All Things Go Podcast

[00:02] Travis: This episode is sponsored by SmartGo One, BadukTeacher.com and Baduk Pop.

[00:33] Travis: We are live.

[00:35] Travis: Hey everybody.

[00:36] Travis: Man, it feels like it's been a while since I've been able to talk to you because the last two or three weeks I think have been more scripted or my standard episodes.

[00:50] Travis: There was just a good stretch of conversations and people I was able to connect with that I wanted to get into the more normal episodes. So we're back to the unscripted episodes and I've had a pretty decent list of stuff I want to talk about piling up that I've jotted down over the past few weeks.

[01:11] Travis: And it is funny. It's like you go through it and you look at the list and it might have been really interesting to me at the time. And then you look at now and you're like, eh,

[01:18] Travis: that's not as interesting now, which is good, right? It kind of shows you what, what has maybe a lasting interest, at least for my brain. And then maybe you find it interesting.

[01:29] Travis: So we will find out.

Launching the All Things Go Discord Server

[01:31] Travis: Let's get started with the first thing that is kind of big, I guess, for the show,

[01:38] Travis: which is that I started a Discord server for the All Things Go podcast. So I will put the server link in the episode notes. Definitely check it out.

[01:50] Travis: I was really on the fence, honestly about making a Discord server.

[01:54] Travis: I don't want to contribute to like Discord server inflation or kind of just like having too many servers out there for Go related things.

[02:05] Travis: But the main reason I did it, to be completely honest, is I think I just want a little bit more connection with the Go community.

[02:14] Travis: It's at first just having the podcast because I wanted to have something to listen to was really the main driver.

[02:23] Travis: And then I've mentioned in a previous unscripted episode that I started just really caring about like what other people think and want.

[02:33] Travis: And I don't necessarily want that to shape, like, what I talk about and do in the show. Like it. It's like the idea is that I'm putting out what I think is what I think is interesting and hopefully you think it is too.

[02:46] Travis: Now if you don't, that is totally fine and I respect that.

[02:50] Travis: But the primary focus was really talking and getting interviews and getting into content that I thought other people would like, right? And really having me take a backseat most of the time because I'm really focusing on these interviews with these figures in the community that I've usually done a lot of great things or something new for the Go community.

[03:11] Travis: But then at different stages along the way.

[03:15] Travis: I keep on wanting more connection and I have my email address for the show and it's great.

[03:26] Travis: Occasionally some people write in and there have been some great ones where people write in and it's about a concept or something like an intellectual conversation around the game of Go and something mentioned in the episodes.

[03:40] Travis: And that, that's really what I love. I enjoy that process. It's gotta be natural, it's gotta be organic.

[03:47] Travis: But I think I'm looking for just more of that. I want to have conversations around the topics and around the people.

[03:56] Travis: It kind of goes back to what I think I loved about college. I went to a very, what we call in the US Liberal arts school.

[04:03] Travis: And the thing I loved about my classes in university or at college was that the ones that were the best were the classes where we were in very small numbers, so maybe 10 to 12 students.

[04:18] Travis: And we would read a book or think about a topic and then we would just research that for our homework and then we would have just discussion about it and it would all be around,

[04:29] Travis: you know, the issues. You weren't judging the person and saying you're stupid. You were saying, hey, what about this idea?

[04:35] Travis: How well supported is that idea? What's the argument you're trying to make those kinds of things. And I love that. Like, to me that was like the epitome of just discourse, having conversation around things.

[04:50] Travis: And so yeah, I wanted more connection. I kind of came to realize that recently and I said, you know what?

[04:57] Travis: I'm gonna use the Discord server. It seems like a good way to do it.

[05:03] Travis: And so I set one up and there's two or three main key themes in it. I think I wanted. There's obviously a general chat in there and I'm sure I'll be changing it over time, but there's a little like Go versus Chess channel because I just think that comes up a lot in the show.

[05:23] Travis: There's a whole category of podcast related channels around just show announcements.

[05:29] Travis: If I or you have any ideas for the show, you can put that in the show Ideas channel.

[05:35] Travis: If you have anything to talk about that's episode specific, there's a channel for that.

[05:40] Travis: And then finally there's the leave a message or like ask a question channel. I always want people to write in and send in a question or a comment.

[05:51] Travis: Not because I want to become like the person that answers things.

[05:55] Travis: Right. I don't see myself in any way as an expert in this game.

[05:59] Travis: I see it just more as a way to engage and,

[06:03] Travis: and of course, if you have nothing to send in or say, that's totally fine too,

[06:07] Travis: but I really enjoy that.

[06:09] Travis: So my main concern is about any of this seeming self aggrandizing. Right. Like that is not the goal.

[06:18] Travis: So,

[06:19] Travis: yeah, so I opened up the Discord server a few days ago,

[06:24] Travis: added just some people that I've gotten to meet and know a little better through the podcast. And now with this episode there'll be more access to it, so we'll see if others join.

[06:37] Travis: But yeah, it would. I love it. It's already been fun to just connect with people I know through the show and talk about things, because the other main goal of this is that I want to connect more with folks that I've gotten me in the Go community through this podcast.

[06:57] Travis: And I also don't want to completely inundate the online Go forums because that doesn't feel appropriate. Right. I don't want to create a like, hey, here's a million posts for the show.

[07:09] Travis: So that doesn't seem like a good way to go.

[07:12] Travis: So check that out.

What Makes a good Go-Learning Website?

[07:14] Travis: One of my previous guest hosts,

[07:19] Travis: excuse me, one of my previous guests for the show from a previous season,

[07:25] Travis: reached out to me and said, hey, I'm actually revamping my website and I was wondering if you'd give me feedback on it. And I don't want to mention the name of the person or the website because they didn't explicitly say, hey, talk about this on the show or anything like that.

[07:42] Travis: So I want to just,

[07:44] Travis: for whatever reason, just be thoughtful there. But they sent me, gave me some kind of access to their site and just asked me their thoughts on it, and it was really fun to do that.

[07:55] Travis: I appreciated somebody being willing to just go out and ask somebody in the Go community, hey, can you just take a look and give me a sense for what you think?

[08:03] Travis: And there were some interesting things that they were trying to do in their site. Some things had been done before and some things hadn't been done before.

[08:13] Travis: And what I loved is that the person doing this website I had actually found earlier on maybe three or four years ago, during the pandemic, I'd found the website as a way to learn and play Go better.

[08:29] Travis: And it was great, I really enjoyed it. But I decided to kind of move on. And even at that time,

[08:34] Travis: the creator said, hey, can you give me feedback?

[08:37] Travis: And I think I had.

[08:39] Travis: But the site looks to teach people how to play Go,

[08:45] Travis: also looks to have a lot of lectures about sort of key concepts for learning Go, and then also looks to incorporate As a lot of sites have AI for analyzing your game and then saying, hey, here are critical points in the game, but more in a verbal format, not just a numerical.

[09:03] Travis: Here's, you know,

[09:04] Travis: categorization of your different moves per AI in terms of what were the best moves and the worst.

[09:10] Travis: And it was helpful for me because it took me back to thinking about a website and what makes a website, any website. But if you look at a Go website,

[09:21] Travis: what makes one good?

[09:22] Travis: And I think there's the two main components. One is what makes it unique. And I think this person really nailed that.

[09:31] Travis: They had a really great graphic design or animation background. So they were actually incorporating some work they had done in making comics and books and incorporating that into the website.

[09:45] Travis: They also have a coding background, as I think a lot of Go players that turn into making sites do.

[09:53] Travis: And so it was a really nice, smooth, minimalist website. There wasn't too much clutter, which I think is very easy to do.

[10:01] Travis: And they were able to incorporate that animation and storytelling into the tutorial stuff, which was really great. They also have books that.

[10:11] Travis: They have books that they've written about learning and playing Go at the beginner level, intermediate and more advanced level. And so that's also on offer on their website.

[10:21] Travis: And so that was great. That was a unique thing. So I was like, all right, check. They have kind of a unique spin on their website.

[10:29] Travis: The second thing is what makes something you're doing on the website better than any other site out there or as good.

[10:39] Travis: And this was the one where I was trying to give constructive feedback on because there were lecture videos where it would show moves played on a board for a game and then there'd be an audio for it.

[10:52] Travis: But it wasn't nearly as smooth as some of the other websites I've seen, such as Go Magic, which has a really, really,

[11:01] Travis: in my opinion, high quality screen setup for lessons on a concept.

[11:08] Travis: Really great sort of cinematography, filmography, editing,

[11:13] Travis: and then great interactive gamification questions along the way.

[11:18] Travis: That's pretty hard to beat. And they incorporate many different teachers on many different concepts. So that's going to be hard for this website, which is one person to compete with.

[11:28] Travis: But it was just still good to kind of give that context.

[11:32] Travis: The other thing is they were trying to do again, the AI review thing. And I cited other websites I think do a very good job, like AI Sensei,

[11:41] Travis: which has been a sponsor of the show.

[11:44] Travis: And I've also been able to interview one of the co founders, Ben Teuber.

[11:47] Travis: And you know,

[11:49] Travis: AI Sensei I think does a lot of things really well about understanding moves in a game,

[11:55] Travis: and certainly there's areas for improvement so that still needed to be fleshed out and worked out.

[12:01] Travis: I did learn that they actually weren't incorporating. I thought they were using large language models to provide the feedback, but apparently they're not, which is good because I think they're a higher level player.

[12:12] Travis: They understand that that's going to be kind of gobbledygook and not use.

[12:15] Travis: I think they were trying to find some way to code their knowledge of ways to think about a game and convert it into some sort of codable, systematic way to analyze a game.

[12:27] Travis: So I'm really curious to see what they come up with and I do think it'll be a great website once they release it into the wild. So I wanted to mention that again, really appreciative to that person.

Sponsor Messages

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[13:40] Travis: It's perfect for players on the move. You could download it or learn more at BadukPop.com that's b a d u k p o p dot com this episode is also sponsored by SmartGo One, the all in one Go toolkit for Apple devices.

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[14:03] Travis: Check it out at SmartGo.com or wherever you go to get your apps.

Commentating at the San Diego Go Championship

[14:10] Travis: So another debrief I have for just a recent event that I did was on May 23rd I was able to commentate on round one of the 15th San Diego Go Championship with Gabe who is over at the Strugglebus Go YouTube channel.

[14:30] Travis: He's, you know, a friend and also I've interviewed him for the show. Had a really fascinating interview with him. If you haven't listened to it and yeah, it was a really fun time.

[14:42] Travis: It was great to be invited to do it. I had done it last year.

[14:47] Travis: I'd done a commentating for the first time with Justin over at Star Point,

[14:52] Travis: and that was for the state Go championship for California.

[14:55] Travis: And that was really fun too. And our main goal was really to just try to speak to beginners that might be passing through and seeing the game and just trying to understand what the heck it is.

[15:06] Travis: And so I think the biggest challenge for Gabe and me was keeping it really, really simple,

[15:12] Travis: realizing that people wouldn't understand terminology and things like this.

[15:17] Travis: And then the other challenge was that because the games, I think, were set up as Fischer time,

[15:24] Travis: where you start with main time, but you get added seconds for every move you play,

[15:29] Travis: and it therefore can encourage faster play. In the beginning,

[15:32] Travis: that's exactly what happened. The beginning of the game was fairly fast, and so it was challenging to try to address and talk about what was happening on the board while also just speaking to basic concepts.

[15:45] Travis: But I really enjoyed it.

[15:47] Travis: Would love to go back and commentate again.

[15:51] Travis: And so that was really fun. I appreciate Enrique,

[15:54] Travis: the club president,

[15:58] Travis: bringing me in, so thanks for that.

[16:01] Travis: Now I want to talk about some movie reviews. So I got really lucky and in the span of the last month I was able to watch two movies or documentaries that were specifically about Go, which is very rare for me to find and probably for you as well.

Reviewing the Film Bushido

[16:21] Travis: The first one was a Japanese movie called Bushido,

[16:25] Travis: which I found out about through my wife reading the New York Times and seeing the review of the movie.

[16:31] Travis: And it was released again, I think, in May.

[16:34] Travis: I got it in the US through Apple tv. I was able to reserve it or get the.

[16:42] Travis: Yeah, reserve it pre order. And then it was available.

[16:45] Travis: And so I watched that.

[16:48] Travis: And so we're going to start with Bushido.

[16:51] Travis: The second one is a documentary I came upon. I'll tell you about that in a minute. So the storyline of Bushido is as follows.

[16:59] Travis: It starts with this character who is sort of like a former skilled samurai. His name is Yanagita, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing the Japanese.

[17:09] Travis: And he shows up in this small local town. He seems to be pretty poor.

[17:16] Travis: He lives with his adult daughter and seems to do sort of some form of basic work, of kind of artisanal work,

[17:25] Travis: making signature stamps and seals and things like this.

[17:29] Travis: And the movie starts with you seeing a local merchant who's very wealthy, who seems to be very selfish and greedy,

[17:40] Travis: bringing him in or having an Interaction with him because of something he's trying to sell.

[17:46] Travis: And the samurai Yanagita, you know, catches that somebody was trying to **** off to this merchant a object that was way less valuable than they were saying it was.

[18:00] Travis: And the really cool thing is that the local merchant was played by an actor who I vaguely recognized. I was like, who is that? Because I do not know many Japanese actors.

[18:13] Travis: And I looked it up and I was. It confirmed my memory.

[18:17] Travis: The merchant plays Boss Tanaka in Kill Bill Volume 1. If you've ever watched the Kill Bill movies,

[18:27] Travis: he's sort of the really, really stern yakuza boss that is against the Japanese American character to become the head of the yakuza. And he gets his head cut off, which is cool.

[18:46] Travis: But anyways,

[18:47] Travis: much older now, but great actor,

[18:49] Travis: seemingly great actor.

[18:51] Travis: And so the plot continues and goes on.

[18:54] Travis: And I watched the movie in kind of bits and pieces. I didn't watch it all in one sitting. And it's been a couple weeks since I watched it.

[19:01] Travis: But my general reaction, without giving any spoilers or anything, is it's absolutely worth a watch.

[19:07] Travis: The speed in the first half of the movie is quite slow.

[19:14] Travis: Very slow.

[19:16] Travis: A bit,

[19:18] Travis: I would say, obvious, you know. Well, not obvious, but a bit deliberate.

[19:24] Travis: And some of the spots where they. There are sort of key turning points that lead to kind of shocking or tense events are not always very clearly articulated via the subtitles.

[19:41] Travis: So I don't know if it's a subtitle thing or a mismatch between the subtitles and the movie, but there were just some interesting spots. Like,

[19:49] Travis: for example, Yanagita is,

[19:51] Travis: you know, doing some work making a seal, and he earns a certain amount of money from it from the person that buys it from him, but they give him extra money,

[20:01] Travis: and then when he goes back, he says that he doesn't have enough money to pay the rent. So it just.

[20:08] Travis: There were some spots that were a little bit confusing. I need to watch it again, to be completely honest, and maybe that will kind of flesh it out more thoroughly.

[20:17] Travis: But the first half wasn't super exciting. There were some spots in the plot that I didn't fully believe or get.

[20:26] Travis: Like, one of the main ways that the plot turns into sort of the more intense and interesting second half of the movie is that the sort of heir of the local merchants business, a younger man who's also having eyes for the samurai, Yanagita's daughter,

[20:47] Travis: is tasked with going to see if the samurai had taken a lot of gold when he had been playing the night prior. With the merchant at a game of Go.

[21:01] Travis: And the merchant was sort of very vague and out of it when he said, oh, I don't know where that money is. Somebody gave me this large amount of money, and the last person I saw was the samurai that I was playing Go with.

[21:13] Travis: And now it's gone.

[21:14] Travis: And so kind of, it seemed in a sloppy way for the plot.

[21:20] Travis: The apprentice had to go and sort of ask the samurai in public, hey, did you take this money or this gold?

[21:28] Travis: And of course, like, in public, that would be incredibly rude and inappropriate. And it made the.

[21:36] Travis: It then served as one of the main reasons for the actions of the samurai in the second half. So I think some of this is absolutely cultural, right? I'm an American.

[21:47] Travis: I really don't have a good sense for certain actions and things in Japanese culture, let alone in the Edo period, which is hundreds of years ago. But still a really fun movie.

[21:57] Travis: The second half, I think, really makes up for the slowness and kind of obviousness of the first half.

[22:05] Travis: And it was fun. So I'm gonna try it again. Check it out.

[22:08] Travis: If you haven't watched it, definitely check it out again. If you have access to Apple and Apple movies, it's on there.

[22:16] Travis: Bushido,

[22:19] Travis: the second film I watched was actually a documentary,

Go Through the Dark: A Powerful Documentary

[22:24] Travis: and I came across it on the r/baduk subreddit because somebody randomly said, hey, I'm trying to find this documentary called Go through the Dark. Has anybody found it?

[22:35] Travis: And somebody responded and said, oh,

[22:39] Travis: you can try this app called Kanopy K A N O P Y In the US this is an app that is used for watching films and documentaries through library systems,

[22:50] Travis: and it's often free if you. If your library participates in it.

[22:54] Travis: So I see this. I said, oh, this is really cool. Let me go ahead and try to download Kanopy and see if my library uses Kanopy. And sure enough, it does.

[23:05] Travis: And the next thing I know is I have access to this documentary about Go.

[23:10] Travis: So it was a total surprise. I was super excited that I got to watch it.

[23:17] Travis: And I watched it a few days ago during the week after I had put.

[23:21] Travis: Put my children down and my wife and I were just hanging out.

[23:26] Travis: The movie, or excuse me, the documentary takes you through the life of a young boy who is blind,

[23:36] Travis: and he's shown in the documentary as a prodigy.

[23:41] Travis: He's blind, but he can actually play quite well, and they call him.

[23:45] Travis: The English translation was a level four.

[23:48] Travis: I'm not sure if that's for dan in the Chinese system. I'm not really sure but they were translating as levels. Level one, level two, level three, level four.

[23:59] Travis: And I have to say, I walked away from the film or the documentary and even in the middle of it feeling, like, really pretty depressed, but just, like, hit, like, whoa.

[24:13] Travis: Like, this is so sad.

[24:16] Travis: It reminded me of when I was living in China in 2008, 2009,

[24:22] Travis: and I was at a university in the southeast part of China.

[24:29] Travis: It was a national university called Sun Yat-sen University.

[24:33] Travis: And there was a nearby neighboring town called Tangjia.

[24:37] Travis: And I remember just going to that town was such a different experience than being in a town in the US it, you know, dirt roads,

[24:49] Travis: buildings that were half open to the outside,

[24:52] Travis: bricks falling off the walls,

[24:55] Travis: piles of trash in the. In the street,

[24:59] Travis: you know, wild kind of wild, mangy dogs running around.

[25:03] Travis: Just a very, very different scene, but just a reminder of some of the, you know, wealth inequality that we can have in different countries. Right? And it was just particularly stark there.

[25:14] Travis: But in the documentary,

[25:17] Travis: you quickly learn that this sun and his dad are poor. They say it. They're. They're poor.

[25:26] Travis: They really have nothing. Um, you learn that the mom divorced them or left them.

[25:33] Travis: And so a main theme that emerges from the documentary is this really tricky balance between the son having this gift and doing really well because he is blind.

[25:48] Travis: And therefore, that is a way that they might be able to make a living to survive.

[25:52] Travis: And so the dad is trying to foster him and have him improve his abilities and find a teacher for him, but they don't have any money.

[26:00] Travis: And then you learn that some Go schools are learning about his son and trying to get him to come there and saying, oh, we promise that we'll help you and give you a teacher and these sorts of things.

[26:12] Travis: But then there become these very practical problems that you realize surface because he's a blind Go player, even though he's very good, he has to play with a special Go board.

[26:24] Travis: When he's playing against people, there are some very practical issues that come up.

[26:28] Travis: He has to constantly put his hands all over the board.

[26:33] Travis: It's really hard in a group setting to learn from a more advanced teacher because you cannot see what's happening. Right? You're blind.

[26:44] Travis: So that was the general kind of line through the film of him going to one or two different Go schools and trying to get the. From the dad's perspective, he's trying to get a really strong teacher.

[27:00] Travis: Everybody's telling him, hey, you, your kid's a prodigy. They need to have a really much better teacher. But that costs money and so he's trying to go to these. This school that says, hey, we'll find one for you if you also work for us too.

[27:13] Travis: And there's a lot of tension there because the father feels like he's not getting the support he needs for his son. And it's. They don't have any money, and he's had to give some money.

[27:24] Travis: And then the other thing that comes up is that this Go school is saying, well, hey, we should try to get this child special surgery if we can make the right connection with a hospital or something of that nature, so maybe he can see again.

[27:38] Travis: And, like, that will take them from being potentially in poverty to maybe out of poverty if he can find a real job and see again.

[27:46] Travis: And you figure out that this is very much at odds with the fact that he's special because he can play this game so well, and he's blind. If you allow him to see, all of a sudden, he's not special anymore, right?

[28:00] Travis: He's. That's the fear. And so they did a really nice job of showing that tension between what the stress the dad was going through. I mean, it was just so hard to see all the pressure put on the child at different points.

[28:18] Travis: It actually reminded me a lot of my conversation with Professor Marc Moskowitz, who wrote this book, Go Nation.

[28:26] Travis: If you listen to it. I did an interview a few seasons ago on the show. Check it out.

[28:31] Travis: And just this sense of. And I think I felt it even when I was teaching in China.

[28:36] Travis: This just sense of incredible pressure to survive in China.

[28:43] Travis: I'm getting again, just from multiple sources. Certainly anecdotally not proven, just that it is just so stressful. It's like,

[28:52] Travis: you know, it's like sink or swim.

[28:55] Travis: And so it was a really intense documentary. It was. It definitely affected me quite deeply just to see the stress and poverty and, like, no ****. No kid should have to go through some of the things that he had to experience in the documentary.

[29:10] Travis: But it was a really powerful one. So I definitely recommend it if you can access it. If you're in the U. S. try this Kanopy app. Um, if you're elsewhere in the world, I'm not sure exactly where it might be available.

[29:22] Travis: Available,

[29:22] Travis: but check it out.

[29:24] Travis: Very good.

[29:26] Travis: It's also very rough. Like, the editing is very rough.

[29:29] Travis: So it's not a very polished documentary, but really, really worth it. I think it gives you just an incredibly raw view.

[29:40] Travis: Moving right along,

Is Go Actually Easy?

[29:44] Travis: there's a gentleman named John Adulcikas. I'm absolutely mispronouncing it so I apologize. John,

[29:54] Travis: who recently came out with episode number five of a YouTube podcast he's doing on Go,

[30:02] Travis: came out about a week and a half ago at this point and he was talking about why he thinks the game of Go is actually very easy and it's not as hard as people think think it is, and posted it on Reddit.

[30:17] Travis: And you can look at that conversation if you'd like to. But my takeaway is that I generally agree with what John's saying and I appreciate the the video about it.

[30:30] Travis: I don't know that I see Go as easy as something like tic-tac-toe. I mean, I think the main key point was that yes, Go can be very complex, but it's really about who you're playing against.

[30:43] Travis: So if the human you're playing against is very weak,

[30:45] Travis: weaker than you, or stronger than you, that is really what determines how hard it is,

[30:50] Travis: which makes a ton of sense, I think. Also though, it is also a endlessly complex game, unlike tic-tac-toe.

[30:58] Travis: So that I think is key. So it's like the game can be hard and the people you play against can also make it really hard. And I think this kind of ties into the really interesting dynamic you have up to a point with Go that is unique compared to other board games,

[31:14] Travis: which is that there is a handicapping system with the stones on the board or with making komi a different amount or making reverse komi.

[31:24] Travis: And it does have limits, right? Like if you start putting so many handicap stones on the board because there's such a big difference,

[31:30] Travis: it's going to really dramatically change the flow and the way the game works.

[31:36] Travis: However,

[31:38] Travis: what I think any of us find interesting, like I've been playing, as I think I've mentioned recently, I've been playing some teaching games with either high single-digit kyu players or mid- to high-dan players, amateur on the Online Go Server or in the US Go system.

[32:01] Travis: And I have to say it absolutely shows you even like I try to play an even game, obviously I know I'm not going to win that even game, but try to play it as far along as I can before it's very obvious that there's no way I'm going to win.

[32:15] Travis: And it's just amazing to see how like the moves played are so different than when I play something that's similar to my level or just above my level.

[32:25] Travis: And it's really valuable there because you, you see moves that you would never see before and it really forces you to Ask like, oh, why were they playing that? What are they seeing that I wasn't seeing?

[32:39] Travis: Because there is this risk of if you only play people that are like a little bit better than you or two or three ranks above you,

[32:46] Travis: you might not see those things.

[32:49] Travis: And then all of that, on top of that there's this like third layer which is like, what does the AI system say are the best moves? And that can be completely different from not only what you see versus somebody of your level, but even of a high-dan player as well,

[33:05] Travis: which adds another element to it.

[33:09] Travis: And so I kind of take it back to this concept of like, what kind of game do you want to play?

[33:13] Travis: Do you want to play a game that has just an infinite,

[33:17] Travis: theoretically infinite level of sort of getting harder, harder, harder, then Go is probably one of the best ones out there for that in a board game format.

[33:27] Travis: I liken it to a little bit like the sport I keep coming back to because it's my lived experience, which is bicycling or road cycling. So it's bicycling on a road, kind of like the Tour de France, pretty much the same thing.

[33:42] Travis: And cycling is one of those things where you are going to find people that are worse than you at it. If you train a lot at it,

[33:51] Travis: you can find a lot of people that they just cannot go as fast as you can, they can't go as far as you can in races.

[33:57] Travis: Then on the other end of the spectrum is there are absolutely always going to be people that are better than you. I mean, the level of gradations, of strength is just incredible.

[34:07] Travis: And we know that some of that is just hard work. It's how much training you put in.

[34:13] Travis: But also part of that is like what your natural abilities are,

[34:17] Travis: right? Do you have,

[34:18] Travis: you know, a body, a system, an aerobic capacity that will make you good at that thing? Some people just have that naturally more because of many things. Nature, nurture, their parents, all those sorts of things, genetics.

Natural Limits, Improvement, and Finding a Teacher

[34:32] Travis: And I don't know to what, you know, how correlated that is, but I think in Go it's a very similar way. And somebody did make a post on subreddit recently about what the natural limit is for people.

[34:46] Travis: And there were some interesting answers. I mean, some people said, well, you know,

[34:51] Travis: one person, I think the original poster said, well, I've been 12 kyu for like 10 years or something like this. And somebody said, well,

[34:57] Travis: certainly it's not 12 kyu.

[34:59] Travis: And then other people said, oh, well, you know, anybody can become almost a pro level if they really try. Then some people will say, well, no, I don't agree with that.

[35:07] Travis: I think it's the same thing, right? It's like depending on when you start in your life, how old you are, because a lot of things are formed or not formed by that.

[35:15] Travis: And it's like with language, right? If you start a language very, very young, your ability to learn that language really, really well goes up a lot. Just like if you learn, start learning, go very, very young.

[35:26] Travis: And then, yeah, there's also the natural limiters.

[35:30] Travis: So like I am roughly, you know,

[35:34] Travis: 8 to 10 kyu on the Online Go Server. And like,

[35:38] Travis: I always want to keep improving.

[35:40] Travis: I don't necessarily care what that final number ends up being, but I'm sure there's a natural limit. Like, I don't know if it's going to be 1 dan. I don't know that it needs to be 1 dan.

[35:50] Travis: Right. But it's just this concept of like, I think a lot of us just want to feel like we are improving.

[35:55] Travis: And this actually ties back to one of the posts in that subreddit, which was somebody saying, hey, you don't know what you don't know.

[36:04] Travis: And I think it goes back to this question of like, if you are looking for a Go teacher, which I think is absolutely critical, as I think a lot of you do,

[36:14] Travis: it's so important to have a teacher for this game.

[36:18] Travis: Um, it's not the only way. You can, sure, certainly self study and some people that have just incredible ability can do that and alone.

[36:26] Travis: But the Go teacher,

[36:29] Travis: the question now is like, what level of ability do they need to have for you? And it's on the one hand interesting because like, I am not of a high rank in any sense.

[36:41] Travis: Right. I'm around 9, 10 kyu right now.

[36:45] Travis: And so do I think at the very minimum, I think I've heard a few different people say, well,

[36:51] Travis: you can opine on something if you're at least three to five ranks stronger than somebody else. Right. You can start to say things.

[37:01] Travis: That's a good rule of thumb. Let's just say,

[37:04] Travis: of course, if you're playing a game and you're playing somebody at equal rank, you're going to review it and talk about it together. But because you're of similar rank, you might each have slightly different strengths and weaknesses, but you're going to take it with a grain of salt.

[37:17] Travis: And I think having a teacher that is very, very strong is not necessarily overkill in go.

[37:26] Travis: I think in other things it can be so.

[37:29] Travis: I don't know, I'm thinking sports or I'm thinking other,

[37:33] Travis: other intellectual pursuits.

[37:36] Travis: That might not be the case.

[37:38] Travis: But for go, it's like what I keep hearing from people is that you have to learn key concepts.

[37:44] Travis: Some of those key concepts carry throughout, no matter what level you're at in skill for Go,

[37:51] Travis: but then there are other ones that you learn to get you to a certain point. And then you sort of have to almost unlearn them and say, you know what, actually throw that out now because your opponent is better and can do this and that, these other things.

[38:02] Travis: And I think that's where you can run into some theoretical problems. If, if you have a teacher that is only a little bit stronger than you, they just need to be very clear about what they think they know.

[38:16] Travis: So I think it's fine if they say, hey, I think this was the right move and here's why.

[38:20] Travis: And that could still be wrong. But it's also just as important that they say, hey,

[38:26] Travis: this feels wrong. This move that you played feels wrong.

[38:30] Travis: I don't know why exactly it feels wrong. I can articulate to you, but I think it's wrong or I don't know what the right move is here.

[38:36] Travis: And I think that really helps. And again,

[38:40] Travis: getting a bunch of different opinions of much higher level players is also really great.

[38:45] Travis: The other side to that,

[38:47] Travis: the risk you run with getting a really, really strong player teacher,

[38:53] Travis: is that you need to hope that they still kind of remember what it's like to be in your seat, to be at your level,

[39:03] Travis: because it may have been a very, very, very long time for them that they even had that problem. So they might have a hard time perceiving why you're struggling with that thing or what your, you know, your 10 kyu brain is seeing versus, you know, being a 3 dan or a 4 dan or a 6 dan or whatever it is.

[39:22] Travis: So good teachers get enough exposure to all those different levels that they,

[39:28] Travis: they are aware and they can see through it, but others can't. Right? It's. It's one thing to be really good at something, it's quite another to be able to teach it.

Can Sandbagging Be Ethical?

[39:38] Travis: Moving on to the last topic I think for this episode is a post by Philippe Fenero, who is the. I think he said he's a 6 dan on Fox down in Brazil.

[39:52] Travis: And he had a post and he's doing a series of these games online and trying to teach some key concepts, which is great.

[39:59] Travis: And he used the term ethical sandbagging, which I thought was really interesting. And so in the subreddit post,

[40:06] Travis: Somebody asked and said, hey, like, what does that mean when you make sandbagging ethical?

[40:13] Travis: And this person meta system responded and said,

[40:18] Travis: Fenero explains in episode one that he intends to play until the game can be considered one, and then he resigns.

[40:24] Travis: That way he doesn't take away Elo points from his opponents.

[40:27] Travis: Whether this is indeed ethical, I leave up to you. I myself would not want to play against someone who is so much better than me and then get donated rating points after losing the game.

[40:37] Travis: I certainly get it. I see why it's tricky to do it this way.

[40:42] Travis: It's really challenging. I.

[40:44] Travis: I've seen this done several different ways. Well, not several different ways. I've seen it done one or two ways by streamers.

[40:52] Travis: So Strugglebus Go does this. I think BenKyo,

[40:56] Travis: I think Gabe over at Struggle Bus, I think what he does is he. He asks people, he says, hey, you know, are you okay with us doing this and playing this game for the show?

[41:06] Travis: And they said they, you know, consent to it.

[41:09] Travis: Um, you know, the drawback of that, I mean, there's no perfect way. Of course,

[41:14] Travis: the drawback, or at least what I feel when I'm playing a teaching game with a much stronger player is I very much am aware of some of the psychological effects that come with it.

[41:27] Travis: Like, I sometimes think that I look at a move and I.

[41:30] Travis: I don't overthink the move. I don't think there's such a thing as overthinking, perhaps in Go. But I think I will second guess myself much more and wonder if there's something tricky that the opponent is doing to me, because I know they're much stronger.

[41:45] Travis: So that can happen versus if you don't tell the opponent,

[41:53] Travis: they're not going to have that psychological effect on them. They're going to play much more normally.

[41:59] Travis: The problem is they don't know that you're much stronger. Right. So now,

[42:04] Travis: and I think Philippe said this in the video, he's like, yeah, the challenge is if I think at this that there's a point that I've definitely won, there's no way they can win.

[42:14] Travis: I need to effectively resign before they figure that out, before they figure out they're also not going to win. Which is tricky, right? Maybe sometimes you get that, sometimes you don't.

[42:25] Travis: So,

[42:26] Travis: you know, in the grand scheme of things,

[42:28] Travis: you know, it's not a huge deal. I think if somebody's doing these,

[42:31] Travis: you know, ethical sandbagging.

[42:33] Travis: Not often.

[42:34] Travis: I don't know. I mean, of course you. You wish you were playing somebody that is actually the level they say they are.

[42:40] Travis: If you have somebody not doing that more than a few times in a row, it can really mess with your head.

[42:47] Travis: So it's a trade off. It is definitely a trade off trade off. No judgment either way.

Closing Thoughts and Discord Invitation

[42:54] Travis: So that's what we got for the episode.

[42:57] Travis: Like I said, if you're interested, check out the Discord again just as a source for having fun conversations, connecting with you more, hearing your ideas more, talking about really fun and interesting topics about Go.

[43:10] Travis: So I will catch you next time.

Closing Sponsor Messages

[43:29] Travis: Note: I just want to thank again our sponsors for the episode. SmartGo One is your all in one Go toolkit for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Whether you're replaying games, solving problems or managing your SGF files,

[43:41] Travis: it includes a massive professional game library, a strong KataGo engine and polished recording tools so you can study master games,

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[43:55] Travis: Our other sponsor is Baduk Pop, which is an app that makes Go simple and fun to learn with interactive puzzles, short lessons and an AI tutor that helps you improve wherever you are.

[44:05] Travis: It also gives you daily ranked problems that adjust to your level,

[44:09] Travis: themed sets like Life and Death and tesuji plus AI and online Play so you can practice and then test what you've learned.

[44:16] Travis: You can check it out at BadukPop.com that's b a d u k p o p. com our final episode sponsor is BadukTeacher.com if you've ever wanted to take Go lessons from a strong Asian player but worried about the language barrier, BadukTeacher.com makes that easy.

[44:34] Travis: You can book lessons with pro level players, including professionals and extremely strong amateurs,

[44:39] Travis: and get real time translation during the lesson.

[44:42] Travis: These teachers have spent years training in serious dojo environments so they know how to give practical advice that can actually help you improve.

[44:50] Travis: Lessons start at $25, which is great value for instruction at this level, and the translation doesn't stop when the lessons end. Messages before and after class are translated too, so you can ask questions before booking, follow up afterward, and communicate freely with your teacher.

[45:05] Travis: BadukTeacher.com currently supports around 10 language pairs and more are on the way.

[45:10] Travis: Check it out at BadukTeacher.com. that's B A D U K T E A C H E R Com.