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I tried to learn Go a decade ago. After spending some time on it, I came to the conclusion that it's just not an enjoyable game for me. Here's why: As you can

by trott 11y ago

I tried to learn Go a decade ago. After spending some time on it, I came to the conclusion that it's just not an enjoyable game for me. Here's why: As you can see in this match, games are often won and lost by just a few points (1% of the whole territory). So, not only do you have to count territory precisely at the end, but throughout the game, and this isn't easy to do in your head. Maybe if you are an autistic accountant, that's fun, but not for me. If I have to play a strategic board game, it will be good old chess. And now that computers are finally beating people at both, there is no longer any need to look at Go as some kind of mythical last refuge of humanity.

argonaut 11y ago
I read some online comments saying, at the amateur level, both sides make so many mistakes anyways that the gap is usually quite large (10+ points after komi), which seems reasonable.
- zeven7 11y ago
  It's true. I'm an amateur ~1 dan, and games rarely come down to 1-2 points. It does happen, but way less often than some giant group dying and one side resigning in the middle of the game. If a game ever comes within a few points, neither me nor my opponent is really sure who won until we actually count to determine the winner at the end of the game, because usually neither of us is an autistic accountant. That kind of close record keeping throughout the game is necessary in top level pro games, but not in amateur games.
lmm 11y ago
> So, not only do you have to count territory precisely at the end, but throughout the game, and this isn't easy to do in your head. You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you can. > Maybe if you are an autistic accountant, that's fun, but not for me. If I have to play a strategic board game, it will be good old chess. I find it's the opposite. In chess you have to play with constant vigilance, because a single blunder decides the game - even at grandmaster level, something like 60% of games are decided by blunders. In go you can play much more casually, you can take some risks, because a mistake costs one or two points but it doesn't snowball much. So not every move has to be perfect; it's much more possible to recover from mistakes.
- hughperkins 11y ago
  > So not every move has to be perfect; it's much more possible to recover from mistakes. Not when I play its not :-P
- trott 11y ago
  > You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you can. You don't have to take my word for it, since I never got past beginner level, but I know there is a consensus among the experts on this matter: """ > Also, do players actively count territories of their and their opponents territories during the game (does this differ in a 9x9 vs 19x19 game)? Yes, skilled players actively count territories frequently as they play. This includes making estimates for areas that aren't completely settled yet. In a serious game with enough time, skilled players will usually re-count the board every dozen or so moves. This is useful because it informs you whether you need to play risky and invade or reduce, or whether a peaceful, straightforward development strategy is enough. This doesn't differ too much depending on the board size, but on smaller board sizes there is a lot less to count, obviously. :) """
  - lmm 11y ago
    I know from direct personal experience that you can have fun games, and even be reasonably competitive at the university-club-level, without ever explicitly counting points in your head.
tasuki 11y ago
As Richard Teichmann said, "Chess is 99% tactics". If reading out sequences and applying relatively simple heuristics is all you are after, chess is the perfect game for you. Go, while requiring some underlying tactics as well, involves a lot of large scale strategic thinking. As lmm said, you don't need to keep track of the score, just play the move you think gives the most points.
- 2bitencryption 11y ago
  > As lmm said, you don't need to keep track of the score, just play the move you think gives the most points. In a way, I think this is where AlphaGo draws its greatest advantage. Being a computer, it always knows exactly how well it is doing, since it can constantly be counting the board with perfect accuracy. With this ability, it is capable of playing the absolute "safest" moves, taking half a point here, half a point there, when it knows it is leading. Whereas a human might not even know if they're leading, forcing them to take "bigger" moves to get more points, since they can't as easily be accurate down to the 0.5 point precision.
whitegrape 11y ago
What's your chess ELO rating? I gave up on going deeper into chess because the hardcore aspects of memorizing openings and always repeating so many against other skilled players bored me. Grandmasters are just autistic filing cabinets. Actually I'll still enjoy a casual game of chess, the amount of effort to get really good at it doesn't prevent me from enjoying it in less intense situations. (My max ELO was only around 1600 over a decade ago, I have no clue what it is now but I'm sure it's terrible.) Go too can get hardcore -- so can many games. Super Smash Brothers is fun but can you imagine how boring it must be to perfect your skills to compete at the top level? Of course it's probably not boring for those people, and I actually wouldn't describe most of them as "autistic" in any sense. So with Go I'll be happy if I ever reach 10kyu but I'm not too serious about it. Like in chess, I'm a filthy casual. I don't count precisely, I sometimes make broad territory estimates but frequently find areas too complicated for me, so I just play them out. I've had only one game where the result ended up with me winning by 1.5 point, it was a 9x9 game where I was still mostly teaching someone how to play and giving them many hints and ideas of what I was thinking and how I would respond to myself, so on reflection it was very similar to playing a slightly different version of myself. The man versus self aspect of Go is where a lot of the mysticism comes from, it's irrelevant to whether AI can beat the best humans.

by trott 11y ago

argonaut 11y ago

I read some online comments saying, at the amateur level, both sides make so many mistakes anyways that the gap is usually quite large (10+ points after komi), which seems reasonable.

zeven7 11y ago
It's true. I'm an amateur ~1 dan, and games rarely come down to 1-2 points. It does happen, but way less often than some giant group dying and one side resigning in the middle of the game. If a game ever comes within a few points, neither me nor my opponent is really sure who won until we actually count to determine the winner at the end of the game, because usually neither of us is an autistic accountant. That kind of close record keeping throughout the game is necessary in top level pro games, but not in amateur games.

lmm 11y ago

> So, not only do you have to count territory precisely at the end, but throughout the game, and this isn't easy to do in your head. You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you can. > Maybe if you are an autistic accountant, that's fun, but not for me. If I have to play a strategic board game, it will be good old chess. I find it's the opposite. In chess you have to play with constant vigilance, because a single blunder decides the game - even at grandmaster level, something like 60% of games are decided by blunders. In go you can play much more casually, you can take some risks, because a mistake costs one or two points but it doesn't snowball much. So not every move has to be perfect; it's much more possible to recover from mistakes.

hughperkins 11y ago
> So not every move has to be perfect; it's much more possible to recover from mistakes. Not when I play its not :-P
trott 11y ago
> You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you can. You don't have to take my word for it, since I never got past beginner level, but I know there is a consensus among the experts on this matter: """ > Also, do players actively count territories of their and their opponents territories during the game (does this differ in a 9x9 vs 19x19 game)? Yes, skilled players actively count territories frequently as they play. This includes making estimates for areas that aren't completely settled yet. In a serious game with enough time, skilled players will usually re-count the board every dozen or so moves. This is useful because it informs you whether you need to play risky and invade or reduce, or whether a peaceful, straightforward development strategy is enough. This doesn't differ too much depending on the board size, but on smaller board sizes there is a lot less to count, obviously. :) """
- lmm 11y ago
  I know from direct personal experience that you can have fun games, and even be reasonably competitive at the university-club-level, without ever explicitly counting points in your head.

tasuki 11y ago

As Richard Teichmann said, "Chess is 99% tactics". If reading out sequences and applying relatively simple heuristics is all you are after, chess is the perfect game for you. Go, while requiring some underlying tactics as well, involves a lot of large scale strategic thinking. As lmm said, you don't need to keep track of the score, just play the move you think gives the most points.

2bitencryption 11y ago
> As lmm said, you don't need to keep track of the score, just play the move you think gives the most points. In a way, I think this is where AlphaGo draws its greatest advantage. Being a computer, it always knows exactly how well it is doing, since it can constantly be counting the board with perfect accuracy. With this ability, it is capable of playing the absolute "safest" moves, taking half a point here, half a point there, when it knows it is leading. Whereas a human might not even know if they're leading, forcing them to take "bigger" moves to get more points, since they can't as easily be accurate down to the 0.5 point precision.

whitegrape 11y ago

What's your chess ELO rating? I gave up on going deeper into chess because the hardcore aspects of memorizing openings and always repeating so many against other skilled players bored me. Grandmasters are just autistic filing cabinets. Actually I'll still enjoy a casual game of chess, the amount of effort to get really good at it doesn't prevent me from enjoying it in less intense situations. (My max ELO was only around 1600 over a decade ago, I have no clue what it is now but I'm sure it's terrible.) Go too can get hardcore -- so can many games. Super Smash Brothers is fun but can you imagine how boring it must be to perfect your skills to compete at the top level? Of course it's probably not boring for those people, and I actually wouldn't describe most of them as "autistic" in any sense. So with Go I'll be happy if I ever reach 10kyu but I'm not too serious about it. Like in chess, I'm a filthy casual. I don't count precisely, I sometimes make broad territory estimates but frequently find areas too complicated for me, so I just play them out. I've had only one game where the result ended up with me winning by 1.5 point, it was a 9x9 game where I was still mostly teaching someone how to play and giving them many hints and ideas of what I was thinking and how I would respond to myself, so on reflection it was very similar to playing a slightly different version of myself. The man versus self aspect of Go is where a lot of the mysticism comes from, it's irrelevant to whether AI can beat the best humans.