Recently, I began to make a record of the time I spent studying go, mainly to motivate myself to put in the effort required to get stronger, and also to see how progress and hours invested correlate.
I have hit a problem: how do you count time spent actually playing go?
People can play thousands of games over many years, without improving, so playing alone cannot be considered a way to improve. But does the situation change when you are also studying, and therefore using play to try out new ideas and to refine your understanding? If so, can games be considered as valuable as studying?
I ask because I have limited free time, and wish to use it in the most profitable way. I'd like to play many games, but every time I play I feel the nagging worry that I might have gained more by going over a pro game or by solving tsumego.
What are your thoughts?
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:
The point is getting something out of every game you play. For example, yesterday I played two games (2 defeats). In one the error was clear, the second was quickly (and kindly) reviewed here. So I got to learn something about how I fail. Of course, Dosaku and Shusaku play very well and nice, and I can learn from them, but I can learn more from my errors.
If you don't want to play, better do some more tsumego
Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net
If you're treating the game like a collection of inter-related tsumego, tesuji, and fuseki problems, and really try to make the right move, you can't help but improve. If you play like you always play, you're not going to really improve. Whether you want to set games up as dessert after studying (usually what I do) or as the main course, I think either approach is fine. If time is a factor, and improving is your goal (as opposed to relaxing/having fun), tsumego are probably the more concentrated dose of go practice and I'd favor them to games maybe 80/20.
The best advice I received about studying do it this:
Of the time you have available for Go, 1/2 of that time should be used to play games, 1/4 should be used to study life and death, and 1/4 of the time should be used to review your games, study professional games, and read other Go books.
Stronger players than me have disagreed, but if you are looking for a way to allocate the time available for Go, it makes the most sense to me.
FWIW, when I was in training, I spent 15+ hrs./wk. studying and 4+ hrs./wk. playing. However, some of that playing time was devoted to post-mortems, so maybe an hour of it was study, as well.
The Adkins Principle: At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
I was told (by an ex-insei) that I should spend at least half the time I put towards go playing games (but always look over your games, even if you're convinced you already know your mistakes).
Tami wrote:People can play thousands of games over many years, without improving, so playing alone cannot be considered a way to improve.
I'm not sure this is generally true, or at least true in all cases. Especially as a beginner playing can be a great way to learn. I think it depends on how you approach playing. For example, if you try different things and experiment you may very well learn a lot from playing. If you stick to your standard style and play the sequences you already know, then perhaps you will learn nothing new.
If it's OK to offer an answer to my own question, I`ll suggest the following thoughts, now that I have slept on it.
* You can play to play, or play to practice. Playing for practice means putting in an effort, trying to apply whatever you know and trying to learn from your mistakes afterwards. * You need playing experience as much as study, because there is a difference between knowing something in theory and knowing it through practice.
Therefore, I am going to assume that playing is worth as much as studying, if and only if the play is deliberate and determined, and balanced by an equal amount of study.
I think the answer could be explained by reference to three modes:
Mode 1: Too much study, not enough play - the result is the "foo factor"* (see Janice Kim's books for that), which is only knowing how to fight when the fighting fits into a strict, pre-learned pattern.
Mode 2: Too much play, not enough study - you're not getting sufficient new ideas to work with, and so you start settling into repetitive patterns. You get very good at and comfortable with what you know, but as go is a very big game, you'll always struggle against somebody stronger, because they will always be able to see outside your boundaries.
Mode 3: You study diligently and play with the conscious effort to apply the principles of good play and to try out anything new that you may have learned, should opportunity arise - your boundaries widen, and with experience your competence within them increases.
I think at the heart of the matter is the difference between playing to play, and playing to practice. Recently, I have been using my go time mainly for study, with the result that any time spent playing is generally late at night, meaning that I have no energy to play effortfully. As a result, I tend to fall prey to the "foo factor" (Mode 1). The remedy must be to aim at Mode 3 - real study, real play.
Tami
* "Foo Factor" - IIRC, Janice Kim uses this term in the intro to The Way of the Moving Horse to explain how a martial arts student can get beaten up by a mugger, even though they know better how to fight.
You can improve by playing and by solving problems. I think you have to do both seriously to get the full benefit. Playing serious games gives you a problem to solve on each move. Some are very easy others very difficult. Playing gives you training that you can't get from solving problems in books, namely making large scale plans and adjusting them according to how the game goes. Studying pro games is something in between solving book problems and playing. To get the full benefit you should, I think, try to figure out in advance what each move will be and, when you guess wrong, try to understand what is wrong with the reasons you had for choosing a different move than the pro chose. All of these "study methods" require you to be focussed and thoughtful about every move, something that's hard to do but will maximize the benefit from studying and playing.
Tami wrote:...... but every time I play I feel the nagging worry that I might have gained more by going over a pro game or by solving tsumego.
What are your thoughts?
I would suggest that how you best divide up your time among these three might depend on what your most serious problem is based upon what happens in your games. For example......
Suppose you DO recognize when there is an issue of life and death but you get it wrong. Then studying tsumego should get more emphasis.
Suppose that too often you fail to notice that your opponent's last move had implications for the life or death of a nearby group. In other words, had you noticed (when you do) you tend to make the correct move to save the group but too often fail to notice. More tsumego isn't going to help with this.
Suppose either of the above but too often saving the group is far from the best thing to do. Then maybe going over more games.
There is not going to be a "one size fits all" answer for this question. A few of us are very unlike the average person trying to improve our game. How about having a significantly better player look at your games to analyze what are your most serious problems and then come up with a plan to work on those.
In my experience, improvement is the product of the two. If either approaches zero, you won't improve much. Play hard, study hard; do 50% of each, and you will get stronger.
this is my opinion: by studying you can mold your self to have an appearance of strong players, but you must play to fine tune your skills learned from books. i can improve by playing only but books will better guide me so i can get stronger faster.
top professional "seo bong-soo" didnt have much materials to study but he improved mostly by playing only.
to answer your question: playing games worth more than studying games. it is like learning to play piano by reading only
best result will be study to learn and play to retain what you have learned.
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown" Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson
Magicwand wrote:this is my opinion: by studying you can mold your self to have an appearance of strong players, but you must play to fine tune your skills learned from books. i can improve by playing only but books will better guide me so i can get stronger faster.
top professional "seo bong-soo" didnt have much materials to study but he improved mostly by playing only.
to answer your question: playing games worth more than studying games. it is like learning to play piano by reading only
best result will be study to learn and play to retain what you have learned.
Seo Bong-soo may have advanced mostly by play (and, presumably, review). But who did he play against? To advance by play it is important to play against the stiffest opposition you can find.
The Adkins Principle: At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
I believe it depends too much on the individuals way of learning and capacity. I don't think anybody can find the answer without making a statistical analysis among strong players. And even if one finds the answer by statistics, it still doesn't mean that this answer is the right one for you.
Therefore, my suggestion: If you are stuck at a certain level, and you still want to improve, try something else whatever you were doing so far. e.g. if you were mostly playing, try studying pro games, or if you were playing blitz, try slowing down, or if you were doing only tsumego try studying joseki, etc...
If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.
I know for me the advice below from David Mechner was very helpful in regard to this question. I think without the attitude that he describes one could continue to play and not improve if what has been studied is not applied and experimented with. An anology would be language acqusition and how you see kids go forward and experiment and try out new things while sometimes adults struggle with the feeling of embarrassment at not saying something correctly and therefore experiment less. I think that is one of the reasons children are able to pick up language more easily.
You Must Must Must, as you play, struggle to review the concepts, the injunctions and prohibitions, the lessons that you've been learning from books and stronger players, and play as if you believe and understand them. There is a natural progression in learning a concept or technique:
1. You learn about a new concept (in a book or from a stronger player) 2. You awkwardly and self-consciously apply the concept to your game 3. You internalize the concept, and develop an intuition that allows you to apply it naturally.
Inevitably, you won't feel comfortable with a concept when it's first explained to you. The point is, if you don't go through step 2, you'll never get to step 3. The whole point here is that you have to do what you think is right intellectually before it feels right, and just by going through the motions, it will come to feel right and you'll improve. Some people find this hard to do because playing something you don't really understand feels dangerous, and danger in go means you might lose. But if your goal is to improve, don't worry about winning or losing. Really. Look; now I'm a 6-dan. Who cares how many games I lost when I was 5-kyu?
