Malweth’s Metablog

I’m thinking about designing an online “Go Commentary System.” My current requirements are: 1) PHP based. Javascript controls (I want to keep Java out of this… I have PHP and SQL access on this server). 2) SQL or File based. I would prefer keeping it in mySQL, but this may complicate things… 3) NO Variations allowed… it would make the file system messy if people were allowed to add variations, and it would make the coding messy as well! Only the 1st variation will be used when parsing an SGF. 4) Only your own comments can be modified… I want this to be like a wiki system where everyone can edit a node’s comments, but I do want sign-ins and changes only to your own comments. (This eliminates the need for backups as are needed with the wiki system). 5) SGF output… having these commented files outputtable is a necessity. This should be fairly easy since variations are nonexistant. If anyone can think of any other requirements, or can help with some structure and code snippits that would be very helpful!

I’m titling this “Where strength comes from” because I don’t think strength is really a trait that cannot be changed… Personally, I believe that all players have a maximum ability, but that this ability is well within the dan ranks with a good percentage in the early pro dan ranks.

How much of strength depends on IQ? This is to say, [b]learning[/b] ability aside, two people with similar intelligence should be able to reach similar levels in Go. The real problem comes down to: how flexible is IQ - in other words, can doing certain activities actually raise intelligence? I’m willing to believe that it is not possible - that any visible increase in intelligence comes from a psychological change (this is based on a snippit I saw of the Dr. Phil special last night).

I’m certainly no intelligence expert, but it’s certainly true that different levels of innate intelligence exist, otherwise there would be no such thing as a “mentally challanged” disability (or even more people would have one based on their EQ). Logically, if an innate intelligence exists, than any change in emotion could cause a change in the Intelligence Quotient (the practical measure of intelligence) without actually changing one’s innate intelligence.

This also leads me to believe that anyone of average or better intelligence should be able to master go (at least the Amateur Dan levels). Why do I believe this? First of all, much of the problem in reaching the 5-10 kyu level is a psychological one… learning to read is something that all people [b]can[/b] master… reading one or two moves out of any situation is for the 10-30 kyu and for the lazy (which I am sometimes) (I’ll exclude fast games because those are meant to be fully intuition based).

Once the basic 8-10-kyu reading ability is obtained it should be mainly a question of increasing this ability to the limits of your intelligence (and time). The fact that many people cannot progress past the shodan level does not sound like a question of intelligence to me…

This is where true strength in go comes from: Will. Will lives in England and his phone — sorry, wrong will…

Increasing your willpower and focus is the primary way to increase your go ability past the 8-kyu level. (Pre 8-kyu is the fundamentals of learning to read). There is also the intuitive based task of playing the opening and making attacks, but much of this is based on reading ability (Reading Joseki is important, as is reading out the enemy’s response options to any given attack).

I wonder if researching Focus and Willpower increases would be fruitful? Is this topic likely to be very “New Age?”

I notice that there are a very large number of books and websites about weiqi… whether you’re overseas buying books, importing books, or buying English language books (for those of us in English based countries, anyway) they are available on a variety of topics and abilities. But what’s the best source of go information? There really isn’t one “best” place to go — a lot of sites have good problems geared toward middle ranks, other sites have good game collections but little to no problem sets! What I really want is a complete collection of information starting at the 30-kyu level and heading to the Dan ranks.

I know I’m in the Single Digit Kyu ranks now, but I still want the weak problems - not only for my own practice (30 to 10 kyu problems are great for warm-up), but my (in the 4-5 years from now time frame) children too. I definitely want them to learn go - partially because of Milton Bradley’s articles on the subject, but also because I want to be able to play with them.

Therefore, my eventual goals on this matter are:

Firstly, to begin collecting problems ordered by skill — thousands and thousands of problems! I assume these will come from many different sources (perhaps even creating some myself). This will require some trial and error to learn to tell the exact problem strengths, but I have books to go off of (Graded Go Problems - which I should maybe revisit myself!).

Secondly, I must begin collecting problems and information based on topic. A number of the books I already have will go a long way toward this! It’s quite possible that I will need to rewrite some of this for children as the writing can sometimes be geared toward adults.

Finally, I must reach 5-7 dan within the next 5 years (or so)! This is the perfect vantage point to really be able to instruct my children (who may be about 3-4 years old in 5 years). Much weaker than this and I might run the risk that my children will outclass me too quickly! I’m hoping they do eventually…

The real problem, when teaching something like this to children, is to keep their focus (which is also something that Go helps with in the long run). Go must be kept interesting! This can be hard as kids are easily discouraged - this is also the reason for my final point… I currently will destroy a 20-kyu player simply because I can’t play teaching games down to that level… hopefully high strength will help me calculate my underplays better.