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

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

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.

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.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Even strong pros get embarrassed by their poor play.

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

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.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

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.



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.

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.

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.

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Occupy Babel!

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.

In that case I wouldn't even bother with trying to become good - you are never going to get to a point where you don't feel ashamed of your playing if you don't play a lot of games beforehand imo. What's the point to studying if you are never going to use it? I suppose it would maybe be fun to solve problems or helpful for enjoying pro play, but surely inefficient study (studying without playing at all cannot be efficient, especially for beginners) for these more peripheral enjoyments is not really worth the time?

Why would you even bother to get better, if you don't intend to play? Or would you play after getting better?

If you have problems to face defeat and disappointment Go might be the therapy instead of just another problem. Losing a game of Go doesn't victimize you it happens to literally all of us approximately 50% of the time (you need a realistic estimate of your strength and the willingness to take handicap, that is all).

PS Currently your estimate of your strength is several hundred kyu off, there is no such thing as a 500 kyu, you are way stronger.

Look I suffer from depression and anxiety in general, and I had a psychotic break in my 20s, have spent the last decade heavily medicated etc, etc. If you don't face these things they win. There's no point studying this game and not playing it because it is just feeding the issue that's stopping you from playing in the first place. CBT has me doing stuff that makes me anxious purely to show me it's not as bad as I fear it to be. If the thought of playing go makes you anxious it should be approached in the same way. They don't have to be ranked games, they don't have to be on your main account, you can have an account for when you're really nervous. There are ways to tackle these kinds of things, avoiding them just reinforces the worries and anxiety.

Whether you play go or not doesn't really matter, but if you carry this attitude forwards into life (like I did for years) it'll just make things a lot worse for you.

We're the same then, but unlike you I'm just at the beginning of it. Several breakdowns included. I know that I'm unable to keep playing like I'm now, but with go I felt something that I really haven't felt in a long time, Interesst. I want to play but it's just impossible for me right now so I want to use the time until I eventually get over my fears, with learning and becomming better.

You'll get over those fears by playing games until it becomes something routine for you to do. Start a new account that no one knows is you, start at 30k on KGS and just play games. The only person who need know you're winning or losing is you. Get used to losing. That's the hard part. Once you get used to the idea of losing not being the end of the world the game gets a lot more fun.

I have this too, although it doesn't totally stop me from playing, but if I just leave it to how I feel I just play online less and less until I'm not playing at all. I get around it by just loading Kgs and immediately starting auto match before I get a chance to think about it. I almost always get a game before I decide not to play etc. Afer just a few moves I'm over it once I'm playing. Its the getting started that I find hard.

Hmm, on reflection this could be interpreted wrong. What I mean here is that one needs to learn not to take losing as a judgement against their value as a person, i.e. not catastrophise in CBT terms. Instead one has to manage to see a loss as just one result out of a few thousand and keep it in perspective.

I think we should take the OP at his word that what bothers him is playing poorly, not losing. In a way it's all the same--either way, the only cure is to forge ahead and keep playing, but it's still a different aspect of perfectionism.

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Occupy Babel!

Moin Ryuukun,

I’m also German, hailing from the heart of the Lueneburg Heath, and BTW I’ve added you to my KGS buddy list (I’m “trohde” there).

Are you aware that we all are? Just everybody in their respective colours?

I’ve been thereabout … over-anxiety, panic attacks, severe depression, etc. (before my Go revival). Some of it still prevails, like extreme insomnia and general discombombulation, etc.

Tell you what: Playing Go with good people helps me. Seems like there are some, uhm, I don’t quite know how to name it, perhaps coincidences, perhaps something like those [cough] morphogenetic fields [/cough] as my humble progress in Go seems to coincide with humble progress In Real Life, “psycho-socially” and such. But then again, perhaps it’s “just” the age.

Anyway, when I take longer pauses from KGS, I play/teach a few Real Life People in our local weekly Go meeting (usually W gives 4-5 stones—on 13x13). I do Tsumego on the iPad. I read Go literature, albeit very moderately. And some time in my next game or after, be it In Real Life or on KGS, I realize that I’ve become somewhat stronger, I’m reading somewhat further, playing somewhat more subtle and foresightfully, etc.

These days I’m thankful for “somewhat”. And I’m glad that I’m still doing therapy. And I’m very, very thankful for Go.


Herzliche Grüße, vielleicht spielen wir uns ja mal

Tom

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Here's a suggestion:

• Find a study partner and sit down across the table from him (real or virtually.)
• Start playing a game, with the intent to win. But instead of you playing, and him playing, talk about the moves together for each side, and try to discover the best move based on both of your opinions, for both sides. Look at each situation carefully until you are both happy that you have found a good move. Put stones on the board to analyze if you like.
• Afterward look back -- one side will have won! See if you can find which moves were a mistake and make them better.
• When you both think you have really played a good game show a stronger player and see if he agrees with your moves. If not, he should be able to give you some specific advice on particular moves that you can learn from.

Don't treat it like a game where you make a move and if it sucked you're stuck with it forever. Investigate and find the best moves that you can understand. Treat it like a piece of art that you're both working on, to make it as beautiful as possible. Then learn how to make it more beautiful next time.

That'll get you better faster than playing real games will, and maybe you will be less ashamed of the result when you can take the time and enlist the help of others to make it good.