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dnerra's Ideas on Improvement
   

I liked DietersIdeasOnImprovement quite a lot, and if you come here, I hope that you have read Dieter's page, and that you have decided that you belong to category 4.

I felt I had to add some things, and since Dieter's page is nice as it is, and as I am focussing on a somewhat different topic, I created this page.

Sometimes, when a player asks me what he should do (i.e. which books to read etc.) to improve, I feel the correct answer would be "Sorry, with your attitude towards go you won't become much stronger anyway." Now, I try to think of myself as a friendly polite person, and so of course I never say that. But what would my answer be if I were to throw away all tactfulness and politeness for a moment, just telling what I, from my biased and personal experience, would think is the most helpful approach towards improvement in go?

  1. Be serious about go. Take every game as a serious challenge, and try to make a conscious decision at every move. Read out where reading is required, and take time to evaluate thickness/weaknesses etc. Many players just play moves out of habit and without too much thinking. I have never seen any of them improve. It won't help you to prevent mistakes, but at least you can learn from them afterwards.
  2. Listen. If you are playing against a player of equal strength, and you have won the game by 10 points, there are still number of mistakes that you have made, and certainly your opponent will have noticed some of them. If you don't listen to him when you discuss the game afterwards, you have lost a chance to learn about them. Of course, listen even more carefully to stronger players.
  3. Always be prepared to revise you prejudices. "Do I overvalue thickness, or do I undervalue it?" As we do not understand go, we need lots of such prejudices ("This group will never die!") to make decisions, but one of the most important aspects in improving is to refine these prejudices.
  4. Accept mistakes. When making 150 decisions within 2-3 hours, some silly mistakes happen. When you have made one, move on. If you have lost a game due to one silly mistake, accept that part of the challenge of go is to minimize the chance of such a mistake, and try not to lose your concentration next time.
  5. Patience. A game of go takes 300 moves, and many amateur games are decided only in the early endgame. Force yourself to play forcefully throughout the game, and don't start compromising just because you become too lazy to read out the consequences. Accept that fights usually don't end with a kill but with a compromise, so don't go for the quick kill but start negotiating the compromise early. (Take the little profit here and there while attacking, etc.)
  6. Be ambitious in trusting your reading. When I play a handicap game with white against an improving player, black will not avoid the fights, and sometimes kill my groups, other times fail and lose badly. Other players will just willingly accept losses of a few points here and there, typically losing by a few points in the endgame.
  7. Be serious. And have fun!

I welcome any discussion. dnerra

Dieter: Thanks for the nice words. I was going to add an item about Attitude? myself, mostly copying the inspiring ideas of Sorin Gherman's webpage, but your page suits very well. Myself I would slightly shift the emphasis, in that I think that - although winning is the ultimate goal of the game - the desire to win prevents many players of making good moves. Good moves lead to victory and so the primary focus should be on good moves. The occasions where a move gives certain victory are rare, so the ultimate goal should not blur our vision too soon. So I would advise any student who wants to improve to completely wipe out the desire to win or fear of losing (because so much desire is present that even doing so there will remain enough of it) and be determined to find good moves. The inherent danger is that people will play mildly to the point of softly, but that is one mistake I would soon point out as a teacher.

The desire to win prevents players from acknowledging the power of the opponent and the truth of the game. Fear of losing fails to acknowledge one's own strength and again the truth of the game.

This is not a disagreeing statement, but merely an addition to what you write, and one which you don't have to agree with. To come back to your writings, n° 3 is the attitude that brought me the major progress once I started reviewing my own games.

dnerra: Yes, I completely agree. To add what you wrote: Many players are content enough if a move worked to win the game, even though it was a mistake. Again a lost chance to improve. If you don't mind I might at some point get around to a WME to add your point above.


Tamsin: I have two things on my little mind.

If somebody approaches you and asks you what they should do and what books they need to read to get better, then why should that indicate that with their attitude to go they won't get any better? Surely such a question shows that they want to improve and that they're willing to do something about it, and that has to be a good attitude.

dnerra: Sorry, that's not what I meant. What I mean is that I believe to be able to tell from knowing them that they won't improve much unless they change their attitude towards go. Btw, this is not at all a criticism of them, there are many ways to enjoy go, and if you want to be serious about it, you have to put more effort into it. But I think you get more out of it, too. In the end it comes down to the question why you play go, and what you want to get out of it.

The other thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is that not everybody can improve. If you've already pretty much gone as far as you can, then trying to improve is not only a waste of time, but also a way to become very frustrated. Not everybody can be really good at something; we all have limits. For instance, I'm good at singing, but I'm never going to be Kathleen Ferrier. Accepting limits is far from being a negative attitude--instead it can set you free really to enjoy something.



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