Is there a way to become good without playing?

[HermanHiddema]

Perhaps you can try playing (teaching) games against strong players, if you can find someone willing?

At our club, I play even games against 5-15 kyu players regularly. I try to play only good, calm moves, never anything unreasonable, even though it would easily work because of my opponent's lack of skill. I don't go all out, or seek complications just for the sake of complications. I allow my opponents to take back particularly egregious errors. I stick to simple joseki that my opponent can learn from. I may give them tips during the game, and I will certainly review it briefly afterwards. I know these players enjoy this kind of game. They don't care about winning or losing, they just enjoy playing it. And really, between a 4 dan and a 10 kyu, there is no real concept of winning or losing. At some point, handicap loses its meaning.

[Xyiana]

You can play against computers if you want "secret" dan level surprise on your first tournament. If you can handle it without too much stress ofc

[BaghwanB]

You have to play to get real and full enjoyment out of the game.

I can critique the heck out of songs and can pound out a ditty or two but I don't call myself a musician. I know the rules of chess but haven't played a game in decades, so I don't call myself a chess player. Similarly, I don't think you can even call yourself a "go player" if you don't at least occasionally put stones on boards (IRL or via web).

Bruce "Non-artist, non-architect, non-non" Young

[Uberdude]

I recently saw this on a 2k KGS user's info:

I am from Scotland.
I first heard about go when I was looking for games to play in the early eighties and I read about it in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I was intrigued. The encyclopedia cited its source material as a book called the Game of Go by Arthur Smith. This book was originally published in 1908 and was one of the first books published in the west to make a study of go. I bought this book. I also bought a toy go set which had a contact address for the British Go Association which I then joined. It was years before I had my first game as there was no club in my area at that time and no internet. I got to about 7 kyu just by reading books and doing problems (I found out my rank after I eventually started playing).

But why don't you want to play? Playing Go is fun!

[karaklis]

There are many reasons not to play, OGA, burnout, some cannot stand the adrenaline rush that naturally comes up when playing and prefer to do some more relaxing go related activities like tsumego or reading a good go book.

[SoDesuNe]

[...] the adrenaline rush [...]

That surely kicks in everytime! On tournaments I look like I'm awaiting the next ice age to cover the shiverings :O

[Ryuukun]

But why don't you want to play? Playing Go is fun!

Go is wonderful but I have unsolved Psychic Problems which hold me back from playing.
Sounds weird to bring together psychic problems with the game of go but it's sadly that way for me.

So since I can't play I wondered if I can still become good. Becuase when I'm good I can play since I don't feel ashamed of my own bad play anymore.

[shapenaji]

Ryuukun: you will never reach a point in go where you stop being embarassed by moves that you make... that's a guarantee.

No matter how "good" you get, you will always feel blind.

[oren]

Becuase when I'm good I can play since I don't feel ashamed of my own bad play anymore.

Even strong pros get embarrassed by their poor play.

[LocoRon]

If anything, poor play becomes even more embarrassing the stronger you are (at least, that's how it is for me).

[Dusk Eagle]

Whenever I watch proffesional go games I'm stunned by how beautiful the board looks and how well they play. It's something I could watch the whole day.
But I don't want to play it myself, I'm disgusted by my own bad play and how every game becomes a messy full scale battle without any tactic involved. (just block and attack and block and attack)

I had this feeling at some point in my Go progression, but by just playing more and focusing on getting stronger your moves will improve and stop being as ugly. But it seems hard to be able to play beautiful games without practising playing games. I doubt most artists were just able to make beautiful artwork without first producing many pieces of lesser-quality art.

[Mivo]

Go is wonderful but I have unsolved Psychic Problems which hold me back from playing.

You're standing in your own way. I'll be blunt, and I don't mean to offend, but I feel you're making excuses, mostly to yourself. Most people here perfectly understand what it is like to run into self-esteem issues, the "feeling dumb", the moments of resignation, the times of depression when it all seems hopeless, and when negative thoughts become overwhelming. Depending on your age, you can add regret and "I'm too old" doubts to that list.

So, you're not alone with this, and I'd even say that the majority of people who learn the game online experience this self-confidence rollercoaster ride. I understand that today everything is a "psychological problem", which is very convenient, because it removes any form of personal accountability and shifts the responsibility away from us, but it might just be as simple as a normal behavioural difficulty that you have full control over. If you want to have that control and make a grab for it.

You could look at this as an opportunity to work on these issues and feelings, instead of plainly stating, "I can't.". Yes, you can, it's just not easy (Henry Ford said, "Whether you believe you can or can't, you're right."). So maybe start with that and understand that most people aren't born as masters in any given field. It's nearly always hard work with plenty of setbacks, and part of that hard work is to deal with discomfort and doubts. Because if you deal with this in Go, chances are you deal with it in other areas of your life as well -- areas that may well be more significant than this wonderful board game.

So since I can't play I wondered if I can still become good. Becuase when I'm good I can play since I don't feel ashamed of my own bad play anymore.

Yes, you can play, you merely choose not to face the difficult feelings that playing poorly causes. You write that you're ashamed of your bad playing. Why? You can even make a new account every so often, no one really knows you, no one really cares how well or terrible you play. Other than yourself, and you can make the deliberate choice to not care.

Not only to not care, but to start focusing on the tremendous value of messing up and making mistakes! You see, every time you spot a mistake you've made, it will mean you have improved! That is awesome and it's like an imaginary "I GOT BETTER!" bell ringing. Basically, you can either think, "I suck so bad, I'm so terrible, I'll never be any good!" or instead say to yourself, "Great that I saw this! I'm obviously improving, so now I have to practice more and remember this mistake and not repeat it as often!". You choose how you respond to a mistake, and the way you respond decides how you feel. Is it easy? Nope. No one promised you that it would be. Is it possible? Absolutely.

It's certainly a lovely dream to just read and watch games, maybe do some problems, and then BOOM, become a dan level player. That might even work for very few people, but it almost certainly wouldn't work for you, because these "unresolved issues" that you believe to have won't go away if they are not actively worked on. That means "doing".

Sure, right now you think that if you were only 1 dan, you would not feel so bad about how you play. But if you were 1 dan, you would feel exactly the same about your games as you do now, because the actual cause is completely unrelated to your playing strength (I know you firmly believe that it is, which is how you trick yourself). So then you wouldn't play until you are 5 dan. But oh wait, stronger players will demolish you and you'll fumble, so, no playing until professional strength! Oops, professional players still lose a lot! Then what? Besides, unless you're 5 years old and have a professional trainer, you won't get as strong anyway, and you don't have to in order to enjoy the game!

In the end, it's perfectly normal for people who experience anxiety or self doubts to be convinced that if this or that condition became true, they would easily be able to do what they are unsure about or afraid of, but it's just self-deception. A coping mechanism, granted, but one that goes in circles and doesn't serve well.

Becoming "good" at Go is a journey, and as every journey, it begins with the first step. So go and play Go, and face the ugly feelings. They'll eventually go away. But they won't go away by trying to bypass them. They may even get uglier if left unchecked.

[karaklis]

face the ugly feelings. They'll eventually go away.

While I agree with your other statements, I disagree with this. Well, you have to face the feelings, right, but they won't go away. I had OGA when I was 20k and I still have as 5k. If that's the problem of the OP, he can do the following things:

1. Try to get games on a real board. If there is a place nearby, a club or a regular playing event, go there and get your games. If there are go tournaments in your area, don't miss them. The latter is my main source of improvement (apart from doing tsumego and reading go books), but I have the luck that there are seven tournaments a year in the environment of 100 km / 60 miles, so I get up to 36 serious games with long time controls.

2. Try out new go servers. If you are curious enough to find out how it is to play on other go servers, create an account and play 10 to 15 games to find out your strength on that server. That's usually the amount of games I can play until OGA strikes back. But there are about a dozen go servers that you can try out, so you get enough games to get to SDK level. After that you can come back after a longer break and play a few games on each server.

3. Play programs. I know that many go playing people discourage playing programs too often or even playing them at all, but as for me I know that it helped me to improve a few stones. I remember how proud I was when I won the first time against the program Aya (it took me dozens of games to finally achieve this after many almost-wins). I stopped playing programs after I won against Aya giving it nine stones. Keep in mind that the program always makes the same mistakes, so your strength improvement is not as big as the number of handi stones suggests. Also try out other programs such as GnuGo and FueGo that are a few stones stronger than Aya and have other weaknesses.

[hyperpape]

Keep in mind that the program always makes the same mistakes, so your strength improvement is not as big as the number of handi stones suggests. Also try out other programs such as GnuGo and FueGo that are a few stones stronger than Aya and have other weaknesses.

Luckily, this is no longer true with the new breed of MCTS programs. They may have holes in their play, but they're not nearly as predictable as the old engines.

[Ryuukun]

It's not something like OGA, it's something that affects my whole life not only playing go.
All I wanted was to know if that is even possible, eventually get some good resources for learning and that's it.
I do not want to discuss this here, it's not what I intended to do, I just gave some guy the reason for my sittuation since he asked why I wouldn't play.
I do not expect anyone to understand my point of view, it's not a normal point of view anyways.