100 Game for Beginners

[Boyce]

I had a question about the 100 games. Several members have mentioned playing the first 100 games as quickly as possible for beginners. My question is does this mean 100 games strictly against humans or against computers as well? And why do the first so quickly? Does that mean don't necessarily consider every move but play on intuition? I'm still fairly new to the game, and honestly have no idea how many games I've played but I saw this and was wondering about it. Thanks ahead of time

-Boyce

[ACGalaga]

I'm in the same boat ATM but have not the time to dedicate. So, I'll continue at an average pace. But I think the expression is "Lose your first 50 games" (some say lose your first 100).

It's kind of like that story of the potters class, where the teacher told the students to brake their first 100 vazes after they make them. Allows one to focus on the "doing," I guess. Although, a little different in go, being that within your first 50 loses, you'll learn from all the mistakes you make.

Then again, I really don't know jack at all. Just making a presence on the forums

[Redundant]

The point of the proverb is to get used to the shapes that appear in a game of go. Almost all of the cool things about go are never specified in the rules, but are emergent phenomena. Playing 100 games as quickly as possible is a good way to be able to recognize patterns in the game.

[EdLee]

Hi Boyce, ACGalaga, I cannot speak for others, but from my own experience
and from observing other beginners, I believe at the beginning, we learn
a lot, perhaps the most, from experience alone. Instead of the saying
"lose your first N games," I prefer "finish your first 100 games as quickly as your time allows."

I think humans or programs are both OK, as are all the board sizes: 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 13x13, ... 19x19 --
are all OK, but I feel for beginners, they can save a lot of time with the smaller boards to finish more games.

[Mnemonic]

I think by ‘100 games’ the proverb does not mean 100 19x19 games (which can take up to an hour with normal play). As a beginner I would suggest 13x13 (roughly 20 min) or even 9x9 (roughly 5 min) This way you can get to the magical number of 100 games a lot quicker and I believe that 100 9x9 games teach you a lot more than 100 19x19 games.

There are a lot of fundamental things about go that have to be understood before really starting to play go. Although people can learn the rules of go in about 5 minutes I often say than it takes a 20k to understand the rules of go (to 20k you need about a week of intensive study or a month of regular play) There are some examples of really fundamental things that beginners usually don't know but that even a 20k sees instantly.

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I could probably list a dozen examples of similar plays that are obvious to even the weakest go player but that have to be tediously learned by beginners. The quickest way to learn these is to play lots of games quickly (just playing by intuition)

[jts]

I always assumed the point of "lose 100 games quickly" was neither that fast games are better than slow games, nor that playing (and losing) is better than studying or doing tsumego. Beginners often ask "what can I do to get good at Go?" expecting an answer to a how question (how can this invasion live, how can that invasion be killed, how can I know when to answer and when to tenuki, how to go on the offensive and how to live), but the proverb flips the beginner to the ground by instead answering a how long question (how long will I have to play before I improve?)...

The implied answer to that how long question is, "a really long time - you're going to have to push yourself, but don't be discouraged if you don't see any improvement at first." If you interpret the proverb too literally and say "Okay, well if I play blitz games on 9x9 I can play 25 a day and I'll have lost 100 games a week from now" you might be surprised to learn that there's nothing magical about a specific number of games.

If you read the proverb in the way I'm suggesting, it's very similar to advice someone (Bill Spight?) gave on this forum: don't think about whether you're improving or what your rank is until you've been playing for a year.

Don't take my word for it yet, though; I need 20 more losses myself. Then I'll be 100% qualified to answer any questions about Go proverbs!

[daal]

My question is does this mean 100 games strictly against humans or against computers as well?

I think the idea of playing the games quickly, is that you tend to get clobbered pretty bad the first bunch of games, and you shouldn't let it get you down. Whether you spend a whole bunch of time thinking or not, a more experienced opponent will thwart your plans at every turn, so what you want to do is get a feel for the ways in which he does that. The main thing is that go is more fun when you have a fair chance of winning, and you need to get past the phase of losing all your games without feeling that you are hopeless - so get it over quickly! My experience is that playing against the computer can reduce the time of being humiliated by real people, but there are also those who say that it can lead to bad habits.

[Bill Spight]

I learned go before hearing about the 100 game rule -- or 50 games, whatever. I played about 3 games per week for the first 6 months, for about 75 games, which is in the ball park. And yes, I lost all of them, because I played against a 5 kyu who only gave me 4 stones. However, I did not play them quickly. We took about 1 hr. per game, which was fairly typical, IMX. At least in Japan.

Here in the states I found that many kyu players took 2-3 hours to play a game. A visiting Korean dan player once asked, "Why do they take so long, when they have nothing to think about?" We had few dan players in the U.S. at that time, unlike today. Perhaps the kyu players took so long because they actually did have a lot to think about. With few strong players around, they had to work things out for themselves, and not only did not know much, they had a number of misconceptions. Anyway, it is unlikely that their game would have suffered much if they had played more quickly. Perhaps the saying arose at that time.

When you are just starting out, there are many things that you can learn about go, all by yourself, as you play. And your playing can hardly suffer if you play quickly. That is not to say that you should play hurriedly, without reflection, IMO. But there is no point in getting lost in complications. Although I took about an hour per game at first, I probably would have done better to finish a game in half that time. I would have gained more experience in the same amount of time. But I do not think that just slapping the stones down would have been better, because you do need to pay attention to what you are doing. Otherwise, what do you learn?

Now, almost every game I played was followed by a post-mortem. Every game a teaching game. That was most helpful. Having already thought about a play primed me to learn whether it was good or bad. Finding out what moves I had not considered that I should have and what moves I considered that I should not have helped me to advance fairly rapidly. I do not play against computer programs. I suppose that some of them can provide help with post-mortems, I don't know. Humans certainly can, and you should do them with your opponent after the game, even if you are both weak. There is a lot to go, and there are things that you can teach each other, and things that you can find out together.

Welcome to the world of go!

And good luck!

[Bill Spight]

My question is does this mean 100 games strictly against humans or against computers as well?

My experience is that playing against the computer can reduce the time of being humiliated by real people, but there are also those who say that it can lead to bad habits.

Computers are much stronger now than they used to be. I suppose that a computer that plays around 4 kyu will not teach too many bad habits.

But don't play Wally!

[jokkebk]

I think the idea of playing the games quickly, is that you tend to get clobbered pretty bad the first bunch of games, and you shouldn't let it get you down.

I second this. I've known many beginners who don't like to play on servers because it seems they have been disheartened by their initial losses to strangers. It's surprisingly hard to explain to a 25 kyu that losing to 23 kyu even with two stones should not be taken too hard.

Instead of going on about inaccuracies and variation of DDK rankings and specific problems in a 20k+ game, the "100 game rule" (or 50 losses, whatever) is something that hopefully makes the beginner think less about losing the first games, and be positive about his increasing number of games. If he/she ever reaches the 100 games and does that in short time, the angst of losing one game should be a lot less and a major obstacle in the course of getting stronger avoided.

(and the fact is that playing 100 games usually gets the player past 20 kyu also does a lot to their self-esteem)

[BaghwanB]

I'll add my "me too" as well here with:

The point of "100 games quickly" seems to be just get experience as a beginner. Don't worry about winning or losing, just get a good amount of mindful play in so you can start to see what works and what doesn't. Unless you are a prodigy, book learning won't take you too far down the beginner's path without some real-world viewing of just how sequences play out (esp. when the opponent doesn't follow the book's responses) and what works and what works for you in particular. After you have this basic experience under your belt, THEN you can start to have some success with working on specific parts of your game and get more out of instruction.

On top of the learning part is the realization that you are a beginner and will lose lots of games for a while. I recently told some new people not to be discouraged by losses right now because in your "go career":

1) You will be beaten,
2) You will be beaten badly,
3) Eventually, you will be beaten badly by a 7-year old.

So have fun with it and don't worry about winning or losing or your "true skill" and brainpower. You've decided to start to learn to play the most challenging game on the planet. It'll take some time to get decent at it. That's why it is fun (& challenging).

Bruce "Rah, rah, sis boom bah" Young

[ACGalaga]

You can read all the books you want about riding a bicycle, but until you get on one and fall over a few times, you'll never know how to ride.

[Redundant]

You can read all the books you want about riding a bicycle, but until you get on one and fall over a few times, you'll never know how to ride.

I originally read this as "You can read all the books you want while riding a bicycle ..."

Quite the doubletake ensued.

[EdLee]

Redundant, indeed with all the nice gadgets, while riding a bike, we can read any books, watch videos, and play Go.

ACGalaga, I agree 100%.

[Mike Novack]

(just my opinion)

I think a computer opponent, an opponent always available to play against, can be a great tool as long as you understand the possible pitfalls.

Learning bad habits from them --- the risk of this can be controlled by not using the programs in certain ways. While perhaps the programs (program levels) using some version of MCTS as their evaluator don't have this "bad habits" problem the wekest of these is far too strong to be an opponent for any beginner even at a handicap of nine stones. So for this purpoose we are considering programs (levels of play) that are using some sort of artificial intelligence to evaluate moves.

Those do have "bad habits" so you shouldn't use them in such a way that this becomes a factor. But as long as you have set the playing strength of the program to be at least several stones stornger than your current strength (take the necessary handicap to make a game of it) those "bad habits" shouldn't materialize.

Nor does the "politics" of "free software" vs "commercial software" come into it as long as we are beginners (there are "free" alternatives with playing strength far greater than any beginner)