I took one of my games, and went through it with Lizzie. Of course, there are indeed some hefty errors in this game. But, as with many of my other recent games, there is also a sense that my determination to play my own game supported me and helped me to succeed.

John Fairbairn · Post by **John Fairbairn** » Mon Sep 17, 2018 5:05 am

I am rather emotive about this thread, because I believe that developing a sense of a style was instrumental in bringing me to dan level on IGS.

May I suggest an alternative explanation?

I still think that 'mindset' is a better term than 'style' for amateurs. But either way, by playing consistently in a certain way, you are playing, as if by magic, consistently.

I (vaguely now) remember an article in the old Go Review where a pro said one of the biggest mistakes made by amateurs was not playing consistently. I think the main reference there was in high handicap games, where you are effectively being given a certain mindset/style. Too many amateurs would defend the corners instead of using the handicap stones to attack White. They may have been consistent with themselves, but not with the starting stones, and I think there's an important message therein.

You have to play the board. Apart from any starting stones, the board includes your opponent's stones and he has surely been trying to discombobulate you. If you insist on playing to your own style instead of to the board you are bound to make mistakes.

Insisting on playing to your own style is fine up to a point (maybe even 1-dan) but for further improvement you need to combine that with playing the board, so as to achieve consistency with all the previous stones, not just your own.

Consistency is the key word, not style

Tami · Post by **Tami** » Mon Sep 17, 2018 5:37 am

John Fairbairn wrote:
I am rather emotive about this thread, because I believe that developing a sense of a style was instrumental in bringing me to dan level on IGS.

May I suggest an alternative explanation?

I still think that 'mindset' is a better term than 'style' for amateurs. But either way, by playing consistently in a certain way, you are playing, as if by magic, consistently.

I (vaguely now) remember an article in the old Go Review where a pro said one of the biggest mistakes made by amateurs was not playing consistently. I think the main reference there was in high handicap games, where you are effectively being given a certain mindset/style. Too many amateurs would defend the corners instead of using the handicap stones to attack White. They may have been consistent with themselves, but not with the starting stones, and I think there's an important message therein.

You have to play the board. Apart from any starting stones, the board includes your opponent's stones and he has surely been trying to discombobulate you. If you insist on playing to your own style instead of to the board you are bound to make mistakes.

Insisting on playing to your own style is fine up to a point (maybe even 1-dan) but for further improvement you need to combine that with playing the board, so as to achieve consistency with all the previous stones, not just your own.

Consistency is the key word, not style

That is a fair comment, I think - especially the part about the opponent trying to discombobulate me.

But there is another dimension to it, and one that has become very enjoyable to me. Namely, I find pleasure in the battle of wills between myself and the opponent. I want to impose my vision of how the game should go (zone press style, extreme influence, whatever), and the dastardly villain is trying to thwart me.

I suppose the true goal, then, is to get the balance right: to know when to insist on what pleases me expressively, and when to accept the cold, hard realities of the situation in hand. But is that not, really, what O Meien was talking about when he wrote about "infinite" and "finite" aspects of go? That is, when you have to find an urgent point, then that's just plain facts, no room for style or personal expression there at all.

Knotwilg · Post by **Knotwilg** » Mon Sep 17, 2018 7:13 am

Let me try an experiment which may prove my point, while still allowing everyone to adhere to their system of belief. Instead of me proving you have no style, I give you the opportunity to prove that even I have a style of my own.

Here are 8 games of mine. In each you have a 50% probability to identify me. Maybe combining all 8, you have a higher probability overall. I don't know what the figures would be, but I would be convinced if you can identify me in 6/8 games.

I'm even willing to help you (genuinely) by describing my style - i.e. what I think I'm trying to do in my games - here:

Bonus question: there are a couple of bots in there, playing bot style.

As a side story, in Belgium people are all about beer. They make claims like "Cara pils is terrible", or "I only drink Stella", or "why would anyone drink Heineken (a Dutch beer, you know), or "Jupiler is too sweet". While some of the claims may be true, in general it's all makebelief and illusion, mostly fueled by the desire to IDENTIFY with something, in this case a brand of beer, or a group of people who prefer that beer. I hold that opinion because every blind test I participated in, left the participants shocked. Not only would they be unable to identify the brand they identify with, often they would mix up beers that are objectively totally different (level of alcohol, brewing process, ingredients, ...). But after the first shock, they would not question their beliefs, but the circumstances of the experiment, like plastic cups take away taste, when mixing your taste goes away, or this was a bad time, or you have messed up the experiment ... anything not to question their beliefs. Human capacity for belief is much bigger than for accepting the truth, or rather accepting how little there is we actually know for sure and how much of story telling there is in this world. Above all, people need to feel special, original and to be truly themselves. The idea their tastes could be non-existent and just a product of their imagination, is quite disconcerting.

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