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Difference Between Pros and Amateurs
   

The purpose of this page is to list the differences between pros and amateurs. These differences have been organized into two categories: (1) Those that can be eliminated with relative ease by every amateur player and (2) those that are unlikely to be eliminated by a typical amateur player.

The idea is that if one removes all the differences one can, then one will become stronger. Some differences take very little effort to remove (other than the effort required to decide to do it), yet many amateurs don't do so.

AvatarDJFlux: Many of the ideas shown in this page have always given me a feeling of uneasiness. As Charles said in DifferenceBetweenProsAndAmateurs/Discussion, I think amateur insight into pro go is fairly rubbishy. I do agree, many so-called differences listed here are based on wrong concepts of what a professional is or does.
This page should be better named something like "Hints for amateur improvement".
I am aware that a page for discussing this page does exist, but I feel the uncontrollable urge to challenge some of what it is said in this very same place, in order to stop newbies building false ideas about go.
I have added at the top of the list what is to me the one and only basic difference between a professional and an amateur...

anon: It seems to me that the point of this page is to list differences, as perceived by amateurs. Some of these differences can be eliminated and many are easy to do so (merely a matter of attitude). That is not to say one will become pro strength by doing so. One can only hope for more rapid improvement. Explaining away the differences is not useful in this effort to improve. (Note: one can swap "pro" for "very high dan" and, perhaps, achieve the same thing.) Is there not a concept of a "professional attitude," regardless of whether it is adopted, in its ideal form, by all professionals? If so, what is it? Some of the items on this page attempt to explain it. Perhaps if an amateur adopted a professional attitude (or some elements of it) (s)he might improve faster, no?

Table of contents


DJ:

Basic difference

From this difference many other are borne:

Go is a professional's job

A kishi's job is to play go: from playing go they earn their living. When playing is not enough (as it happens more often than we think) they resort to teaching, writing, ghost writing, etc.
Amateurs basically play go for fun (in Italian amateur is dilettante, one that does something for delight): they can afford to throw away games without risking to have no food on their tables.
A job is not necessarily fun: when somebody said to Cho Chikun that he must have had an incredible passion for go in order to keep playing for so much time at such a high level, he replied that it wasn' true: he actually hated go.


Differences that can be eliminated

Things that pros (nearly) always do that amateurs don't always do.

Thinking at least one move ahead

That is, taking at least five seconds to ponder the question "If I go here, (s)he will probably go there," then taking at least five more seconds to decide if that is okay. Taking at least 10 seconds to do this for every move not too hard to do but it is amazing how easy it is to forget to do it!!!

DJ: I do not understand this. A pro thinks oh so many moves ahead, with all branching variations, and after that he/she is able to estimate position, score, further possibilities and whatever.Some pro (Cho Chikun comes to mind) are known to make an effort to read thoroughly the whole position before making their move.
Of course it is true we amateur have to be reminded to think before playing, but the difference with a pro is so large that it's almost not worth mention it...

Not playing moves we know don't work

So you've read it out and it doesn't work. But the reason is 5, 10, 15 moves deep (or something) and maybe your opponent won't see it (or so you think). So you try it. Would a pro do this? Rarely.

DJ: I would say never (unless maybe in high handicap teaching games...).

Not playing moves we don't understand

"Hey, I'll play here because it is wacky and I feel like being wacky. Never mind that I have no idea what the continuation is." Sound like pro thinking? Hardly. Go home and figure out what the continuation(s) could be and then come back and play it. That's what a pro might do.

DJ: See the basic difference I wrote at the beginning: I do not remember which pro said once that playing strange moves is the privilige of amateurs, meaning that a pro has to win games to make a living, and cannot afford to have fun for the sake of fun. He was seriously envious of such a possibility!

Bob McGuigan: The great Takagawa Kaku 9p, nine year straight holder of the Honinbo title, said when he retired that he was looking forward to being an amateur.

Take every game seriously

I'm sure pros play some games in a less serious state of mind. But, mostly, they take the game very seriously. It is a professional attitude, after all, and one that amateurs can emulate.

DJ: See again the basic difference. Survival is a serious thing.

Learn from mistakes.

Learn from every game.

Consistent play.

Amateurs play inconsistently, thereby failing to make all their stones work together to achieve the single goal of winning the game. Perhaps can be seen most clearly in attempts by amateurs to convert a moyo game into a territory game and vice-versa.

Settling each position.

A professional will never play away from an unsettled position, unless the gain obtained immediately is greater than the harm suffered by allowing the opponent two plays in the same area. Amateurs will often skip from on area of the board to another leaving groups vulnerable without obtaining sufficient compensation elsewhere. In short, know and understand tenuki.

DJ: What do you mean by "unsettled position"? Of course pro do not leave around groups that can be killed with one move ("unsettled" as used by James Davies in Life and Death the book).
Settling the shape in the wider meaning of playing out a position is something pro do not like very much (at least some time ago...). Kobayashi Koichi was often criticised for his consistent strategy to settle the shape (to his advantage..) whenever possible.
Flexibility, the ability to keep open as long as possible as many possibilities as possible is a major asset in one's strength. A high strategic concept is yosu-miru, where you force your opponent to make a choice when he still doesn't have the elements necessary to make a choice. "Strong players are swifty" is a proverb and amashi is a strategical technique worth thinking about: you do skip from on area of the board to another!

Bill: I think that amateurs can be blind to the weaknesses of a local position, and therefore omit necessary protective moves. However, I think that a more likely error is a kind of myopia, focusing too much on one area, and not playing tenuki when other areas become bigger or more important.

Having familiarity with the possible continuations from a large variety of positions.

Professionals simply don't have to spend as much time reading out continuations, because they are deeply familiar with what continuations are possible. This was vividly demonstrated in a game played on November 16th, 2003, at the Mid-Atlantic Go Tournament held at the [ext] University of Maryland between a Chinese 1P and an AGA 5d. The AGA 5d used over one hour of clock time. The Chinese 1P used 2 minutes. Total. And won.
This skill may not be obtainable for amateurs due the amount of time required.

Practicing reading skills daily.

Professionals practice reading every day, at every opportunity. Reading seems to be a skill that can be developed much like a golf swing or swimming stroke. Frequent practice results in more efficient activity. A lack of practice means a loss of ability. Practice reading via life and death problems every day.

Klaus: I don't think this is easy to eliminate with a small amount of time!

SnotNose: I think most amateurs could do this. I am willing to believe that even 5 minutes per day matters (rather than, say, not doing any reading between weekly trips to the club). This will sound really silly, but I've even worked on reading during those moments when I have nothing else to occupy my head. (If you even go to the bathroom, you have these moments!) How did I do it? I took some time to memorize a position or two or even a whole pro game. Then I pondered and played through them in my head when I could (riding the elevator, sitting on the bus, in the bathroom, during a dull meeting, etc.)

Velobici: I have just finished working through 1001 Life and Death Problems. It has made a great difference in my play. My play is now more severe. Anyone can gain from practicing reading.

Klaus: Whenever you start that, you stop being (whatever your profession is). You will either not be able to keep up the everyday practice, or you will become a go player. You might still earn your money differently, but you will find yourself looking for Recent Changes too often, playing games on KGS late at night, when you should be sleeping and thinking about tsumego when your wife or you colleagues are talking to you. You become addicted by that everydaypractice crap. I've been through that with solving chess problems every day, and I am pretty sure, go can easily do the same. Amateurs should not do that!

SnotNose: Let's keep the focus here. We're listing differences between pros and amateurs that can or cannot be eliminated. Studying go every day is a difference than can be eliminated for many, even if it means only five minutes of study. A separate issue is whether one has the character to do this without becoming addicted. I think many can do this. If you cannot, then you should not.

Velobici: I would not recommend becoming addicted to solving go problems or to much of anything else really. Nonetheless, practice is recommended by a number of sources including the [ext] most recent (2003-10-23) edition of [ext] The Magic of Go.

Differences that are not likely to be eliminated

Things that pros do (or have done) that amateurs can't easily do.

Start playing go in the first 10 years of life

Too late now to change this! [1]

Get the best go instruction available in your country (or in the world)

Might be possible for some amateurs, but not to the extent of a pro.

Study go more than doing anything else

Maybe when we retire or if we're independently wealthy. But most amateurs have to work.

Be brilliant

Can't change our natural talents (by definition). A closely related idea implied by BobMcGuigan's comment (discussion) have an almost inexplicable intuitive sense of shape. To the extent that this is a consequence of hard work, it is a difference that can be closed to some degree. To the extent that this is due to special characteristics (the right kind of brain wiring or some such), it cannot be. Kobayashi Koichi is known for his incredible intuition and he has even justified his analysis on the bases of intuition, not on deep reading.

Know (or be able to figure out) nearly every joseki

Be able to see the result without playing (or thinking) them through. Okay, this is theoretically possible for an amateur but not likely (for nearly every joseki).

DJ: Here we go again: joseki are the Araba Fenice (WDYM[2]) of the amateur. The opposite may be true: pro strive to read possible variations move by move, even trying to find (often in study groups) new variations in old, well-established joseki in order to gain some advantage over the opponent. They create joseki!
Many pro have claimed (half-jokingly?) not to know joseki in more than one occasion. Rin Kaiho comes to mind.

Memorize hundreds or thousands of games

Not going to happen for most of us, though it is possible, I admit.


[1] BobMcGuigan: I'm not sure whether this is the right place for this comment but I was thinking about the topic of starting young being necessary to becoming really strong and I had some ideas about that. In particular it seems to me that becoming really strong (strong pro) is a lot like learning a language. When we learn our native language we do it around the age of two years through trial and error and observation of skilled speakers and correction of mistakes. No one teaches us a grammar explicitly, we just absorb it through examples. The same might be true in go as far as "intuition" for good shape and rapid reading are concerned. In conversation with various pros I've been told that mostly reading happens automatically for them. They look at a position and, in their mind's eye, the stones just seem to flow onto the board without thinking about them one move at a time. So a sequence of ten or more moves might "appear" to them in less than a second. This reminds me of how native speakers process language, without "thinking" about it. I also note that people who learn a language starting in middle age mostly never achieve natural fluency. For example adult learners of a foreign language usually retain a certain amount of "foreign" accent even after decades of living in a foreign country. On the other hand, children who move to a foreign country before the age of, say, 10 years often become bilingual with no perceptible accent in either language. Of course this is explainable by neuro-cognitive development, but it might also explain why almost all strong go professionals started as young children. They learn go organically while we older learners need crutches of conceptual explanations to learn the same things and we don't acquire the same intuitive flair. This doesn't mean things are hopeless for us. After all there are many examples of foreign born people becoming skilled writers in a language other than their native one (Joseph Conrad comes to mind as well as the poets Joseph Brodsky and Czeslaw Milosz).

ilanpi Good point. Here is something else to ponder, since it is relevant to this very page! When you start older, you may have more intellectual independence, and be less willing to accept things on faith until you understand them. I think this is a barrier to progression (in language acquisition as well). On the other hand, this intellectual independence gives you a fresh outlook, as can be seen in some literature that you could have cited (e.g., Nabokov's English style). This is relevant to this page, because of the many comments of DJ, who seems to be a good example of someone with previous intellectual credentials who completely flouts the traditional "insei-sensei" paradigm of go and is annoying some of the established members.

Charles Actually, that is hilariously wrong about DJ - who (I guess) is a 'traditionalist', in the good sense.

ilanpi Cool! I think I prefer being wrong and make someone laugh than the other way around (I don't know what that last part means).

Looks like I'm another case, which one of the reasons I'm interested to see how good I can get at this game without following its traditions (started playing at 45).

DJ: Dear ilanpi, I could not find in any dictionary "flout". Could you please rephrase your phrase so that I can understand it better?
Ah, and while you are at it, what is the "the traditional "insei-sensei" paradigm of go"?

ilanpi It is explained here [ext] http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/flaunt.html (I made the error and was corrected on a newsgroup way back in 1988, proof that usenet is useful). Essentially, I have a feeling that your posts are a constant affront to the go traditionalists (the only annoyance I have is that I didn't post them first). The reason seems to be the paradigm I mention, that is, that go has traditionally required an extremely extended apprenticeship period in which everything sensei says is eternal wisdom to be accepted even if not understood (you can verify this on any number of pages here, e.g., Invading the four star points box formation/discussion), and in general, one will see that a professional player is a disciple of some other player. So, for people who have gone through this process, seeing a weaker player (or anyone for that matter) writing strong opinions may be offensive. I am hoping that this will all change with the advent of the internet which allows anyone to play and anyone to give his opinion.


[2] DJ: The Phoenix, a mythological bird of the Egyptian and Arab tradition (later inglobed in the Christian tradition as a symbol for resurrection) which , beautiful as it was, after 500 years of life would be consumed in fire by its own act, and then rise in youthful freshness from its own ashes. It can be seen as a symbol of unattainable beauty. See also the second book of Harry Potter.



This is a copy of the living page "Difference Between Pros and Amateurs" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.