victories give us reason to play, loses give us reason to get better

i play go to demonstrate my superiority to the rest of the world and to satisfy my need to compete and win
so every loss hurts as hell. luckily i am stubborn enough and firmly convinced about my abilities so that i keep up playing through losing streaks and eventually squeeze out a random win now and then.

(partly joking)

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

Well, the objective of the game is to win. The objective of the player need not be exactly the same, though of course he must try to win.

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Occupy Babel!

This. I'm probably one of the worst losers in the world. If I lose to someone that I should beat, I'm ticked. If I lose to someone I'm supposed to lose to, I'm ticked at myself. I hate losing. I don't think that anyone on the planet likes to lose, but no one is going to win everything.

The key, I think, is exactly as hyperpape said. Whenever, I focus on the end result of games, I get frustrated. When I try to take something from the game to learn and improve, yes losses are still painful but nowhere near as frustrating.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

i am at the other end of the spectrum: i like to win, dislike to lose, but none are very strong. in particular when i win i never get an ego boost thinking i am great because its always obvious that my opponent made some big mistake, instead of feeling superior to him i feel vaguely lucky he erred during our game.
When i do lose i am mad at myself for sucking.
I don't feel a need to win over the rest of the world. And i dont progress much, its probably related: my lazyness totally overcome my ego


Totally unrelated, but Laman, your new avatar scares the hell out of me . its painful to read your posts now

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

This unbalanced state of pleasure from things (losses make me feel worse than wins make me feel good) only happens to me in situations where I either don't like or have stopped liking the activity. Usually this is because I have an external reason for continuing with the activity other than that I like it. For example, a stock trader might get great pleasure from trading stocks in the beginning even though it is stressful but it is not unusual for this "misery when things go bad/neutral when they go well" mindset to eventually settle in. The problem comes when they feel that they can't stop doing the activity because making money at it/are psychologically addicted to it or whatever.

In my life when I've gotten into situations like this a break from the activity that is unbalanced like this has always turned out to be the answer. Sometimes I return to the activity and sometimes I don't, but I am always happier for having had a break.

Before you whip out the dictionary, you might think about how you feel when a game starts, when the last big point of the fuseki is taken, when you spot a weakness, when you realize your opponent has taken advantage of one of your weaknesses, when you extricate a group from the clutches of death, when you keep sente in the endgame, when your stone turns the flow in your favor.

Maybe enjoy is not the right word, but these feeling, and not just the feelings after the game is over, are why I play go.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Well said. I would call it the thrill of battle. It is also one of the reasons I like to play go. If winning the game is more important than the thrill of battle it seems that sandbagging is the answer, but don't expect to experience what daal describes above.

This post was good and thoughtful. I've been pondering it on and off today and I think there is possibly quite a bit truth in what you wrote.

One thought I had, though, is about how you can tell the difference between not liking an activity anymore and having gotten to the edge of your comfort zone where, in order to make further progress, you have to face some "pain". But I'm not sure if that is true. In my first half year with Go, when progress was fast and plentiful, I always had fun and was never frustrated even when I lost. The frustration only came with prolonged setbacks (or lack of noticeable progress, which is probably a more accurate way of putting it). Does this mean I stopped liking Go, or does it mean I may have a behaviour flaw that causes me to give up too quickly and have unrealistic expectations?

Differently put, how do you know the difference between a healthy, necessary struggle (is struggle ever necessary or healthy?) and a loss of interest where you just hang onto something for whatever reason? Is it realistic to expect that you'll always have fun with a skill-based, competitive activity that requires continued effort in order to improve? I'm trying to remember if I ever engaged in a past time activity that remained enjoyable at all times even when it started to require commitment, dedication or regular effort, and I can't seem to come up with anything.

Then again, I think my attention span has always been a little limited and I tend to jump from activity to activity rather than sticking with one thing all the time. My professional life used to be like that in the first ten'ish years, which were then followed up by ten years of doing the same thing -- that's where I currently am at, and I don't feel very satisfied with it, but lack the opportunities (probably not true and just an excuse I make to myself), energy and possibly courage to make stark changes -- which may be how some people feel about Go: all the time they invested, the risk of regret later on, and so on.

Maybe this boils down to the question if it's possible to only experience one side of the two that everything has. Like, only wanting the yin and never the yang, kind of.

Hey Kirby, I wanna reply to the feeling you described here.
I like to think about the term "a game of Go" as two different things. Two things that affect directly the difference between our views (or so I think).

1. A game of Go as in the game me and my opponent are playing right now. the stones on the (virtual) board between us. In this game of go, the objective indeed is to win, just like you wrote. All your moves should lead to this. All your calculations are made to give you the lead, in order to get that W when the game is finished. This is how I think you see it. Now, other than that we have...
2. A game of Go as in a more general sense. The game that is defined by those simple rules, that every player that plays it tries to master. Your goal in participating in this game is to master as much as you can. To learn, to improve, to look up to some place and know that you will get there, some day. In this "game of Go" we have all the games of the first kind that we play, and it changes the meaning of each and every one of those games. I'll explain why.

If you feel that you play 2, then during a game of 1 you try to achieve more in order to complete 2. This is easier to explain in new players' games.

Take this-

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ -------------
$$ - . . X O 1 .
$$ - . . a X O .
$$ - . . . X O .[/go]

If you play 1, then missing 'a', leading to playing there, leading (theoretically) to you losing the game, will be devastating. If you play 2, then you might not feel happy about the loss, but now you learned that you have to block at 'a'. Next time this will happen, and you will remember this, you will be very happy. You have learned, implemented it into your game, and now thanks to that you won. That is a much better feeling than, say, white playing 'a' but you still winning, and next time maybe forgetting it again... Even if you won the second game as well.

Now just think about the difference between us and 7-9 dan players... Think about the difference between us and professional players... There is so much to learn! Maybe it's no longer things like 'a' from the previous diagram, but instead it might be correct use of force, or maximizing aji, or maybe just playing mid-game for a better position in endgame. Ever read a book where the professional player says "'a' only move", or "if w play here, b play there", and you are completely baffeled as to why it is like that? Just like 'a' from the diagram to that new player. This is what keeps me going, and this is why I enjoy good games - where I played all those things I learned successfully, even if I lost, because next game I'll play what I learned from this game and get a better result. It brings me a bit closer to (theoretically) mastering the game. The fact that you never will is even better, because (again, theoretically) you will be interested in it your whole life.

Sorry about such a long post, and I hope that I got my point across...

I addressed the subject of learning in my original post. I can certainly see how learning is a good incentive to keep playing. But I also see many people who don't seem to be learning, don't seem to be improving, don't seem to be interested in improving and still play a lot and enjoy it.

Perhaps I could use a clarification: If the goal of viewpoint #2 is to achieve mastery, is mastery not defined by increasing your ability to win games?

If the point of both viewpoints is to increase the ability to win games, the difference appears to be, "if I lose THIS current game, am I upset about it, or do I think of it as a step toward achieving a better ability toward winning future games?"

If this is accurate, perhaps I am discouraged from a loss at any particular time, because it is an indicator that I have failed.

I agree it is good to pack up your loss and try to learn from it, but this failure - this indicator that I have done a poor job on my way to achieve mastery of the game - hurts a bit. And the more I have tried in the game, the more it hurts to realize my inadequacy.

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be immersed

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Well, you won't master the game, because a) you presumably didn't start playing when you were almost an infant, b) didn't have a professional teacher/environment throughout your childhood, and c) are not immortal. So, you won't ever become a master of Go, and you probably need to just accept that and face it, but why is mastery such an important goal?

I'm pretty good at feeling inadequate (improvement comes effortlessly!), but I nevertheless think that you can only(?) feel inadequate if you compare yourself to others -- more over, if you compare a limited set of aspects of yourself to one (or a few) aspect(s) of someone else, without considering the whole package (that is: everything else that there is to who you are, and no doubt you have plenty of great attributes, abilities and facets). And while you're forgetting that you're a much stronger Go player than many other players.

For myself, I'm trying to settle for getting "better" today than I was yesterday. Well, not literally. But if I open a game I played last year, or two years ago, and look over it, there are many indicators that I have become stronger, and I find that satisfying. "Competing" with myself rather than others is more "healthy" for me and doesn't make me feel inadequate. A side effect is that it makes me appreciate myself a little more.

(And by the time I hit the ceiling, I'll hopefully be "wise" enough to realize that even such improvement is missing the point!)

Good point! Though, I wish it were not the case. It makes sense that people have both strengths and weaknesses. But I still wish I didn't have weaknesses. It reminds me that I am mortal and maybe powerless in the universe, in some sense.

Steve Jobs is sometimes known for wanting to "make a dent in the universe." It seems too bad to me that even an influential guy like him could only make a dent.

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be immersed

"Mediocrities everywhere... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you... I absolve you all." - Amadeus (1984)

I agree. I think this distinction can be really hard to make. In my case, it might also be a third thing: that what I liked about the activity was the initial learning curve, the newness of the activity, the feeling of getting better at something, etc. That can be separate IMO from whether you enjoy the base activity, and it can make this distinction hard to make.

A big issue for me is being sort of addicted to initial learning curves and enjoying the initial improvement that comes with going from zero beginner to low intermediate. There's another thread on that topic, and people often think that people who are always starting new things lack discipline or focus to really become expert at something.

But I think that's a little unfair. I don't think that you can really find out if you like something- "for a lifetime" like it, until you reach a point where your returns have diminished and you're not getting an improvement cookie all the time. At that point you find out whether you like that activity for more than the rewards you've been getting from it, whether it's something you just always want to do.


I can give two examples from my own life: Golf and Skiing. I am probably about the same level in each, but my approach to them is totally different. I can't stand to play Golf badly--it destroys my enjoyment of the game, and because of what I have decided are going to be priorities in my life I can't put in the many many hours that it would take to improve to a level where I wouldn't feel this way. I've mostly given up playing and only play a couple of days per year. I use the time for other stuff like Go.

Skiing, I am also a low-intermediate at, and it would take a huge commitment (better physical condition, spend more time where there is skiing, great expense etc) but I don't care at all about improving. I can go out and ski all day and love it. I pass by the harder hills and just shrug and say "those are too hard for me" and I don't mind. Of course I try to improve and want to improve, but even if I were worse than I am now I would still enjoy doing it.

Does that mean I like skiing but not golf? Not really. But I think it does mean that good performance at golf is a key point of enjoying it whereas performance isn't really that much of an issue for me in skiing. I can see how go would fit into the former for people but I can also see it being the other way--I see people at the Go club or at the tournament I went to who obviously just enjoy being there and playing and don't care about improving.

This is an important subject for me personally, as I am a compulsive "jack of all trades until intermediate level then I pick something new", and I have had to do a lot of soul-searching about it through life.

One thing I am now sure of: In that spot for me where improvement returns diminish, it is dangerous to my wallet! That's when I finally buy the new golf clubs or guitar or whatever because I think I'm investing in the next level of dedication, but it often turns out that I'm really trying to rekindle interest in something that I've reached the end of my time with. Several times I have, after reaching intermediate at something, finally made the big purchase and then rarely pursued the activity again.

But I do think that taking a break, unless you've got the big tournament coming up or something, is really a cure-all for a lot of this. If I take a break from something and I don't miss it, I have my answer. If I find myself spontaneously going back to it or wondering when the break will be over, I'm clearly not done with it.

If winning is just okay then I see two reasons, first inflated ego (you believe you are much stronger than you really are, which makes you feel bad about losses and not good about wins because you had no respect for the opponents anyway) which makes more realistic feedback hard to stand and second recent continuous progress, which often leads to the first, while you have momentum you can easily maintain a much higher winning percentage and upon losing the momentum you recognize you are not used to losing games anymore. The only point I wonder about, Go gives you feedback instantly. How do people manage to get an inflated ego at all?

I sometimes feel horrible about losing in a stupid way too, but this is compensated by feeling great about winning against opponents I respect or even fear (on the board).

Funny that some things like Ortho's skiing we do purely for enjoyment with nothing awful involved (unless you count the occasional broken leg), and other things are enjoyable particularly because our skill sometimes allows us to avoid devastation. Why is it so?

Ortho likes both golf and skiing, but they have different meanings to him. While both involve a complex skill-set that he presumably never will master, golf appears to place different demands upon him. It is not simply a matter of the competitive nature of the two sports. Both can be enjoyed socially with competition on a back burner. Apparently, we have very high expectations of ourselves in some fields, whereas in others, we could care less how well we perform.

When I think about golf or skiing, it strikes me that both are physical activities with a mental component that might separate the good from the very good. Nonetheless, the physical skill is something of a prerequisite. Go on the other hand is purely mental. You can't be too fat for it, and having two left feet won't stop you either. All you need are eyes a hand and a brain.

While the mental skills of golf and skiing (concentration, tenacity, risk-handling etc.) are skills that indeed are otherwise valuable in our everyday life, go's skill set is somehow more all-encompassing. As if a perfect go player would have a mind that simultaneously functioned like that of a Buddhist monk, a general and a mathematician. It's easy to know that we could never be great athletes, but it's harder to tell what our minds are or are not capable of.

I think quite a few go players are caught in the bind that they see go as a testing ground for their mental prowess. It has to do with our self-image. Anyone out there consider themselves dumb? I mean, besides when we've lost a game of go?

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Patience, grasshopper.

Or how about a third reason: the fact that losing feeling worse than winning is a universal trait of human psychology? Just like I mentioned in the original post?

So. I read a freely available paper cited by the Wikipedia page.

Here's in essence how they showed loss aversion:
In a constructed "real effort task", players were paired in a series of rounds. The first player attempted the task, and received a score; the second player was then shown the first player's score before their own attempt.
The trend was; when player 2 was shown a relatively good score by player 1, player 2 slacked off. (This 'discouragement' effect is in line with loss aversion).


I was going to say this didn't sound very in line with go, but then the following very real situation occured to me (which seems at least close):

On KGS, one, I believe, has very good odds on beating a player one rank lower than you with white-no-komi, and bad odds being given the same by one rank higher than you (check your KGS analytics).

The suggestion that broadly, while one would like to win both matchups, one cares more about (ie puts more effort into) not losing when you're expecting to win than you do about winning when you're expecting to lose has a distinct sound of truthiness (but I'm not actually being sarcastic) (or am I, I'm having trouble deciding).


Either way (and on a tangent), I remain unsure of how one's choice of effort strategy predicts your net happiness from playing go.

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.