All Things Go Podcast

[00:01] Travis: This episode is sponsored by Baduk Pop, SmartGo One AI Sensei and Go Magic.

[00:08] Travis: The other night it was the end of a normal day and my 5 year old son is starting to get ready for bed. But before that, we’ll do a little bit of playtime.

[00:17] Travis: And so he has been nice enough to actually humor me and play games of Go on the 9×9 board that we have.

[00:24] Travis: And so I said, hey bud, why don’t we play a game? And he was like, sure, I’d love to.

[00:29] Travis: So I get out the game, I put it on the dining room table and we start playing. And he loves, as a lot of kids do, he loves the act of capturing the stones.

[00:40] Travis: So he does have that concept down at this point. So we start playing a game and we’re playing Capture go at this point. So as soon as he captures some stones,

[00:48] Travis: I say, oh, you won, you know, good job. And he feels so excited, he’s like, yes,

[00:53] Travis: I won, this is great.

[00:56] Travis: But mind you, this is the end of a decently long day for him. So he had school all day where he’s being told to do this, do that. Then after school he’s got a different activity, whether it’s reading, tutor or whatnot.

[01:09] Travis: So he’s pretty fried in terms of his ability to emotionally regulate. At this point,

[01:15] Travis: we start a new game after he just won the first one, and I start pushing him a little bit further in terms of not just capturing one stone, but trying to capture multiple.

[01:26] Travis: So a group of his had formed that was maybe four or five stones.

[01:31] Travis: I’m trying to give him hints along the way, but I decide, oh, okay, I’m going to go ahead and capture this group, right? Like he just won the last game,

[01:39] Travis: I’ll win this one. And when we’ve done this in the past, like if I capture a group and win,

[01:44] Travis: he’s not terribly bent out of shape and frustrated about it, sometimes more than others.

[01:49] Travis: But this time I capture the stones,

[01:52] Travis: I take the stones off the board. After I capture it,

[01:58] Travis: he just loses it,

[02:01] Travis: just completely.

[02:02] Travis: This kid went from totally fine 0 to 60 and just started screaming and crying uncontrollably.

[02:13] Travis: It was incredible to just see such a strong emotional reaction.

[02:20] Travis: That wasn’t even something he could control.

[02:23] Travis: He just lost it. And he kind of proceeded to go into a very big frustrated tantrum.

[02:33] Travis: I felt for him so much. I mean, it was such a clear example of feeling frustrated about losing it. But normally he wouldn’t have that reaction, right? But it had been such a long day and he Just had nothing left.

[02:46] Travis: And I have to say, there is some part of me that totally relates to that feeling, that moment when I’m in a game and I’ve been playing it and it’s a long correspondence game and on my head, and then like, after the 50th end game move, I don’t see something or forget that something is there,

[03:05] Travis: and I lose,

[03:06] Travis: and I just want to tear my hair out.

[03:12] Travis: So with that, we will get started. This is all Things Go.

Introducing Ryan Li

[03:35] Travis: For anybody that has been at all familiar with the professional Go scene in North America, you’re going to know the next guest.

[03:43] Travis: I’ve really been looking forward to talking with him about the work he does,

[03:50] Travis: particularly in the Western Go community and with the New York Institute of Go.

[03:55] Travis: So take a listen to my conversation with Ryan Li.

Conversation with Ryan Li

[04:02] Travis: Ryan, thank you so much for being here.

[04:04] Ryan Li: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Travis. I really love the work that you do.

[04:09] Travis: Oh, I appreciate that.

Early Memories of Learning Go

[04:10] Travis: So let’s get into your story. And I know that you were born in Beijing and you began playing Go with your father around the age of five.

[04:21] Travis: You then attended a Go school a few times a week, I believe. And by the time your family had moved to Canada at the age of eight, you had actually already achieved the amateur 4 dan status.

[04:32] Travis: So when you think about the beginning and how you got into the game,

[04:37] Travis: what comes to mind when you think back on your earliest memories of playing with your dad?

[04:44] Ryan Li: To be honest, it’s a little bit of a blur.

[04:48] Ryan Li: It was very early days for me. But I do remember that time when my dad was at home, and it was winter, it was cold, and he really loved playing Go to the point where it would feel uneasy for him if he didn’t play a few games every day.

[05:10] Ryan Li: And so when he was there sitting on the couch, I went up to him and,

[05:14] Ryan Li: you know, asked him about the game. He just gave me the stones,

[05:19] Ryan Li: show me how to play. And then we played right after he taught me the rules.

[05:23] Ryan Li: And of course, it wasn’t fun for me.

[05:27] Ryan Li: He gave me some handicap,

[05:29] Ryan Li: but he didn’t let it ease on me.

[05:32] Ryan Li: A lot of this memory is a little bit faded, but my mom always likes to remind me of this, that he completely crushed me multiple times.

[05:44] Travis: Got it. Okay.

[05:46] Ryan Li: But I was very persistent. And, you know, that was my first lesson of patience,

[05:52] Ryan Li: of just sitting there grinding this game that I just learned.

[05:57] Ryan Li: And the feeling is very strange, but I get reminded of that a lot because I think after growing up, there’s many things that kind of trigger that level defeat. You know, you like, work on something and things don’t work out, but you have to keep going.

[06:16] Ryan Li: Right.

[06:17] Ryan Li: And I think just being so young and being like,

[06:22] Ryan Li: so beat up at that time,

[06:24] Ryan Li: it kind of set me up for. For a lot of the things I was able to accomplish later.

[06:31] Ryan Li: Back to your, like, original question about growing up. And, you know, I. I wasn’t like a very normal kid who just started. Studied a lot of go,

[06:39] Ryan Li: went to a Go school and grinded a bit.

[06:45] Travis: When you think about that,

[06:47] Travis: do you think if your dad had taken it easy on you and you had won the game, do you think it might have gone down a different path or. It’s hard to say for sure.

[06:56] Ryan Li: I mean, maybe he knew that, or he was trying to test the extent of how much I could take and maybe he knew.

Moving to Canada and Family Influence

[07:04] Travis: Okay, great. So moving on a little bit. In interviews, you mention that after moving to Canada,

[07:11] Travis: you largely played Go on your own,

[07:14] Travis: and only occasionally would you actually play in, like, local tournaments before moving to more formal training. I guess we could say later on who had the biggest impact on your development.

[07:25] Travis: How did your guidance in. Who was helping you shape your approach, whether it’s on studying or on improving in the game?

[07:35] Ryan Li: Most of my mom at that time,

[07:38] Ryan Li: she was relatively strict. All Asian kids either learned the piano or studied math or both. Right.

[07:45] Ryan Li: But I think she was relatively free in terms of, like, if she saw me give interest in something,

[07:52] Ryan Li: she really urged me to carry on.

[07:55] Ryan Li: But also she was so strict about playing and kind of wasting time, as she would say.

[08:02] Ryan Li: I think one of the biggest influences she had on me was that she allowed me to play Go,

[08:08] Ryan Li: but she didn’t allow me to play anything else.

[08:11] Ryan Li: So,

[08:12] Ryan Li: I mean, she allowed me to go outside, but when I was home, the only game I would. I was allowed to play was Go.

[08:19] Ryan Li: And maybe that had to do something with it.

[08:22] Travis: Wow.

[08:22] Ryan Li: All the hours I spent on the game. Cause I didn’t have anything else to do. Maybe.

[08:27] Travis: So was it one of those things where in the moment you might have said to yourself, I don’t love this, I don’t love that. I’m only allowed to do it. But then looking back, is it one of those things where you say, you know what, Actually, I could see the merit of this,

[08:38] Travis: or no?

[08:40] Ryan Li: Well, at that time, I tried my best to get my hands on anything else that I could.

[08:46] Ryan Li: I remember, like, when Game Boy was really popular back then and everyone had like, a Pokemon Blue or like Leaf Green.

[08:55] Ryan Li: Okay,

[08:56] Ryan Li: I didn’t have any of the consoles. So when I was allowed to go to my friends places, I would always play with them.

[09:02] Travis: It makes so much sense.

[09:04] Ryan Li: Yes, you’d be a lot of nostalgic memories there. But I think thinking back, I had enough of that as well. Right. Like a lot of time when I talk to other people my age,

[09:16] Ryan Li: I’m still able to resonate with them in terms of like all the things experienced. But I’m really glad that I was like pushed into spending a lot of time on Go and enjoy it as well along the way.

[09:30] Travis: I mean, it’s probably cliche at this point, but we always talk about certain endeavors that we do in childhood, right. Did they help us with our ability to push through and do these things and be able to have grit and things like this?

[09:45] Travis: But it does sound like that absolutely was an effect on your childhood. Is that fair?

[09:50] Ryan Li: You know? Yeah, that’s a really good point. And I think there’s a very thin line also being a parent to a five year old myself right now between just letting your child too loose because children don’t know what they want versus going really hard on them, not allowing them to do anything fun and just laser focused.

[10:14] Ryan Li: And I can see downsides of both. But it’s really hard to get that perfect grip, you know, in terms of where to put that,

[10:22] Ryan Li: where to have the strictness and the leniency. And then yeah,

[10:29] Ryan Li: if you do find

[10:30] Travis: out that secret truth, please do tell me because I have a five and a half year old in the other room. So I hear you very clearly and that’s really well said.

Sponsor Message

[10:39] Travis: Foreign this episode of All Things Go is brought to you by our sponsors,

[10:47] Travis: each of them helping you learn, study and enjoy Go in new ways.

[10:51] Travis: First up is Baduk Pop, the app that makes learning Go fun and accessible with interactive puzzles, bite sized lessons, and an AI tutor to guide you step by step. It’s perfect for players on the move.

[11:03] Travis: You can download it or learn more at BadukPop.com that’s b a d u k p o p. com this episode is also sponsored by AI Sensei, your personal game review partner.

[11:18] Travis: Upload games and it instantly spots mistakes, offers stronger moves and helps you learn from each match.

[11:25] Travis: Give it a try at AISensei.com this episode is also sponsored by SmartGo One, the All in One Go toolkit for Apple devices.

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[12:06] Travis: I personally love their Ghost mode in the puzzle section of the website. It’s really great to try to practice moves without seeing them.

[12:14] Travis: You can find them at GoMagic.org that’s G O M A G I C dot org.

A Turning Point: Finding Go Friends in High School

[12:26] Travis: So if we look back and it might not be a moment, but was there a moment or a game or a decision or a specific challenge that you might consider was like a turning point in terms of when you decided to go from just having it be a hobby and something you did for fun to something that you wanted to follow more seriously.

[12:48] Travis: Walk me through what that narrative might have been for you and how things changed.

[12:56] Ryan Li: Yeah, I think that’s a really tough question for me because Go for me has always been the fun thing that I do.

[13:04] Ryan Li: We spoke about this, like, during my childhood as well.

[13:08] Ryan Li: I think the biggest shift in my mind that let me think about getting stronger and really pursuing it more was actually during my high school in the. In the cafeteria where my friend.

[13:24] Ryan Li: Well, at that time, he. I didn’t even know him. And he kind of just walked by and he started asking people if they knew how to play Go.

[13:32] Ryan Li: And I was really surprised because I was in a very small town in South Vancouver, okay, In White Rock in British Columbia. And Go was like, nobody knew about it.

[13:45] Ryan Li: Like, if you ask a hundred people,

[13:47] Ryan Li: maybe five people would know, oh, it’s some Asian game with black on my pieces, right.

[13:55] Ryan Li: And I was so surprised that someone would ask. And to my surprise, he was actually a very strong player. He was a 6 dan.

[14:03] Ryan Li: And at that time we were like, very similar in strength. And we decided to play a game in the cafeteria. And somehow we made a lot of friends just playing Go after school in the cafeteria.

[14:17] Ryan Li: That really inspired me because not only, like, it was something fun that I thought, you know, I had to keep to myself, but.

[14:25] Ryan Li: So my friend’s name’s Harrison, right. And he was also, like a pretty cool kid.

[14:30] Ryan Li: He had like, a lot of good friends and.

[14:33] Ryan Li: And I was like, not so. Like, it’s sort of like he sort of let me into this, like, new kind of circle, this new kid in school, you know,

[14:43] Ryan Li: And I think that part of it inspired me a lot that Go was not something you had to keep to yourself. Almost like I almost had that mentality before.

[14:54] Ryan Li: And that inspired me a lot because it was Something that I sort of let out. I knew that, you know, even if I become good at Go, I.

[15:04] Ryan Li: I don’t have to be just alone by myself. Like, I had the companion to share my results with. And after that, we attended a lot of local tournaments together. We even won some of them.

[15:15] Ryan Li: And so, like, mutually improving and having that friendship really helped me in that.

[15:21] Ryan Li: Yeah.

[15:21] Travis: Thank you.

[15:22] Ryan Li: In terms of, like, turning point, maybe that’s not so much of one.

[15:25] Ryan Li: I guess it’s more of a. A moment that proved the game to me in a sense.

[15:35] Ryan Li: Like, it proved its worthiness in your life, sort of. Yep.

[15:41] Travis: Wow.

[15:42] Travis: Cause I do think a lot of people.

[15:44] Travis: I don’t want to certainly speak for everyone. I can’t, obviously. But I know for my personal journey and being in the west, where Go is a more niche game, it’s not well known that it does feel like something that I’m kind of keeping in my private life or in a more private way.

[16:01] Travis: And it’s not out in public and hearing that you had this opportunity to find somebody else, and then it kind of led to this great opening up of just other people getting interested.

[16:12] Travis: I mean, that’s kind of like almost everything you could ask for.

[16:16] Ryan Li: I was very lucky.

Becoming a North American Professional

[16:18] Travis: So if we talk a little bit about becoming a professional, I think this is pretty interesting, ryan, because in 2015, you became the fourth North American Go professional ever. And what’s interesting is you flash forward to today and you think about where the North American professionals are, and you’re actually.

[16:38] Travis: I mean,

[16:39] Travis: just in terms of, you know, having achieved the highest dan ranking, there’s no equal. You’re sort of at the top of that level or the top of that ranking system.

[16:49] Travis: When you think about the milestone of becoming a professional and then you think about where you are today,

[16:57] Travis: how did it change your goals? Did it change your goals? Did it change your expectations?

[17:04] Ryan Li: That’s a really good question. And, you know, people say the higher your professional rank is, the weaker you are.

[17:11] Ryan Li: It’s because professional ranking is. They’re more of an honor. Right. They’re not necessarily indicative of your strength. But, like, jokes aside,

[17:19] Ryan Li: I feel like there’s definitely some kind of burden because I do want to carry the game. Like,

[17:26] Ryan Li: there’s more expectation, you know, when you’re an amateur player, you can play, just enjoy.

[17:33] Ryan Li: Nobody cares how you played.

[17:35] Ryan Li: But as a professional, that sense of responsibility is very overwhelming at first,

[17:43] Ryan Li: and it really shapes the way I personally play the game.

[17:50] Ryan Li: Because when you’re just someone who likes to play and you can challenge someone Enjoy the game.

[17:58] Ryan Li: Win or lose, you just enjoy the process, right?

[18:02] Ryan Li: But as a pro,

[18:04] Ryan Li: a lot of the time you only remember your losses because you’re more expected to win.

[18:12] Ryan Li: And that shift in feeling,

[18:16] Ryan Li: it really takes away from that enjoyment when you win, right?

[18:20] Ryan Li: But it significantly weighs the,

[18:24] Ryan Li: the sadness when you, when you lose a game.

[18:28] Ryan Li: And for a really long time,

[18:30] Ryan Li: I think in the last maybe couple of years, I really felt that especially like many players see me as like the highest ranked player, but I’m not necessarily the strongest at all.

[18:42] Ryan Li: And that unsaid message when people sit in front of you that, oh, I really want to beat you, you know, that I really want to win a game against you,

[18:53] Ryan Li: that’s, you know, a lot of pressure.

[18:55] Ryan Li: And as we talked earlier,

[18:58] Ryan Li: that easy sense of enjoyment of like, oh, you know,

[19:01] Ryan Li: I want to play and, you know, it’s sort of my happy place, right?

[19:05] Ryan Li: That really made it harder to enjoy the game the same way. But that being said, I think it’s a good thing. I think that someone needs to be there.

[19:16] Ryan Li: I just wish it was I wasn’t me.

[19:20] Ryan Li: But I think that it does inspire people to, to like,

[19:23] Ryan Li: all come in, right? I think right now we have one North American professional every year,

[19:30] Ryan Li: and soon we’ll be in the double digits.

[19:34] Ryan Li: And I think that’s very inspiring. For me,

[19:36] Ryan Li: it’s just a very.

[19:39] Ryan Li: It’s tougher for sure,

[19:41] Ryan Li: to enjoy the game in the same way as a professional player.

Competitive Pressure and Mental Stability

[19:46] Travis: Let’s talk a little bit more about that sense of burden and pressure, but let’s actually focus it more on when you’re playing.

[19:53] Travis: How do you manage your sense of pressure and how much you have to focus in a game,

[20:01] Travis: particularly a serious one.

[20:03] Travis: And is there an unpopular opinion you hold or a piece of advice you have about best practices for actually preparing for those kinds of situations?

[20:16] Ryan Li: The beauty of the game to me is that, like, it’s so personal,

[20:20] Ryan Li: right? And I think I’ve talked to many other pros and I.

[20:27] Ryan Li: I’ve curiously asked them the same question.

[20:30] Ryan Li: And what’s interesting is that everyone provides me with a different answer almost.

[20:35] Ryan Li: It’s sort of like any professional athlete. I think you ask them like, you know, what you do to prepare for that final match, like a track athlete or, you know, any sports athlete.

[20:48] Ryan Li: The pressure is immense and it’s right there.

[20:52] Ryan Li: The way to ignore it is probably different for everybody. For me, what I try to do is just think about how much I am enjoying it that way it distracts me from how important the game actually is.

[21:10] Travis: So I almost imagine that like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and if you look down immediately you go, oh my God, like, what am I doing up here?

[21:19] Travis: You know, I’m gonna lose it. So I would imagine when you are in the middle of the, you know, Samsung Cup or the MLILY Cup,

[21:27] Travis: there probably is that opportunity in the middle of it to go, oh my God, you know, the clock’s running,

[21:33] Travis: I’m feeling this pressure. And so you’re saying that what you will try to do is kind of harness this attitude of like, oh my gosh, like I get to do this.

[21:43] Travis: I’m. This is my happy space. To a degree.

[21:47] Ryan Li: Yeah. That’s a great way to put it. I mean it’s, you gotta, for just forget about it, right?

[21:53] Ryan Li: And it’s gonna happen,

[21:55] Ryan Li: you’re gonna have some breakdown.

[21:58] Ryan Li: But I think most people,

[22:00] Ryan Li: like most pros, you just gotta keep it in you, right? And then snap back out of it.

[22:05] Ryan Li: And in many pro games, you know, there’s a lot of very strong top amateurs.

[22:12] Ryan Li: And I think the biggest difference between pro level play and amateur level is not necessarily the skill,

[22:19] Ryan Li: but it’s the persistence and that high mental state stability that allows pros to continue playing at a high level throughout the whole game.

[22:33] Ryan Li: While many top players can play very good moves and they can be,

[22:38] Ryan Li: they can perform at a high level at any given point,

[22:41] Ryan Li: but are much less stable.

[22:44] Ryan Li: And that mental toughness is going to give the other player the edge.

Teaching at the New York Institute of Go

[22:50] Travis: A big part of what you do, to my understanding, is that you’re also teaching with the New York Institute of Go and you know, your wife’s work there as really the leader and those sorts of things.

[23:03] Travis: Given that you’ve been doing teaching, I think at this point over a decade,

[23:08] Travis: how has teaching students at different ranks altered the way that you view the game? So, like, have you changed as a teacher over time?

[23:18] Travis: If so, how do you think you’ve changed?

[23:22] Ryan Li: Yeah, great question. Now, you know, I, I think I first got into teaching almost exactly 10 years ago.

[23:29] Travis: Okay.

[23:30] Ryan Li: I had a couple students,

[23:32] Ryan Li: mostly strong ones actually, because I think maybe people find me, they think that I’m sort of good at coaching the stronger players. And when I first started New York Institute of Go and I was teaching beginners,

[23:49] Ryan Li: I had a very tough time because the way I think of the game is now very different.

[23:57] Ryan Li: Like I knew all the concepts, but it was difficult to think in a different way.

[24:03] Ryan Li: And I think to be a good teacher, you have to know exactly the way your student is thinking.

[24:11] Ryan Li: So at that time, I really like to teach the stronger students because it was easier for me to calibrate and I could almost operate in the same way.

[24:23] Ryan Li: But as time went on, I think I actually like to teach beginner students more now.

[24:30] Travis: Interesting.

[24:31] Ryan Li: When I help these newer players learn their excitement and also the way they unlock these new ways of thinking,

[24:45] Ryan Li: I think that feeling is very rare.

[24:49] Ryan Li: Right. It’s, you know, it’s like, like you learn a board game and then you just learn the rules and then you have to play a few games.

[24:59] Ryan Li: But once you played a few games and you know, wow, then you realize this is the game that you like and you actually really want to get better at it.

[25:08] Ryan Li: That beginning,

[25:10] Ryan Li: few moments,

[25:13] Ryan Li: they’re really priceless.

[25:14] Ryan Li: The person is really motivated and they’re really excited, but then they’re also moving fast as you get higher, it’s. It’s harder to move quite as fast and open so many doors at the same time.

[25:27] Ryan Li: So like, just seeing that,

[25:29] Ryan Li: that part really inspires me right now,

[25:32] Ryan Li: of course. And the other part is that I get to encourage new players to play. Right. Like get to expand the community as a whole.

[25:42] Travis: Do you think it’s one of those situations where if the game were just very ubiquitous, mainstream, everybody knew it, do you think you might find less interest in saying, oh yeah, I really want to get something new to the game into it, or do you think that doesn’t necessarily matter?

[25:58] Ryan Li: I think that matters a lot.

[26:00] Ryan Li: I think if it were even, even like chess where like pretty much everyone knows about it. Right. Even though not everyone knows how to play. But in that kind of situation, I don’t think I would be as motivated to be a teacher just because I could just recommend the student to someone else.

[26:18] Ryan Li: Right. But since it’s Go, I. And currently, you know,

[26:22] Ryan Li: I wish this wasn’t the case, but Go is really not that popular right.

[26:27] Ryan Li: Right now.

[26:28] Ryan Li: And you know, what we’re really focused on in the New York Institute of Go is to bring the game to like, newer players. And one of our main focus is actually to introduce to kids how to play.

[26:42] Ryan Li: And we noticed that when we teach the game to like a five year old, six year old, they pretty much play the game until they get to high school or go off to college.

[26:53] Ryan Li: And wow, that’s great.

[26:55] Travis: Yeah.

[26:55] Ryan Li: A lot of the time they even start opening Go clubs. And I think our first batch of students have gone to college and they’ve kind of started their own thing now.

[27:05] Ryan Li: And so it’s really inspiring to see these, all these kids they’re like, they come in, they’re like, oh, what is this? And they start learning and then they.

[27:14] Ryan Li: Seeing them enjoy the game and then, but also grow up with it,

[27:19] Ryan Li: it’s really very heartwarming to be a part of it.

Growing Go in North America

[27:24] Travis: That’s really great. And I imagine you’ve seen a lot over your 10 years when you think about looking forward in terms of your roles as a teacher,

[27:36] Travis: a competitor and a professional player providing commentary, which I’m sure you do here and there. And then also as a leader in the American Go scene,

[27:46] Travis: what do you hope the next steps are in terms of. I don’t know. If it’s a few years out, if it’s five years out, what are you hoping to see from.

[27:57] Travis: You could say the community, but also just out of your Go career.

[28:03] Ryan Li: I really like to see an English Go movie on Netflix that can rival the match.

[28:12] Travis: Yes, let’s do it.

[28:14] Ryan Li: I think the impact of the Queen’s Gambit on chess was so significant and even a lot of my Go player friends, they wanted to play chess just from watching that show.

[28:25] Travis: 100%.

[28:26] Ryan Li: Yeah.

[28:26] Ryan Li: And I think that in order to really make a big difference in the community, we kind of have to go in that direction.

[28:34] Ryan Li: But yeah, the question is how?

[28:37] Travis: Right, right.

[28:38] Ryan Li: Materialistically, I think we’ve been moving in a good direction. We’ve been having more consistent North American pro qualifiers, we’ve been getting more serious tournaments. We have a fully functional online league that is regular now for all North American players.

[28:56] Ryan Li: And I think everything is going in the right direction, but we really need that explosion.

[29:04] Travis: What I noticed you’re doing, Ryan, through your work with the New York Institute of Go, but also being again a higher ranking North American pro, is that you’re almost barbelling it.

[29:15] Travis: You’re really saying, hey, you’ve effectively come to represent the wave of professional North American players and you’re trying to opportunistically when you can participate in those very high level tournaments, but then you’re also really trying to get 5 year olds, 10 year olds into the game so that that can hopefully really expand and foster a sense of more interest in the game.

[29:41] Travis: When you think about the professional side and getting, like you said,

[29:45] Travis: the time where there’s actually double digit number of North American professionals,

[29:49] Travis: do you think that that piece of the puzzle is just as important as getting, you know, younger kids into the game? How do you think about the role of the professional qualifiers in increasing the visibility?

[30:05] Ryan Li: Yeah, it’s a very important aspect,

[30:09] Ryan Li: especially for aspiring kids who Learn the game.

[30:14] Ryan Li: It’s something to hope for.

[30:17] Ryan Li: Hope is not everything, but it really gets the blood flowing.

[30:22] Ryan Li: And for a lot of the kids, they look at the possibility of going up there and it really motivates them, them to continue.

[30:31] Ryan Li: And I, I think recently I’ve been seeing a lot of very young players who are like 5, 6 dan.

[30:39] Ryan Li: And that’s really phenomenal to see. And I think that’s a really indicative of hopefully a, a bright future for North American pros.

[30:48] Ryan Li: Recently we’ve actually had a,

[30:52] Ryan Li: a youth world champion from a North American pro. Right.

[30:56] Ryan Li: That was an awesome achievement and I think we need more of these to really spur the young blood into the scene.

[31:06] Travis: Yeah. Tell us more about that, Ryan. So Alexander Qi achieves first place in the World Youth Go Championship not long ago.

[31:16] Travis: And my understanding is that some of the very, very top professionals on even the Asian side have actually come through that path. And he played other Asian professionals, albeit they were, you know, younger.

[31:30] Travis: How important is that?

[31:32] Travis: Does that tell you that we’re moving in the right direction? Like, how do you think about that?

[31:37] Ryan Li: Yeah, it’s for sure a groundbreaking achievement,

[31:42] Ryan Li: but it is only youth only.

[31:45] Ryan Li: So I’d like to take that and see if we can translate that to an official like Samsung Cup type of tournament.

[31:51] Travis: Right.

[31:52] Ryan Li: And that’s sort of the next step.

[31:55] Ryan Li: On the other hand, I think for North American players, the true culture for North American Go is that you’re a pro, but you’re not really a full time pro. Right.

[32:08] Ryan Li: And a lot of the young pros,

[32:12] Ryan Li: or I guess younger pros here,

[32:14] Ryan Li: they all have their own jobs and they go to school or sort of their normal life, right? And that’s really hard to compete against in Asia because these kids, they start from 6, 7 years old, they don’t go to school, they just fully study, go until they’re 12, they become pro and then they just continue this for their whole career.

[32:38] Ryan Li: And if we can compete with that, like the amount of time spent is totally, we’re only spending a very small fraction of the time that the Asian pros are spending.

[32:51] Ryan Li: That being said, I think the fact that we’re able to put up a good fight is a very huge achievement and I think we, we should all be proud of that.

[33:00] Ryan Li: Will we ever be able to fully get a World Championship title?

[33:06] Ryan Li: It’s going to be very difficult.

Lightning Round with Ryan Li

[33:12] Travis: Ryan, I wanted to now do some lightning round questions, just some fun quick questions that you can sort of just give us your first reaction. So who is your favorite player?

[33:24] Travis: And tell us about why that person might be your favorite player in a way that a non Go player might be able to understand.

[33:31] Ryan Li: Go Seigen. He is the most revolutionary and most creative and most interesting Go player.

[33:40] Travis: Cool. What’s the worst piece of Go advice you’ve heard another teacher or another player give?

[33:49] Ryan Li: You need to work on your opening.

[33:53] Travis: Tell me more why?

[33:55] Ryan Li: I think most players in general that I that come to me and ask me for advice that might be the totally wrong pool of of players. But the conclusion that I arrive after working with them or talking to them for a bit is that they spend way too much time in their opening.

[34:15] Ryan Li: And if you want to improve and Go,

[34:18] Ryan Li: that’s totally not the area that you want to study.

[34:21] Ryan Li: It’s good to know how to start the game, but beyond just being able to start, it’s not really important.

[34:29] Travis: Got it. What do you think is the biggest missed opportunity for Go students in terms of how they can improve?

[34:40] Ryan Li: Wow.

[34:42] Ryan Li: That should not be a lightning question.

[34:47] Ryan Li: I think just accessing the good online problem resources, there’s so many good problems that you could do to help improve your reading.

[34:56] Ryan Li: And reading is the foundation that will help you unlock a lot of Go strength and it’s sort of your mental muscle in wrestling.

[35:08] Ryan Li: And there are so many good online resources to help improve that.

[35:12] Ryan Li: It’s not that fun, but it’s great for improvement.

[35:18] Travis: What is your favorite aspect of playing the game of Go? Whether it’s the middle game, whether it’s different styles you like to play, actually

[35:30] Ryan Li: middle game, there’s the most amount of uncertainty and just being able to figure something out in all that chaos really appeals to me.

[35:42] Travis: Cool.

[35:44] Travis: If you could play a game of Go against any Go or non Go player. So a celebrity can be somebody that’s dead or alive, who would it be?

[35:54] Ryan Li: Barack Obama.

[36:00] Travis: When you are not playing Go, Ryan, and you’re not working and you’re not taking care of the family, what do you like to do for fun?

[36:11] Ryan Li: You know, the last time that I had free time to do that is like I can’t even remember that time.

[36:19] Travis: The correct answer is I don’t remember what that’s like because I am a father.

[36:25] Ryan Li: Yeah,

[36:28] Ryan Li: I actually really want to take the piano is something that I used to play.

[36:33] Ryan Li: It’s actually some an instrument that I was forced to take up that I hated throughout my childhood. But I really want to get back into it for some reason.

[36:42] Travis: How interesting. That’s cool. And then the last question. What is a lesson Go taught you about other parts of your life that you didn’t expect.

[36:56] Ryan Li: This is like maybe an un, maybe an unpopular opinion. But I think Go is like a game of balance.

[37:04] Ryan Li: It’s always a balance between things.

[37:06] Ryan Li: You know, you have to balance your. All of your emotions throughout the game,

[37:11] Ryan Li: psychological feelings,

[37:13] Ryan Li: not thinking too much about the result,

[37:15] Ryan Li: to balance the territory and influence,

[37:19] Ryan Li: black and white,

[37:21] Ryan Li: and not being too extreme when you’re. When you’re winning by a lot,

[37:26] Ryan Li: don’t feel overconfident. Right. Or you hate the opponent and you really want to beat them.

[37:31] Ryan Li: But then you could still lose and.

[37:33] Ryan Li: And still just be sad going home. But I think just balancing everything in the right way is very difficult.

[37:43] Ryan Li: And what I mean by that is a life analogy is we have certain amount of time we have during the day, and we have to allocate it into certain areas.

[37:56] Ryan Li: But the way you do it is so there’s so many possibilities of doing it,

[38:05] Ryan Li: but there is no really right way. And. And you kind of have to find that balance that’s good for you.

[38:11] Ryan Li: Like, you can do too much work,

[38:13] Ryan Li: and then it’s good for money,

[38:17] Ryan Li: your promotion, everything. But, like,

[38:19] Ryan Li: you’re just going too deep in that one route. Right. You have to care about the people you love and.

[38:25] Ryan Li: And other things like that.

[38:27] Ryan Li: And that balance,

[38:30] Ryan Li: I think that Go really helped me with that because, you know, just playing the game really requires you to maintain all these different types of balance in the right way.

[38:40] Ryan Li: And I think that helped me a lot when I think about these things. Like,

[38:44] Ryan Li: yeah, I mean, I don’t have the perfect way. Right. But I can find some way that works that doesn’t tire myself out too much, but also still allow me to enjoy the things that I.

[38:56] Ryan Li: That I do, which is very difficult, I think.

[39:02] Travis: Perfect. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for your time. It was a real joy hearing your story and thank you for everything that you do for the Go community.

[39:11] Ryan Li: Thank you so much for having me, Travis,

Go Lesson Takeaways with Nathan Harwit

[39:29] Travis: To shift things up a little bit, we’re going to talk with my Go teacher, Nathan Harwit about urgent versus big moves and some spots where it didn’t feel as obvious that you need to play an urgent move versus a big one.

[39:43] Travis: And then also going into some things around reading, looking at liberties, and a couple other topics. So hopefully you find this helpful in some way.

[39:53] Travis: Take a listen.

Urgent Moves Versus Big Moves

[39:58] Travis: What do we talk about?

[39:59] Travis: We revisited some of the big themes because I’ve been playing like, what, probably like 40 to 50 games in the last two, three months.

[40:06] Travis: We already hit home in the last lesson about how you think about Ordering of your group, right. How to get out and all those.

[40:12] Travis: But I think one big one maybe you can help reinforce for us was the one around playing the urgent versus the big moves. But in this case, the urgent move is sort of putting pressure on the opponent.

[40:29] Nathan Harwit: Yeah. So that mostly ties into how you wanted to tenuki, or we were trying to get you just a nukey more in general. That’s like a more common way to make a mistake.

[40:39] Nathan Harwit: And so you were starting to tenuki a lot more, which is great.

[40:43] Nathan Harwit: The trick is to play more locally to attack them, which is the urgent move versus the big move elsewhere. Like an open side.

[40:51] Nathan Harwit: That was kind of the trade off there is like you start to nuking more, which is great.

[40:56] Nathan Harwit: The trick now is to target your opponent’s weaker groups first and then go play the big move.

[41:00] Travis: Right.

[41:01] Travis: And then what I like about how you articulated this was you said,

[41:05] Travis: Travis, if you pester your opponent on a group that’s weaker,

[41:11] Travis: instead of just straight up tenuki,

[41:14] Travis: what you might find is, yeah, maybe six times out of 10, they do it correctly and they live.

[41:20] Travis: But every once in a while you’re going to catch them in a mistake. And if you play to the probabilities, you might get some freebies there.

[41:28] Nathan Harwit: One other thing that I forgot to mention is that when you play the urgent move and pressure them, it’s very hard for your opponent to actually tenuki and play your big move that you wanted to get first because they’re so weak.

[41:41] Nathan Harwit: And so often you’ll end in sente anyways after harassing them, even if you don’t kill them. And you get the big move anyways. So you get all your profit off attacking them, and then you get the big move as well.

[41:52] Nathan Harwit: Sometimes you end in gote, but oftentimes that means they got such a bad result that you don’t even need the big move for the compensation because you got so much attacking them.

[42:03] Travis: Yeah, that’s an interesting concept because it definitely makes you feel insecure. You’re like, oh my God, like if I pressure this group, what if they don’t fall for it? And then they play my big move.

[42:11] Travis: And then I’m like, oh no, I missed the big move.

Counting, Endgame, and Reading Liberties

[42:14] Travis: I think the other thing that is worth mentioning is that you’ve had me really do in my correspondence games, which I realize not everybody plays,

[42:24] Travis: but in correspondence games where I do not have time pressure,

[42:28] Travis: if nobody plays, you still have a few days before the clock winds down.

[42:33] Travis: Counting, just counting in general, I think is like underestimated or underrated.

[42:39] Travis: I’m not sure how many of my opponents at my level, which is like, I don’t know, 8 to 10 kyu are actually counting.

[42:47] Travis: Some are, but I think a lot aren’t.

[42:51] Travis: The next piece that you’re really helping me with is like getting a little more used to.

[42:56] Travis: There’s been a lot of the games now that are just kind of going into like an end game situation. Right. Nothing exciting happens.

[43:02] Travis: And so that’s the one that has been a challenge for me.

[43:07] Travis: And then the other thing we talked about was,

[43:11] Travis: oh, you had that really great trick. What I’m trying to read in certain kind of more like mid game or endgame states where I’m trying to read if a position’s gonna work out from a liberty perspective.

[43:23] Travis: Like, I’m struggling a little bit with seeing all the liberties. Maybe I see the liberties on my stones,

[43:30] Travis: or maybe I see it on my opponent’s stones, but not on mine.

[43:33] Travis: And so you had a nice little trick there for how to do it.

[43:36] Travis: Do you mind telling us?

[43:38] Nathan Harwit: Oh, yeah. Basically a lot of it is just visualizing like a one move sequence and then just quickly counting the liberties and that oftentimes simplifies it a lot.

[43:49] Nathan Harwit: So we had one where you read your opponent extending, which is a peep, and then you have to connect against the peep,

[43:56] Nathan Harwit: and then you count the liberties then. And unless there’s some magic happening because both you and them were very surrounded, you’re not really getting any more liberties. And at that point it was three to three, but it was your opponent’s move again because they played the sente Pete move.

[44:10] Nathan Harwit: And then most of the time, if it’s three to three and nobody can really get more liberties, you’re just gonna die if they go again,

[44:16] Nathan Harwit: which was nice.

[44:18] Travis: And I know it sounds kind of silly. It’s like, oh my gosh, Travis, you can’t read like more than two moves and it’s like, no, I,

[44:24] Travis: I can at times.

[44:26] Travis: And then the other aspect of this that I didn’t realize would start to happen is that correspondence games have this double edged sword of you have a lot of time to decide it.

[44:37] Travis: There’s so much time that you kind of get into like mental fatigue. Like every single move, if it’s spread out too long,

[44:44] Travis: it becomes a problem. And I know again, there’s whole swaths of people that don’t even play correspondence, which I can understand.

[44:50] Travis: For me it’s just more of a lifestyle thing.

[44:53] Travis: But yeah, that’s totally real.

The 3-3 Invasion and Repeating an Opening

[44:56] Travis: And then we really practiced a lot. I was seeing the same opening sequence against some of my opponents where we would do the kick and extend in the corner,

[45:07] Travis: but they would do it when they were at the 4, 4,

[45:11] Travis: I believe be the 4, 4 point.

[45:13] Travis: So their corner’s pretty big.

[45:15] Travis: And so I would then go in and invade at the 3, 3 point. And you were helping me think about, like, you’re not always going in there to live. Sometimes you’re going in there to just simply force something to happen on the outside.

[45:30] Ryan Li: Right.

[45:30] Travis: And playing a stone that’s outside of the corner, it might help set you up there.

[45:34] Nathan Harwit: Yeah. This is a really common pattern and there’s not that many sequences and it happens a lot. So it’s generally good to just memorize a few of them. And then if your opponent does something weird, you just kind of fight them.

[45:45] Nathan Harwit: But yeah, so It’ll be a 4, 4 point.

[45:47] Nathan Harwit: You do a knight’s move, approach low, they kick the diagonal, you extend up, they do a knight’s move or one space jump. Sometimes they’ll have a stone on the side along that same place they extended to, sometimes they won’t.

[45:59] Nathan Harwit: Then you can invade the three three. And then there’s a couple situations where if they really want to kill your corner, they will be able to. But then you get enough AGI where the main goal is to actually get a side move that threatens to connect to the corner group.

[46:13] Travis: Right, right.

[46:14] Nathan Harwit: And then it’s kind of their corner anyways to begin with. So if they have to defend it an ext and you get a free move on the side, it’s generally a good trade for you.

[46:23] Travis: And by the way, I told you that I’ve been playing mostly just like three, four opening points.

[46:31] Travis: Where do you stand on that? Like, as a Go teacher, where do you stand on that in terms of being like, hey, it’s not a bad idea. Like, you can just try one opening.

[46:39] Travis: If it’s three fours or it’s four fours or whatever, five threes,

[46:43] Travis: and just see what comes of that. Or do you think that’s boring? Like,

[46:47] Travis: what do you think?

[46:48] Nathan Harwit: I actually suggest this to people to actually play the exact same opening and have the same sort of opening plan.

[46:54] Nathan Harwit: Because most games, even at the highest levels, are decided in the middle game when the fights happen.

[47:00] Nathan Harwit: Very few games are decided in the first, like 30, 50 moves. Like, sometimes, yeah, somebody just dies.

[47:07] Nathan Harwit: But generally, if you do the same opening of the same plan and you just get through it faster and you know what, you’re doing great.

[47:14] Nathan Harwit: And then middle games where it gets interesting.

[47:16] Nathan Harwit: So that’s where you focus more of your energy, more of your time, if it’s a time game. So I actually really do like, yeah, just always do three fours. If you find it boring yourself, sure, you can switch it up.

[47:26] Nathan Harwit: But in terms of like just getting through the opening and focusing on the middle game, that actually is a really good idea to just play the same opening every game.

[47:35] Travis: I certainly respect both sides of that, so I’ve also heard people be like, hey, it’s a game for fun. Like try different things. Like just see how it goes.

[47:43] Travis: What’s funny is that now I’ve got no point though, where I’m like, there’s already so much freedom and variability. I am fine with just narrowing that down for a bit and then if I feel like I’ve really worked through that, maybe then I’ll shift to something else.

[47:57] Travis: So yeah, awesome. No, Nathan, thanks for this really helpful and insightful lesson as always. So I appreciate you hopping on to recap it.

[48:06] Nathan Harwit: No problem.

[48:07] Travis: Cool, thanks.

Closing and Sponsor Thanks

[48:12] Travis: That closes out the episode. I really appreciate you taking the time and I’ll catch you next time.

[48:33] Travis: I want to give one final thank you to our sponsors,

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[48:43] Travis: Everything you need to know to learn the Game of Go online at GoMagic.org AI Sensei where you can play Go against the strong KataGo AI, analyze your uploaded games, discuss moves with the community and turn mistakes into Go problems.

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[49:21] Travis: Play games online or with a variety of AI opponents, each with its own unique playing style and strength at BadukPop.com that’s B A D U K P O P Com.