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Bottleneck theories
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Charles Matthews To contrast with the discussion at rank and what you know, one can look at the idea that a player stalled at one particular level may lack good comprehension of just one or two key concepts.

There is no particular reason to think that at most levels those ideas are determined in advance. In fact that is relatively implausible, on a global scale. It can easily be that some players are held back because (say) they can't see a snapback. That is unlikely to be true of a community of players; and not likely to be as true, for example, in China and Japan. Where playing styles differ, as is common observation, so different matters affect apparent level.

To take another example, endgame skill is going to be less critical in an environment where players fight all-out in the middle game. Mostly dead groups will matter, up to about dan level.

So one ought to try to filter out factors depending on the individual. Not so much is left. I think for example understanding of light and heavy is vital in the 4 kyu - 1 kyu area.


exswoo -I was thinking about the same thing when I made up the other topic so I'm glad you brought this up.

Kageyama in the Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go says that there are (at least in his experience), 4 main bottlenecks player go through:

1st- 12-13k
2nd- 8-9k
3rd- 4-5k
4th- 1-2k

This idea seems to be pretty dead on when I take a look at the average dispersion of ranks in KGS and IGS...which again goes back the question of what the big difference is between players of players of 12k, 8k, 4k, and 1k ;)

I'm a bit surprised that he didn't note any dan level players in a bottleneck situation. Perhaps he is implying that once you get to dan level, you're bound to make progress sooner or later?

Matt Noonan: I think the conventional wisdom here is the dan ranks are one big bottleneck, just a slow grind on your way up. Still, there seems to be a fundamental difference between a 1 dan and a 4 dan, so maybe there are jumps in the dan ranks too. I can't speak for myself -- I've hit every bottleneck listed above in the kyu range at some point or another, but I haven't explored the dan bottlenecks yet :)


Bill: Worrying about bottlenecks is a way of psyching yourself out.
I do not mean that players do not reach plateaus, stay there for a while, and then move on. Often learning is going on, even on a plateau. Sometimes unlearning bad habits or views is necessary to advance, and that can take a long time. The same goes for areas of neglect or weakness.
Specific insights can make for rapid progress, even at the dan level. When I was shodan one of my teachers told me that I could be 2-dan just by deciding to be. I did not believe him, but later, after being 3-dan for a year and a half I just decided to be 4-dan. It worked! ;-)
It is better to psych yourself up than psych yourself out. :-)


dnerra: I have to try this out! At the next tournament, I'll be 4-dan. I'll report...
By the way, nice to have your contributions again, BillSpight!

Dieter: Let me try. I'm 5 dan. I'm 5 dan. Wait, even better: I'm BillSpight. I'm BillSpight.

Seriously, if you're in a slump, you need to play more.


Charles I'd agree with Bill to the extent of saying that the 'bottleneck' is primarily a coaching concept, rather than a self-study concept.


exswoo Why not just be 9p instead? ;)

(no room left for improvement, of course -mattn)


adamzero I went straight through from nothing to 1k/1d in the last year, but when I had bottlenecks, they meant that I *had* come to the realization of a new concept, but trying to use it meant shaking up everything that I did have going right, and not yet correctly applying the new concept, thus making me perhaps weaker than I was before. After a little time and a few pointers from the better players, however, things would coalesce and I'd jump a stone quickly as I refined my use of the concept and integrated it into my game. I don't think I've improved much in the last month or so, but, as Dieter said, its more that I need to play more than to study more concepts. Perhaps players who seriously plateau do so because they're not willing to work through that period of getting used to new ideas? They think their losses during experimentation are evidence that their new ideas are bad, rather than good but not worn in yet?

And I agree with those who have already said that there are no particular techniques or concepts peculiar to each level. To draw from my own experience: I started playing go with two other guys and we are all now of about equal strength. However, my fuseki and middle game strategy is strongest, Robert is the strongest fighter and sees more tesuji, and Vinay can win a terribly lost game in the endgame. We're a mini-spectrum of specialties, but we match up about 50-50 wins/losses.


AshleyF Just for fun, I took the game archive from NNGS and did some analysis. There are 300,000+ games from 1995 up to now. First, it's interesting to see the rank distribution (See also RankWorldwideComparison). This is by game, not by player (could mean that 4 kyus play more often rather than that there are more of them):

Distribution

Then tracking individual players, we can see the rating progress. I did this based on the average time spent at each rank, not necessarily by tracking individuals for the whole 8 years. I was hoping to see the clear bottlenecks but, if they're there, they're very subtle. It is clear that up to ~14k, progress is noticably quicker:

Progress

I was suprised actually to see that it takes 6+ years to reach shodan. Certainly, individual results may vary :-)


Charles Interesting - but I think some bias from the way improving players continue to play, while a player stalled at a level may drop out.


JohnAspinall More statistics, arguing in favor of universal plateaus, at [ext] http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~barryp/barriers.htm .


Alex Weldon: My own personal experience seems to favor the theory that there are in fact barriers to surmount, or bottlenecks to get through. When I started playing on IGS, I figured I was about 18k* (because people I'd played told me I was about 18k), but I quickly found out I was wrong. When my rank stopped plummeting, I was 23k*. I stayed there for a while, then made fairly quick progress up to 18k*, bounced back, fell to 22k* again, got back to 18k* and stayed there for about at least a month or two. Then, a similar thing happened; I went on a winning streak, gained five ranks in five days (no joke), bounced back again, down to 16k*, then worked my way up to 13k*, where I've been since just before my Christmas vacation. Today, I finally managed to get to 12k*. Perhaps the pattern will repeat itself, and I'll get to 8k* or 9k*, bounce back, then crawl back up and get stuck for a month or two. Or maybe not. But anyway, although I've been gaining, on average, about two stones a month (from 23k* to 12k* in just under 6 months), it hasn't been a uniform gain. I don't make any gain for one month, and then gain four stones the next. I'll update this information as I see my further progress.



This is a copy of the living page "Bottleneck theories" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.