okvonnegut

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This is a home page / info page. I play as okvonnegut at KGS. Feel free to comment. :)

This home page is turning into a huge soup of stuff. I just can't stop. (My apologies to all compulsive readers.)

Table of contents


Go


Three Ways of Looking at Go

I have three ways of looking at go.

As Go Fish

Go is just a friendly diversion; a means of socializing and passing time. There is no real competition and the game is just a tool or construct used for interacting with other people, not particularly interesting in and by itself.

As a Sport (a.k.a. HnG-style Go)

This is, I think, the Go portrayed in Hikaru no Go. When I was around 20-kyu (KGS2) I was introduced to this anime. Although it is the best Go-propaganda I have ever seen, and it motivated me to an extreme degree, it has left a bitter aftertaste. In the anime (I have not read the manga), the sport of Go could just as well be replaced with arm wrestling.

The world of Go is a fierce jungle that eats the weaker and glorifies the stronger (for as long as they manage to stay on top). Everything is about how strong you are compared to your rivals. How fast can you rise through the ranks? How soundly can you defeat your rivals and force them into taking handicap? The competitive spirit commands you to win over your enemies. It's about how fast you can get to shodan; how strong you can be after a year...

It should be obvious that I am not a big fan of this Go. But by human nature, I think it is in a way necessary for a lot of people. (Though it leads to fear of losing and frustration when discovering that rank progress is not a straight line but more like a discontinuous logarithm.)

Some people get high on the adrenaline rush that comes from playing this extremely competitive Go, but I do not enjoy it. The chemical effects of too much adrenaline are unpleasant and unnerving. (Increased heart rate, restlessness/aggressiveness, sweating, etc.) So much so that even if I win it's more of a feeling of relief than pleasure. I don't get much of this lately and I am constantly working on quelling it when it arises, but when I was around 16-12 kyu KGS2 it was hell (a time when I was hypnotized by the Go of HnG).

As a Language

This is how I strive to look at Go. Go is a language that we amateurs are trying to learn better, metaphorically like French or Finnish. We sit at the go board, conversing on it or chat online. Some are better at speaking the language than others so we have "ranks" to help us find partners who speak the language at our own level. However, the study of a language is mostly a solitary effort and we study it because we have a natural thirst for knowledge.

In this sense, Go has ceased to be a competition.

If you're a lover of languages and want to learn French to read Proust in the original (for example), you do it for your own personal self-realization, not because you're trying to surpass your friends or rivals in your grasp or mastery of the language. (Of course, that may be the case for some, but let's put them aside (they belong in the sport category).)

A lot of people (me included) have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and understanding. I talk also of those who can devote endless amounts of time to the study of completely abstract things like Chess or mathematics that might never have any practical applications. We obfuscate Perl programs in creative ways because it's fun; we read books on prime numbers cause it's an entertaining subject; we look up words and memorize them to further our understanding. As children we could sit alone in our room and learn how to do the Rubik's cube because it was an interesting personal challenge. For us, Go (in the sense of a language) is like a bottomless cold drink on an infinitely long hot day; it brings pleasure by continually satisfying the desire we have for increasing our understanding (of something, anything).


Fear of Losing

This is a serious issue that I care a lot about. Not because I suffer from it worse than other people (I don't), but because I suffer from it at all (I do), and so, seemingly, does a lot of other people. I might sound naïvé, but I wish we could all "solve" this matter. It's the one thing about Go that I think is truly negative. I've seen it manifested very ostensibly in other people, and I think every person who takes go seriously experiences (or has experienced) it to some degree (even if they won't admit it).

Some symptoms I've personally experienced in varying degrees: (all of these relate to online play)

  • Signing on to KGS/CyberOro, but ending up just watching high-dan games or chatting instead of actually playing

This seems to be very common, esp. on KGS.

  • Somtimes spending more time doing problems / reading books than actually playing

To some people, this might actually make me a hypocrite when I say I love the game of go, and I can't really prove them wrong.

  • Being annoyed when I've just played a terrible game

Doesn't seem to happen when I play badly in real life (that I am aware of).

  • Varying degrees of somatic symptoms of high agitation when playing: sweating, increased heart rate, involuntary contractions of muscles in my arms, legs and stomach, loss of peripheral vision (narrowed perception)

This is very annoying, and might also occur in real life. Perhaps it's a rare symptom(?). It might have something to do with the chemical (im)balance of dopamine in my brain. I don't know many other board games that can do this to people.

  • Fear of winning

I was one of those kids who truly believed in The Golden Rule, embedding that belief into every cell in my body. And having experienced the above symptoms I certainly do not wish any of them on anyone else, so often I will be half-embarrassed if I win, feeling bad for my opponent and hoping she/he did not take it badly.

  • Being completely drained of energy after a 30+min ranked game

If you fear losing, the amount of energy you will invest into "just thinking" is crazy.

  • Agonizing way too much over the next move in turn-based games like on DGS

I don't do this anymore, but I was really bad when I was DDK.

Symptoms I have not experienced, but seen in other people:

  • Trying to win on time (and being obvious about it)

I never feel bad losing to this kind of tactic, because if she/he want the win that badly, I'm almost happy to give it to them. I can only imagine how badly this person must feel when she/he loses.

  • Trying to cause tactical upsets in the endgame, hoping for mistakes by your opponent

A fine line. Some people say it's a bad habit, others say it's completely valid to "try stuff." Personally I just think it's a bit embarrassing for both players, both when it succeeds and when it fails. :)

  • Almost exclusively playing bots

You're missing out. :)

  • Escaping

A much-hated practice, though I've only met one or two escapers in all the time I've been playing on KGS.

  • Blaming your loss on your opponent

"I can beat a N-dan even / with just M stones; the only reason I'm having trouble with you people is because you play so weirdly / overplay too much." A form of rationalization. Related to the next point.

  • "Should've could've would've"

Compulsive post-game analysis where one rationalizes the loss into a victory ("I was leading until I misread this part; your victory was a fluke," "I should've won after this, but then you managed to confuse me," etc.). Be it in one's head or actually out loud, I think it's a bad habit. Note that I'm not talking about earnest reviews here, which practice is a good habit. See also Review / Ilan's Dreaded Analysis.

Now. Fear of losing (hereafter referred to as FoL) is all terrible of course, and most seem to agree that it stems from having too much ego invested in the game (right?). (Though FoL might also stem from rank obsession, but I don't think that's the case with me.) So OK, problem identified. How does one solve it?

  • Free blitz

If you concentrate and play a serious game for 50+ minutes and end up losing a corner or getting captured or badly out-moyo'd etc., then that usually hurts. That's why I'm "for" blitzing[1]. With blitz it's all over in a minute or two, so you don't have time to get attached to the game. Oops, a slight misread and it's over before you even know what's happening. It's so much easier to say "hah, damn" and just move on unperturbed. Playing ranked blitz might be dubious since it's really a whole other way of playing go than when you have time to think. You can be bad at one and good at the other. (That's why I think go servers ought to have different ratings for blitz and standard games, like most online chess servers do.)

  • Playing teaching games

This could also be classified as a FoL symptom, but I rather think it's a good thing even though its unselfishness remains questionable. (Seems more like a symbiosis: you are "using" the student to avoid facing your own fears (playing serious ranked games against people of your own strength), but of course she/he gains from it, so she/he won't mind.)

  • Time & experience

I guess this one has helped the most. My FoL used to be greater when I was DDK. Since then I have managed to mellow out somewhat (though I'm not completely cured). But generally I think FoL lessens over time. Take a look at older dan players - they usually seem calm and relaxed, even when they're playing a game that they're losing. (Or are they just better at hiding it??)

[1] Some people seem to burn with an irrational hatred toward blitz games and blitz players ... which is curious.


Go Thoughts

Go Variants

Go variants interest me; especially attempts to simplify the rules. Reversi Go is one such attempt.

Another variant I've thought about that might be interesting is Teaching Go for three players: one player has Black, one White, and the third (the Teacher) plays a stone of either color on his turn (or possibly two stones at once). Black and White attempt to win with their respective colors as per normal. The teacher's goal is to make it a close game, attempt to guide Black and White in the direction of large plays, stop unreasonable attacks or attempts to kill, etc. See also Zen Go.

Edit, later note: OK, I got to see this one in action at my club and it was a bit of a mess. :) I guess it's one of those things that looks good on paper but doesn't work so well in practice, like altruism or world peace. :(

Go Programming

My first attempt at writing a go program (though not a go-playing program) can be found at okvonnegut/Catanus. Hopefully it'll improve.

Undos & Training

I am an avid advocate of undos-in-teaching-games (and friendly games). Some people don't like to ask for undos even when I encourage them. They usually say, "but then I won't learn anything," and I don't understand that at all.

Doesn't the brain (as a neural net) learn faster from being immediately "punished" when making a bad move and then being allowed to play the right move (improving his/her position => reward)? That's when all the student's reasoning is still fresh in his mind and all the right neurons are lit up in his or her brain. Otherwise the mistakes are just going to be left until the end of the game when the original reasoning might have been forgotten and the neural net is no longer in a training mode of reward/punish, bur rather has to content itself with observing what moves the teacher suggests and "hoping" that it'll naturally be absorbed and stored somewhere.

I imagine that the "God of Go Teaching Games" would give a full critique of your (incorrect) move as you played it and then immediately show better alternatives and explain why they are better. He/she could also make every move work like a multiple choice whole-board problem by marking A, B, C, etc. You know how in movies featuring two people of opposite sex playing golf, one will always get behind the other to position his or her body correctly and show him/her how to hold the club etc. That's how I think of undos, only without the romantic undertones. :) Without undos, it's more like a "Remember back there on the 8th hole? You held the club all wrong. Watch me. This is how you should've done it."

On the other hand, this kind of undo-rich game can be extremely exhausting for the teacher if the student is really eager... So I never ask for undos myself. Don't want to be rude, you see. ;)

Others' Thoughts

 "In my opinion the rated aspect of online go is a great
 disservice to those people who are more interested in learning
 and improving than they are in a rank. I personally would
 prefer it if the online Go world had no rating except for
 official online tournaments. That way we would simulate the
 real-world learning environment. Unfortunately, I do not think
 this is likely to ever happen.
 -- DrStraw (from [ext] http://godiscussions.com)

I read this and realized these are also my own feelings, so I'd like to quote him here. :)

 Inevitably, you won't feel comfortable with a concept when it's
 first explained to you. The point is, if you don't go through
 step 2, you'll never get to step 3. The whole point here is
 that you have to do what you think is right intellectually
 before it feels right, and just by going through the motions,
 it will come to feel right and you'll improve. Some people find
 this hard to do because playing something you don't really
 understand feels dangerous, and danger in go means you might
 lose. But if your goal is to improve, don't worry about winning
 or losing. Really. Look; now I'm a 6-dan. Who cares how many
 games I lost when I was 5-kyu?
 -- David Mechner, from his excellent, [ext] How to Improve at Go.

I came over this paragraph as 20+kyu when I didn't understand anything of what anyone was talking about. It was comforting and inspiring. :)

Rant That Didn't Fit in My About

I wish everyone would:

 a) stop treating go like it's a big old penis measuring contest
 a.1) stop obsessing about their and others' strength in go
 a.2) not put their whole ego into the game so it leads to outrageous fear of losing
 a.3) stop wanting to be Hikaru and reach pro/shodan/etc within so and so short time frame -- it leads to disappointment and loss of interest in go (the "Hikaru wave" tends to break around 5k-1k and then recede back to the nothingness from whence it came when it is no longer easy to "gain ranks" very quickly)
 b) not comment on supposedly bad play in dan blitz games (and similar silliness)
 c) stop arguing about which high ama dan is stronger or which pro is stronger etc
 d) stop thinking the worst of people ("oh he didn't say 'hi' at the start -- what a rude person" -- maybe she doesn't have a keyboard, or can't type latin characters on her keyboard, or ten million other things!)
 e) actually have fun with go!!
 e.1) play more free games
 e.2) play more casual games

These also goes for me of course, and I try try try. :)

I can basically sum it up with: RANK OBSESSION / FEAR OF LOSING IS THE MOST EVIL PART OF GO!!! (Everything else is nice.) Don't let it get to you! Fight it with drugs, liquor, religion, meditation, self-help books, or enlist your friends' help! Anything to get over it!

Inspiration for this little rant: (a free 1x10 sec blitz game where my esteemed opponent asks for undo when he or she had 2 seconds left on the clock and so I don't even have time to press "OK" before the other box pops up)

 Game Over
 okvonnegut [1k]: hm
 v*** [3k?]: misclick
 v*** [3k?]: you got lucky
 okvonnegut [1k]: didn't get to press ok
 okvonnegut [1k]: hah
 v*** [3k?]: you'r pathetic

Fear of losing is not an attractive side of Go. It brings out the worst in people. Anger, resentment, irritation, depression...


Go Books

Books I Desperately Want to Borrow or Buy!

(Lend me and I'll be eternally grateful!)

Any other out-of-print or hard-to-get book, really, but especially the ones mentioned above!

Books I Would Like to Check Out Before Buying

Got to leaf through and look at the first couple of problems which looked great, though I was told it was way too hard for me. :(

Books I Own Which You Can Borrow

... If you live in the Oslo area and want to stop by the go club. :) (If you want to check out a book before buying it, say.)

  • All of the Get Strong at Go series except Tesuji and Life & Death (I especially recommend the Opening and Attacking part of this series)

Though they have been called "glorified problem books," I find these books really great. Especially Get Strong at Attacking which will do so much for your game if you're around SDK KGS3.

  • All of the Mastering the Basics problem book series (recommended) (except the new one about strategic concepts).

More basic problem books. 501 Tesuji Problems will do you wonders. If you're 5+ kyu I would almost be inclined to guarantee that you'll go up 2 stones if you study & finish it. I did, sorta. :)

Despite being "All About" it's a rather short book. Too short, in fact. I liked the "Choosing the Right Joseki" examples though. Borrowed by Hamburglar.

I read first read it when I was about 15 kyu KGS2 (= ~10 kyu KGS3?) and I have to admit I don't know now how much I really understood back then. I know I learned a bit about direction of play/attacking but some chapters were just beyond me (I couldn't figure up or down of the "invading the three-space extension chapter." However, I recently reread it as a 2 kyu (KGS3) and I found it really great. I found the chapter on three-space extensions really enlightening this time around. Definitely a book to reread many times!

The Engrish is really funny.

I don't know about this one. It's supposed to be more in-depth than 38 Basic Josekis? but less daunting than a big multi-volume joseki dictionary. Unless you plan to read it from cover to cover you should probably just go for a big joseki dictionary instead. :S

I like the writing style, but the problems are insanely hard, so be prepared to get your ego crushed. Sometimes the problem relates to a position where one of the pros themselves played wrong!

I've read this twice though I'm not sure why. I can't really feel it helping me. Has a lot of explanations of double-approach josekis and the thinking that should go on in Black's head in a 4-stone handicap game.

A good book, though it's been a long while since I read it.

Currently re-reading this... It's really great, and even though I thought this book was basic when I was a DDK2 (DDK on KGS2, but what is now SDK on KGS3), I have now changed my mind. It's too deep. I fear that I will never be able to "see" some of these tesujis in my own games. Never.

This book was too hard for me when I was around ~6 kyu (adjusted for KGS3).

Basic and good. Read it two times as a DDK, and I think I understood it all.

Very similar to All About Joseki only without the "Choosing the right joseki" section. Too short.

Really cool writing style! Let me quote so you'll see what I mean:

 Dia. 2: Kajiwara followed one of his favorite variations
 from Black 7 to the extension at 17. I answered
 by departing from the joseki ('a') at 20 and trotting out
 my new hane at 22. The next day I discussed this move
 with T. Yamabe, 9-dan.
 Yamabe: 'How could anybody be so dumb as to hane
 at 22 and let Black extend to a point like 23? And whatever
 possessed you to ignore this and play White 24? All
 I can say is I'm astounded at you.'
 He and I have always been on informal terms, and he
 always speaks bluntly, even if I do not.
 Kageyama: 'I thought I was getting a pretty good result
 when I played White 26, and Hashimoto (Utaro of the
 Kansai Ki-in) genuinely admired my moves.'
 Yamabe: 'That just proves you can't tell when he's
 being sarcastic; and speaking of White 26, that narrow
 extension was too miserable for words. Once you let
 Black take a prime point like 23, the game is over; there's
 no question about it. I know Kajiwara lost, but the
 way you play is so asinine that it makes your opponents
 light-headed, that's all.'
 Now that I set these words down on paper and reread
 them, they sound almost insulting, ...

Someone is borrowing this. :)

It seems a lot of solutions (to the more difficult problems) have errors (alternate moves that work). :( Another curiosity is that the "to kill" problems are always much harder than the "to live" problems in the same book.

A lot of these problems seem to match those in the Graded Go Problems for Beginners

The L&D problems are similar to [1001 Life & Death Problems], but there are also tesuji, joseki, fuseki and "vital point" problems (these seem similar to joseki problems). Most of them are easy.

  • A set of three Chinese problem books called Heading for Shodan: one books with tesuji problems, one with fuseki, and one with joseki.

The tesuji and fuseki problems are ridiculously easy; the joseki problems are hard (or maybe that's my Achilles' Heel).

I know I should put my thoughts above on the books' individual pages, and I might do that later, but that also makes it so "official." At least when it's still here there is no doubt it's just an informal and subjective opinion. Doesn't matter so much if no one ever reads or finds this page; we're all just typing into the void in some manner anyway (and I also believe n<-3n+1 always ends up at 1 ;).

Copying Out-of-print Go Books

I tried sparking a discussion here on SL, but I got most feedback [ext] here.

Some seemed to just want to quote the copyright (which I kinda knew already and wasn't interested in) as if that was the end of the discussion, ignoring my stated interest in the personal side of things. (Personal as in: if your brother asks you to copy one of your out-of-print-but-still-copyrighted old, old music CDs (or vinyls), would you say "sure" and not give it a second thought, or would you put on a stern expression and quote the copyright law to him with an iron voice?) Others took the "tough luck" stance, which I don't agree with at all, but fully respect. :) It really is tough luck, only I think it should be the law's tough luck, and not the community/culture.

It's not a matter of being cheap or lazy: if the books were in print I would of course buy and support the author/publisher and I have a hard time imagining a person who wouldn't do the same (except people who wouldn't even consider buying it if they couldn't get a digital copy and who just grab at stuff out of some kind of hoarding-instinct).

It's 2007 (now), why doesn't every printing press in the world have high-quality digitalized on-demand printing?!?! The status quo is so 200 years ago.


Personal

Go-related

Playing

I'm usually liberal about giving undos for silly mistakes and misclicks. Unless you start to undo whole sequences... That is for ranked games. For free games, of course, it's no question, just don't wear me out. :) Also, I think I am part of a minority who only has one active account on KGS. (okvonnegut is my second account ever, the last one was banned for having an offensive name(!).) I've played some on CyberOro as well and I think it's better than IGS, but I find that the informal and mindless chattiness of KGS soothes me. :)

This was said about my style (name censored just in case):

 s****** [1d]: all-out greed style and ugly play pays off?
 s****** [1d]: how can that be?
 s****** [1d]: it's so sick
 s****** [1d]: so ugly

Now, maybe she/he was just upset because of FoL, but it also made me think. I used to think I had a relatively thick/calm moyo/influence-oriented style, but now I don't know anymore. :S Playing moyo and having had to deal with so many crazy kamikaze invasions has possibly made me more bloodthirsty. When my opponent makes an arrogant incursion that to me looks very risky and unreasonable, I might become a little more homicidal than I ought to be. I don't like it. :(

(Cheat sheet) If you want an interesting game, play two times komoku as Black and then pincer if I dare approach. I don't know any of these josekis so I'll probably do something strange. :) For that reason I will leave approaching any asymmetrical corner stone for as long as I can. :P

How I Discovered Go

By playing a lot of Literati on Yahoo Games. One day I saw this curious "Go" game they had there. I read the rules... And a couple of days I was taking my first steps as a budding [?] on KGS. :)

My Strength

I'm still a beginner: I overlook ataris, raise my hand to touch the monitor whenever a ladder occurs ("he goes there, I go there, he goes there, I go there..." -- even in real life I do this, and make a little "chud" sound whenever I place a stone in my mind -- I know it must seem ridiculous, and I'm trying to repress it :p), have no understand of life and death, and I mindlessly imitate moves used by stronger players without any higher strategy.

Other

Other Games I Play

Four (or was it five?) time [ext] NetHack ascender.

I was pretty good at tetris when I was ~10.

I tried playing chess, but I found I was terrible at the game and unwilling to become better. I really hated the opening and its set lines of play that requires so much memorization.

I used to play Action Supercross for DOS a lot (and then later ElastoMania? for Windows). And I can usually maintain a respectable win-ratio against my girlfriend in MarioKart?. ;) I stink at all 3D shoot-em-ups, but at least I'm using the mouse unlike kids on TV. I consider MMORPGs like WoW to be life-draining mental black holes from which there is no escape (much like Go!), so I try to stay away from those kinds of things, though I think it's really great they exist freely at all. (Associations: WoW -> Solaris, euthanasia, the Lion of Comarre, etc.)

My nick

 liza [-]: I dont like whites nick
 liza [-]: maked me wanna puke ^^

OK Computer + Kurt Vonnegut = OK Vonnegut. It was chosen at random, really. I use a different nick for almost every new community I enter / thing I get interested in.

My interests

Who cares? But somehow it's comforting to write it down.

  • Computer science/programming

C, Perl, Python <- the big three in my life (love/hate) + Scheme makes four!
Haskell, OCaml, C++ w/TMP <- actively studying
x86 & SPARC assembly, Pascal, Java, BASIC <- Stuff I know, but don't do anymore / dislike
I'm mainly interested in "behind the scenes" stuff, algorithms and data structures and mathematical approaches. Academic ideas, and ideals in program design. Not so much churning out idiotic bling-bling GUI apps that ultimately does something a 10-line Perl script and a CPAN module could do better
I'm also very interested in writing compilers, code that writes or acts on code, pure lambda calculus in programming languages, etc.

  • Mathematics

Number theory = <3, though I also like algebra and basically whatever goes with computer science (combinatorics & game theory, say)

  • Go

big fan of thick play and influence-oriented games by players strong enough to pull it off.

  • Literature

Favorite authors: Hamsun, Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut, Proust, etc.
I don't care if it doesn't have a plot as long as it's well-written

  • Music

most of the stuff I have is independent, but some popular stuff I like include:
Carissa's Wierd, Shannon Wright, Spacemen 3/Spiritualized, Sonic Youth, Mogwai, Mew, Blonde Redhead, Low, The Black Heart Procession, Conor Oberst, Ulver, Nick Cave, etc.
Main genres: Female singer/songwriters, folk (contemporary, freak, and old), post-rock, twee/pop, various kinds of rock (space, neo-psych, frat, indie, etc), electronica...

  • Movies/TV

Actors: Alan Alda, John Malkovich, Jack Nicholson, Neve Campbell, William H. Macy
Directors: Lukas Moodysson, Sophia Coppola, PT Anderson, Robert Altman, Gus Van Sant
And I've probably seen Groundhog Day more times than I have fingers

My personality

INTP (what else)

Vitals

Male (obviously)

E-mail

 okvonnegutAgmail$
 A=@
 $=.com

If you can't figure it out, I'm not sure we have much to talk about.


This is a copy of the living page "okvonnegut" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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