[HN Gopher] Review of Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshi...
___________________________________________________________________
Review of Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyama
(2011)
Author : Tomte
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-03-04 12:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.allaboutgo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.allaboutgo.com)
| elzbardico wrote:
| This reminds me of another reason why calling the go language
| just "go" was an act of supreme assholery
| zoul wrote:
| (Go the game, not golang)
| rulakhy wrote:
| Took me several seconds to realize this.
| shusaku wrote:
| I want to add a recommendation for this book to any novice player
| (though not to an absolute beginner). It really improved my game,
| and gave me a new perspective on how to play.
| yeldarb wrote:
| The In Sente YouTube channel has a good series of videos that
| cover each of the chapters from this book:
| https://youtu.be/6YvKJN2qso4
| padiyar83 wrote:
| It took me 10 min to see that he is talking about the game and
| not the language. There is even a "Endgame Pointers" chapter in
| this book :).
| morelisp wrote:
| The "(2011") in the title is a bit confusing in this regard
| since that's when the review was published; but the subject is
| more obvious if you know the book itself was published in 1978.
| everyone wrote:
| I play go and I really don't understand most players, who seem to
| be desperate to improve at it. Go is an abstract game, played for
| fun. Go skill has limited to no applications outside of being
| good at Go. I don't think improving makes the game any more fun.
| If you're playing with a friend irl, if one of you gets too good
| ye will no longer be able to have fun games together. If you're
| playing online, then as you improve you will simply face
| opponents at the same improved level for eternity so nothing will
| change from your perspective. So, improving doesnt make the game
| more fun and can potentially make it less fun.
|
| Online go servers like KGS and OGS seem to be hyper focused
| around their ranking systems and almost every player is desperate
| to grind more rank. Ive always found this baffling but I have a
| theory. Maybe if you can put a number on someones skill at
| something, these people feel good if the number goes up cus they
| feel reassured they are improving at something in a measurable
| way? (Even if that thing is utterly trivial)
|
| Perhaps certain people need some kind of metric to feel good
| about themselves? Could also apply to the trend of acquiring
| excessive amounts of money or luxury goods.
| tromp wrote:
| > I don't think improving makes the game any more fun.
|
| For me a big benefit of getting stronger, is that I can
| appreciate games between top players (and to a slightly lesser
| degree, between top AIs) that much more. Watching or playing
| through such a game while trying to predict and understand the
| moves they play gets more and more satisfying as you gain a
| better understanding of Go.
| shusaku wrote:
| By the way, for watching games the "Redman Reviews" series by
| the AGA is great:
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqpN3-2FP-
| kJcwdyujD8WKCin...
| kqr wrote:
| It sounds like you are, to some extent, conflating "getting
| better" with "improving ranking".
|
| I don't care particularly much what rank I have in any given
| context. (For it does vary by context. My rank at OGS, KGS,
| DGS, and the local club varies by so many stones that I no
| longer remember what it is anyway.)
|
| However, I do find that I enjoy the game more and more as I get
| better at reading and applying strategic principles. I can
| start to string together more complex plans and have a deeper
| "hand talk" discussion with my opponent.
| Madmallard wrote:
| It's human nature to be competitive
| kuboble wrote:
| It's a natural desire for many people to improve and get better
| at whatever they do. For some the process of getting better is
| fun, but not necessarily higher skill itself.
|
| >Perhaps certain people need some kind of metric to feel good
| about themselves.
|
| ?
| morelisp wrote:
| > Go skill has limited to no applications outside of being good
| at Go.
|
| At the very least all games of this style are excellent
| working-memory exercises. Go also trains pattern recognition
| and balancing short vs. long term priorities.
|
| > as you improve you will simply face opponents at the same
| improved level for eternity so nothing will change from your
| perspective.
|
| No, the quality of games changes. They're more interesting, and
| you get more out of them. Just like most skill-based
| activities.
|
| > almost every player is desperate to grind more rank.
|
| It's true that KGS/OGS have a fair number of "leetcoder"
| equivalents but this book is probably the exact opposite of
| this attitude. The author's humble and funny, topped out at a
| relative low rank compared to his peers, and maintained strong
| ties to the amateur go scene during his time as a pro. He
| clearly loves the game more than "the system" and is trying to
| communicate not just how to play effectively but how the game
| fits into a life.
| everyone wrote:
| Good points!
|
| My perspective: Ive been playing every now and again for at
| least 10 years (I don't remember how long) and despite not
| trying I obviously have improved. I think I enjoy the game
| less now that I've improved, as overall the game seems more
| predictable, it seems more like chess as there are certain
| openings and 'life and death' scenarios that you will see
| again and again. Before, I loved throwing stones down,
| wondering 'what will happen if I do do this?'
|
| You say you "get more out of them" Can you elaborate on that?
| What are you getting out of your high level go playing
| specifically?
|
| I have improved my skills at non game things like programming
| and carpentry, and that's a totally different experience imo.
| I find progress at those things truly satisfying as opposed
| to my skill increase at Go which I do not. Key differences
| being.. #1 There is no number assigned to your current
| carpentry skill level, you just choose your own path from a
| practically infinite set. #2 They have actual practical
| consequences, eg. I used programming skill to make easy money
| + also realise my own game ideas and create artworks. I used
| carpentry to make the perfect storage unit for my sisters
| apartment + make my own ideal workspace.
| morelisp wrote:
| I really struggle to respond here. If you're seeking some
| kind of... economically efficient? - output from improved
| go play, it's true you won't find it. I don't know how to
| argue the value of deepening skill in a game to someone who
| doesn't see that as inherently valuable, and I'm shocked to
| see this attitude from someone who makes games/art. Each
| game is a piece of art, and a game between two players of
| high skill level should have a place among humankind's
| great classical artistic outputs.
|
| It's a bit cliche of a recommendation at this point but
| maybe Hesse's _The Glass Bead Game_ can help explain it.
| The fictional Glasperlenspiel makes explicit the level of
| discussion skilled players see in even the most abstract of
| real games. A novice player sees "raw" joseki, tsumego,
| etc; a more advanced player can read that as patterns of
| offense, defense, and zones of control; but the top players
| are reading the board in terms of ideas, experiments,
| challenges, proposals, negotiations, arguments, and jokes.
| everyone wrote:
| Thats a good point, the playing of a game can be seen as
| an artform in itself. I makes games myself, so I guess I
| naturally give more credit to a games designer rather
| than it's players. Eg. It's hard to think of someone
| streaming a game on twitch as an artist. But people see
| great sportsmen are artists, I'm probably wrong and need
| to open my mind about that.
| morelisp wrote:
| A better analogy for a Twitch streamer would be someone
| performing an already-written play or piece of music.
| It's true a lot of games don't offer much room for
| expression on the part of the player, but that's often a
| stronger indictment of the game than of the player, and
| definitely not true of competitive abstracts.
| indigochill wrote:
| > What are you getting out of your high level go playing
| specifically?
|
| Not the GP nor a particularly high-level player, but as a
| game develops there are opportunities to choose from
| several strong moves, the more skilled one is at go, the
| more able they are to follow a game and understand what the
| choices a player makes says about their style. e.g. when
| given a choice, do they make more offensive or defensive
| moves? Where is their focus? What might that communicate
| about their mindset that could perhaps be leveraged in the
| game?
|
| It's like language, where at a certain level you may be
| capable of following basic vocabulary and grammar, but with
| experience you learn to pick up on idioms, double-meanings,
| and so on, which adds another layer to what's being
| communicated. Even at professional-level play, where
| openings and patterns are the basic vocabulary, there's
| still room for stylistic variation.
| NhanH wrote:
| > I think I enjoy the game less now that I've improved, as
| overall the game seems more predictable, it seems more like
| chess as there are certain openings and 'life and death'
| scenarios that you will see again and again. Before, I
| loved throwing stones down, wondering 'what will happen if
| I do do this?'
|
| How strong are you? I can imagine your description.
| Thinking about it, the game (seems to) become more narrow
| around 10k up to mid dan level. After that, it opened up
| again.
| everyone wrote:
| I'm 6k on OGS.
| explodingman wrote:
| Another entertaining non-leetcode book on go is The Treasure
| Chest Enigma (a go miscellany) by Noriyuki Nakayama. The core of
| the book is a collection of essays originally published in the
| Igo Club magazine in 1975 and 1976. Great read!
| 3np wrote:
| I love this book, partly because of the entertainingly
| condescending tone:
|
| ---
|
| _I know that there are many who spend morning to evening every
| day in go clubs, playing tens of games a day, but make no
| progress. No matter how ardent their will to learn was at the
| beginning, let this condition continue for two or three months,
| not to mention one or two years, and hope is abandoned. The
| player comes to recognize himself as 'a permanent 6 kyu' and
| everyone else does too.
|
| This condition is unbearable, yet how many go players find
| themselves in it? Almost all? If so, it would be a crime just to
| let them go on as they are, and that is why I am writing this
| book - to explain in detail what is needed to break through the
| barriers_
| Tarsul wrote:
| I considered myself one of the worst players who loved the game
| of go. That's because I had no ability whatsoever to visualize in
| my head how the next few steps would go. Without this, you really
| can't play. It's way worse than in chess because in Go this is
| more obvious to the visually-handicapped player that this ability
| is needed to really play the game. I played chess in my youth and
| didn't really understand that most others (most definitely the
| good) players would visualize everything in their head wheras I
| would say in my head "I do this and then this.. hmm, maybe
| something else", basically more than 3 steps weren't really
| possible for me. So this is a longwinded explanation but what I'm
| saying is that these types of games require a different type of
| thinking (that is visually) than almost everything we usually do
| (even most math) and many people can't really do it (well; and I
| couldn't do it at all). That's why it is basically always a niche
| game.
|
| If you can learn to think visually, you notice the intricacies of
| the game much more. So why did I love it, even though I couldn't
| do it? Because I saw some puzzles (tsumegos) where the result was
| often like: Wow, that's awesome. I never had this epiphany with
| chess puzzles.
|
| And how did I learn to visualize it (at least a bit^^)? I had to
| silence my inclination to always "talk" through what I want to
| do. But that's just one aspect, it's different for everyone I
| think. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the more you are in
| a dream state the better you can visualize things. Even so far
| that when you're tired you might play better. Anyway, it's a most
| fascinating game with its simplicity but also its complexity and
| its entanglement of tactics and strategy but also of weird moves
| that change the whole game. Most fascinating and I will always
| love it even though I was for the longest time the weakest player
| who loved it :)
| jfzoid wrote:
| I have a copy of this book, though I never got past the few
| pages. When I tried to read it I got through the first chapter,
| which says the first thing one should do is play many games, and
| I put the book down to do just that.
|
| It also makes a great point that while amateurs play the game for
| fun, professionals will labor at it. I thought that was a
| fantastic point
|
| For context, I occasionally play against the AI on an iPad app
| called SmartGo, probably 24-36 kyu rank.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Another good iPad app is CS Pro Go. It will do game analysis
| which is useful, but time consuming. I took online lessons a
| few years ago from a South Korean Go master and enjoyed having
| my games analyzed. CS Pro Go is obviously not as good as a Go
| teacher.
| pdpi wrote:
| Could you link the app directly? Googling Valve's CS: GO
| makes googling for "CS Pro Go" borderline impossible.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Search for "CrazyStone DeepLearning Pro"
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/crazystone-deeplearning-
| pro/id...
| xiaodai wrote:
| NhanH wrote:
| For English speaking audience, Japanese publisher still
| probably has the broadest catalog (both in classic books and
| new releases). The new book by Shibano is fairly good. There
| was only a couple of Korean books translated and released more
| than 10 years ago, and Chinese Go Books are in the similar
| situations
| morelisp wrote:
| In addition to the nationalist undertones of this comment, it
| reminds me of the pop culture chaos esp. endemic to front-end
| development.
|
| Yes, modern professional go is full of innovations you won't
| find in the older Japanese titles that make up the majority of
| recommended English-language books. Yes, that probably prevents
| you from winning that elite title. No, that doesn't stop you
| from playing amazing games after learning from them. The
| fundamentals haven't changed, and the fundamentals are 99.9% of
| the game.
| kuboble wrote:
| I'm an OK go player and I love this book. It is one of the few
| materials which had direct and immediate effect on my game
| quality. 10/10.
| kqr wrote:
| I'm a weak go player but every other year or so I re-read this
| book and get a couple of stones stronger for it. (I then drop
| back to my previous level when I pause my playing for a while.)
|
| This book has also taught me a few things about mastery of any
| subject in general! Some of the lessons are surprisingly
| transferable.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I bought that book a long time ago, perhaps in the late 1970s?
|
| Go is such a great game. I retired yesterday (but I will still be
| a 'gentleman computer scientist', write books and do open source
| code).
|
| I made a list of 21 things I want to do in retirement and playing
| online Go is on that list. https://online-go.com is a good
| resource, and there are others also.
| influx wrote:
| Is your list published anywhere?
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Yes, I just wrote a blog about my list this morning
| https://mark-watson.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-retired-
| yesterday...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-05 23:02 UTC)