Malweth’s Metablog

One of the things that interests me most about Go is the feeling of power you have when you get stronger. I don’t want to sound facetious, but this feeling that you can take on the world comes in varying degrees throughout one’s “go life.”

As a lower level example, take a basic tesuji - one of the exciting ones like the loose ladder… now remember back to your 12-kyu days (in the old KGS … that is if you’ve yet had such days) when you first learned how the loose ladder works - then remember the first time you successfully used this technique in a game. The incredible rush of power over your opponent cannot be denied — even if there are plenty of players that wouldn’t fall for such a trick.

This feeling intensifies as you grow in strength with Go. The feeling lasts longer, but the periods in-between also seem to grow longer as you struggle to increase your ability. Currently I’m in one of the periods of elation. At this stage in the game (the jump from 5k to 3k AGA), the elation (or at least my new power) is resolved from the destinction between a “big” and a “small” move. You may think that this distinction is nothing new - that you’ve been taking the “big points first” in the opening for ages. This is not the level of differentiation that I am talking about.

“Bigger” is an important concept at all stages of the game, and it’s not uncommon that I play someone (especially amongst weaker players) who is unable to take sente. If I play something big that threatens, you must ask yourself whether or not there is something bigger (elsewhere) than the threat. This is the basis for the higher level game of go (meaning my weakness is fighting, of course ;)).

I also believe that this is where learning in Go starts - though that is a loaded statement… Learning (of new ideas), in Go, begins as soon as one of these great jumps in strength occurs. The jump indicates that a breakthrough has occurred. This breakthrough is in its infancy, and must be explored and directed. When this exploration is taking place, this is true learning. Every hand played brings more knowledge to be processed.

Once the breakthrough has passed comes the period of polishing - in other words, all the big chunks of knowledge are taken in and the small bits are left. The polishing is often viewed as a “return to fundamentals.” The new ideas are reworked for efficiency.

One thing I’m certain of… I still have a lot to learn. Here’s to many Breakthroughs and short periods of polishing!