All Things Go Podcast

[00:21] Travis: Hey, everybody.

Jessie Janowitz and All the Ways to Go

[00:23] Travis: Our first interview is with an author of a relatively new kids book about the game of Go, which I don't know that I've ever heard of before.

[00:32] Travis: I was looking at the American Go Association website and learned that Jessie had visited the D.C. Go Center. My interest was piqued, so I reached out.

[00:42] Travis: She was more than happy to connect, and we had some really great conversation about the book, about how she got into Go, and about some of the lessons and themes she tied in with Go and really being a teenager and being a kid, and your relationship with your parents, with the outside world, all these sorts of things.

[01:04] Travis: Without further ado, let us jump into my conversation with Jessie Janowitz.

[01:12] Travis: I wanted to start by actually just giving a little bit of your background because you had a really nice description on your website. You really fell in love with French language and French pastries when you went to Princeton for college.

[01:24] Travis: You majored in comparative literature because it allowed you to study French along with your other interests, including creative writing.

[01:32] Travis: And you said that after college you taught in a French public high school for cooking and restaurant service, and that you actually sold translation rights for a publishing house. And that this led you to law school, which you really loved.

[01:44] Travis: And one of the many cool things you found in the US legal system is that everything is about storytelling and stories. And then eventually, thanks to your family, you found your way back to reading and writing, and particularly ones for kids, because those are the ones that you've always wanted, loved the best. And I love that you gave a couple funny little quirks about yourself. You said things I hate mayonnaise, bats, the flying kind, and bad moods. And then things you love being told a great story by a great storyteller and then laughing so hard you cry and then donuts.

[02:17] Travis: So it was just so nice to connect a little bit personally there.

[02:21] Travis: We are going to focus on your book All the Ways to Go, The book came out last year, and it is exciting because there are very few works of Go fiction for young readers.

[02:37] Travis: So maybe we can just start with sort of the obvious question, which is like, tell me about how you first learned about Go through your kids and then how the game came to be, like, the focal point of the book.

[02:48] Jessie Janowitz: Sure. So my kids were fortunate enough to go to a super wacky school in Brooklyn that believed in for good and for bad, for hiring teachers who were just excited to teach something and they thought, like, if you brought in people who were really excited to teach something, everything would work out.

[03:13] Jessie Janowitz: There are certainly gaps in my children’s learning under that model: they know a great deal about some things and almost nothing about others.

[03:26] Jessie Janowitz: However, I will say that all three of my kids, who are very different learners, love to learn. And to me that is the most important thing and that will take you through life. If you're excited to learn, you're good in my book. And our experience with Go was a perfect example of this coming to life.

[03:50] Jessie Janowitz: The school had hired someone named Paul Lockhart to teach mathematics.

[03:58] Jessie Janowitz: Many people in the Go world—and many people interested in mathematics—know Paul. He wrote the beloved book A Mathematician’s Lament, about the creativity and beauty of mathematics and the ways it is often taught poorly.

[04:20] Jessie Janowitz: And he himself is a really interesting character. He did not go to college.

[04:26] Jessie Janowitz: He went off on his own and did math independently.

[04:31] Jessie Janowitz: After high school, he was essentially an autodidact. He sent his work to a university—perhaps Columbia or Stanford—and was admitted to a PhD program.

[04:43] Jessie Janowitz: And among the many things that Paul loved were games.

[04:49] Jessie Janowitz: Somehow he found his way to Saint Ann’s School, where my children attended.

[04:54] Jessie Janowitz: And he said to the school, like, I will come and teach, but I have to be able to teach anything I want to anyone I want.

[05:02] Jessie Janowitz: The school agreed, and he created an after-school Go seminar that any student could attend. It began with my eldest child, you know, a real mathy, gamey kid. And he became obsessed with Go and his friends became obsessed with Go and they got all the Go problem books.

[05:26] Jessie Janowitz: He then insisted on attending a Go camp.

[05:30] Jessie Janowitz: There aren't a lot of Go camps.

[05:32] Jessie Janowitz: He and three friends spent a week that summer at a Go camp in a basement conference room of a rather run-down Days Inn in Parsippany, New Jersey.

[05:44] Jessie Janowitz: They were the only white kids there and they were by far the worst. Toby was so happy because by the end of the week he could like basically hang with the six year old.

[05:56] Jessie Janowitz: But what blew me away so it was like, wow, these kids are really interested in this. And at first I wasn't really paying attention, but then my younger kids wanted to go.

[06:05] Jessie Janowitz: And because they were much Younger, I had to go and like, sit in the corner and watch and listen. And Paul wasn't cool with that, so I had to start playing.

[06:13] Jessie Janowitz: What I loved was the storytelling aspect of Go in the way Paul taught it: he narrated what was happening. Super conflict oriented game. It was like discovery and adventure and culture.

[06:36] Jessie Janowitz: I fell in love with it. Watching the children play became an incredible window into that world, and I decided that one day I would write a book with a Go club in it.

[06:51] Jessie Janowitz: I have no idea how I'm going to do this because writing about a game seems really, really difficult, especially when you're not an expert in it. But eventually I figured out how I wanted to do it and all the threads of my story kind of came together, so.

[07:06] Jessie Janowitz: That is the long version of how I came to Go.

[07:10] Travis: Oh, that's phenomenal. I appreciate you sharing it because first of all, I was raised in Princeton, New Jersey, so it was so fun to hear all the places that you were going to and actually being able to visualize where they actually were.

[07:22] Travis: And I think you told us, you know, before we hopped on, that, you know, your whole family is sort of very embedded in Princeton University and those sorts of things.

[07:31] Travis: And again, congratulations on your son or your child getting into Princeton. But that was really.

[07:38] Travis: And I love how at the end, and I do want to be very careful. I don't want to give any spoilers or anything like that. So definitely stop me because everybody definitely should read the book. Is you kind of put this nice part, this author's note at the end where you just say, hey, it's my wish that this book inspires you to try to pick up this game and this concept around feeling like it really brings out these concepts of like, connectedness and connection.

[08:00] Travis: I think that really spoke to me.

[08:02] Travis: Let us start with the main characters. Milo is a 12-year-old chess prodigy living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with his single mother.

[08:12] Travis: He's 12 years old and he is the son of a single mom and he is some sort of chess prodigy.

[08:20] Travis: And so where we. We start the book, it's really like you're learning that certain things happen with him, around his feelings for chess. And so that eventually leads to him actually Finding his way, spending the summer in Princeton, New Jersey, which for those of us who are not from the northeaster in the United States, Princeton is about an hour and fifteen minutes from Manhattan by train.

[08:46] Travis: The other major character is Roxie. At a high level, what should readers know about them?

[08:53] Jessie Janowitz: Sure.

[08:54] Jessie Janowitz: In all my books, I am deeply interested in middle-grade students and their families. The family element is especially important to me.

[09:14] Jessie Janowitz: I am a big fan of putting in really loving parents who make mistakes, like all parents, and giving kids an opportunity to see parents go, yep, I messed up.

[09:30] Jessie Janowitz: I had the best intentions and I messed this one up. I think that's so liberating for both parents and kids to be reading together.

[09:39] Jessie Janowitz: And as a parent, I have seen with my own kids, as a kid myself, this really complicated dynamic that develops in families where everyone just wants to do right by their kids, where kids, especially today, express some kind of nascent interest in it doesn't matter what it is, gymnastics, drawing, and parents think, great, and they want to be so supportive.

[10:07] Jessie Janowitz: And then kids change so much so fast and they don't understand why. And their parents all of a sudden are all in on their gymnastics trophies, bowling trophies, soccer games, whatever it is that it's really hard for kids to tell the truth.

[10:24] Jessie Janowitz: And I had never seen a book that had dealt with that.

[10:28] Jessie Janowitz: And I was like, wow, if I can show a family struggle with that and I can show a kid dealing with that, I think that could be really beneficial. And so that's where Milo is.

[10:40] Jessie Janowitz: You know, he can't tell his mom that he doesn't want to play chess anymore.

[10:44] Jessie Janowitz: And he's also in this, Children that age may suddenly feel different without knowing why. Their clothes no longer fit, and they may not yet have the language to explain what is happening.

[11:03] Jessie Janowitz: They may not even have the language to talk about it because they do not yet understand it themselves. That is where Milo is.

[11:09] Jessie Janowitz: But Milo is a pleaser, which, you know, lots of good kids are. I do a lot of school visits. And when I say, I ask children whether they have ever told a white lie to avoid hurting someone they love, and they all raise their hands.

[11:30] Jessie Janowitz: On the one hand, we always tell our kids, well, you always have to tell the truth, and we really value honesty. But at the same time, your kids observe you not telling the truth all the time.

[11:40] Jessie Janowitz: “I love that sweater.”

[11:41] Jessie Janowitz: “That was really delicious.” Whatever it is, communication is complicated in that way. Milo’s mind is always turning.

[11:52] Jessie Janowitz: For example, Milo is always thinking, “How will what I say affect the person I am speaking to?” Then he meets Roxie, who is exactly the opposite: she has no filter and cannot understand why anyone would avoid telling the truth.

[12:07] Jessie Janowitz: And so these really awkward situations develop.

[12:10] Jessie Janowitz: I thought it was really important to have a character like Roxie, because the other thing that I've seen as a parent and in schools is there are certain social skills that somehow a majority of people pick up without being told.

[12:27] Jessie Janowitz: But there are lots of kids who are very smart and who just don't pick up on them, right? And they don't get it, and no one knows why, and no one talks about it.

[12:37] Jessie Janowitz: And so I wanted to, like, create a space where it was okay to say, “Wait, I do not understand. Why can I not stand that close to you? Why am I making you uncomfortable?”

[12:47] Jessie Janowitz: Why do I have to say thank you when you're not really complimenting me? Why do I have to? And so Roxie recognizes this and puts everything into rules and tries to, like, organize her life that way.

[12:59] Jessie Janowitz: And so, in terms of character development, Roxie learns a little bit from Milo about how to maybe be a little bit more empathetic. And Milo learns from Roxie that you can't really be yourself if you're not being honest, if you're not being true to yourself.

[13:18] Travis: There are a couple of pieces of terminology in the book that help signal these ideas to the reader.

[13:29] Travis: She's like, I don't understand the rules. What are the rules? And then you see Milo trying to help her along the way.

[13:35] Travis: But then for Milo, there's this concept that I really liked, how you built it up over the book, which is, man, he's having such a hard time dealing with his feelings about losing interest in chess. And why is that? And then really not wanting to disappoint his mom.

[13:52] Travis: That theme reaches an important climax and resolution near the end of the book.

[14:05] Travis: And then you have the zone. Can you just give us a little sense for like, what that might mean?

[14:10] Jessie Janowitz: Sure.

[14:11] Jessie Janowitz: I wanted a word for the feeling we get when we are doing something we love and everything else disappears. It does not have to be chess or Go, but when that feeling goes away, it's devastating.

[14:32] Jessie Janowitz: If you love something and it provided everything for you, you were in the zone and then you can't get back there and you can't even describe why.

[14:40] Jessie Janowitz: You know, when I write and it's going, well, I'm in the zone, I can't tell you why I can't get there sometimes, and it's super frustrating.

[14:49] Jessie Janowitz: But I thought that was something that people could really relate to.

[14:53] Jessie Janowitz: I like giving kids the opportunity to recognize a feeling or a phenomenon as it's described in the book. And I'll often give it like its own name. But I don't like labeling things in the way that they're labeled in the real world because I think kids, they have all these like, preconceived conceptions of like, what that label denotes. And it was actually really interesting. I had a great school visit in New Hampshire with a fourth grade class that apparently was super into games.

[15:26] Jessie Janowitz: The teacher had read the entire book to them. One of the kids parents had bought them a Go board.

[15:31] Jessie Janowitz: They were already playing.

[15:33] Jessie Janowitz: I came in and sat down with them, and they wanted me to play Go with them, which was so cool. One of the kids showed me how to hold the Go stone correctly. It was the best.

[15:45] Jessie Janowitz: And the thing that was particularly good was it wasn't just like the kids who were into games were playing. It was the whole class had clearly like gotten into this.

[15:54] Jessie Janowitz: As we were playing, they were asking me questions about the book. And one of the questions they asked me was, is Roxie autistic?

[16:00] Travis: That makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. What did you say?

[16:03] Jessie Janowitz: I said, well, what do you think?

[16:07] Jessie Janowitz: And they said, well, yeah, she kind of does seem autistic. And they were like, so why wouldn't you just say that? And I said, because does it matter?

[16:15] Jessie Janowitz: Do you need that word to understand what Roxie is or doing? And they were like, no, we guess not.

[16:22] Jessie Janowitz: And then the other thing one of the kids said, The title, All the Ways to Go—does it mean all the ways a person can go, or all the ways to play the game of Go? Another child said, “It is a metaphor. It means both.”

[16:38] Travis: It must have been so fun to like, watch that all unravel right in front of you, right? Like, that's probably like what you're looking for right out of the authorship of this.

[16:47] Travis: Just to draw that connection. I was listening to an interview with Paul Simon right first. So for anybody that's in the English speaking world, Paul Simon is just like one of the greatest, well known artists out there, musicians.

[16:57] Travis: But one thing the interviewer asked Paul Simon is they said, paul, when you perform these songs, what are you thinking of? And like, how are you performing it? How are you making sure you perform it a certain way? And he kind of said, well, listen, there's a song that it might be the most famous song, and I've sung it a million times.

[17:16] Travis: And what I end up finding is that I can't sing it and have it mean the same thing every time, because I'm in a completely different place in life every single time I'm singing it.

[17:27] Travis: And I need to go somewhere different.

[17:29] Travis: And in the same way, when people ask me about my songs and they're like, yeah, what does this mean? What does that mean? It's kind of like me asking you this question.

[17:38] Travis: You're like, hey, Travis, that's a great question.

[17:40] Travis: You have something that you might have in mind when you're constructing it as the author, but probably there's a huge joy in you saying, you know what? I don't want to put that label on it. I want your imagination and your mind as the reader to take over and go different places.

[17:54] Travis: Does that resonate?

[17:56] Jessie Janowitz: Absolutely. I think labels like that are very othering.

[18:00] Jessie Janowitz: On the one hand, I think it is wonderful that neurodivergence and learning differences are better understood and less taboo.

[18:13] Jessie Janowitz: I was doing writing workshops with the kids and they were doing character creation. And I said, can you think of a character, a book that you really connected to?

[18:24] Jessie Janowitz: One boy raised his hand and said, “Percy Jackson.” I asked why, and he replied, “Because he has dyslexia and ADHD just like me.”

[18:33] Travis: Wow.

[18:33] Jessie Janowitz: There was no stigma, and it was wonderful. I love that we now live in a world where that is possible.

[18:41] Jessie Janowitz: However, as a kid who has learning differences, there are so many different traits that form that diagnosis and that person. And you can't understand a person just by knowing that diagnosis.

[19:01] Jessie Janowitz: Being present and truly communicating with someone requires us to put those labels aside and listen.

[19:14] Jessie Janowitz: I don't know if you remember at the beginning of the book when they go to the camp, there's a very well meaning camp counselor who is in, you know, education school and is trying to do his best, but he is approaching Roxie with kind of like a one size fits all.

[19:29] Jessie Janowitz: You need to feel what they're feeling. Well, that's not how Roxie's built. So, yeah, I really try to get kids to be present in that way. Labeling is like putting someone at arm's length always in my understanding of it.

[19:45] Jessie Janowitz: And if I make up a word, I'm very into making up words.

[19:49] Jessie Janowitz: I make up a word and I build it from the ground up so that I have this language that the kids then, the readers then, and I understand.

[19:58] Jessie Janowitz: I think it gives them an opportunity to have a more complex and more in depth understanding of something.

[20:05] Travis: Another big theme in the book is this concept of riskiness and connectedness.

[20:11] Travis: You weave through the different characters and sort of storylines, these concepts that link back to Go really well. Because I think a lot of us as Go enthusiasts, we're playing the game and we're seeing these very simple relationships form that then form into more complex dynamics.

[20:28] Travis: And we're like, oh, my gosh, you know, this is so much like things in real life.

[20:32] Travis: And for example, right? Even something as simple as, okay, I'm going to play on this part of the board. And by the way, I really want to give you kudos for the way that you try to describe what's happening in a game.

[20:45] Travis: It's really hard to do, right? I mean, just with words, without visuals is tough. And I also want to give you credit for the header of each chapter is A Move in a game of Go.

[20:57] Travis: And I loved that. I thought that was so much fun to have with me along the way. And anyways, in those moments on the board, you're constantly trying to decide, is a group strong or is it weak?

[21:08] Travis: Right? And should I go after a group or not?

[21:10] Travis: And you're constantly trying to figure out like, okay, do I need to stay connected and safe or do I need to kind of Go out and take a risk and see what happens.

[21:18] Travis: And so there are these moments in the storyline where we see this with Milo's character and with figuring out if he should tell his mom about the situation with Chess or Roxie with should I go to school or should I really make the case for being homeschooled?

[21:34] Travis: Can you tell us a little Bit more about, you know, how you were trying to weave that together. I mean, was it just something that sort of happened as you were building out every underlying storyline, or was that something that was very intentional?

[21:46] Jessie Janowitz: Some things you get to the end of the book and you're like, oh, wow, cool.

[21:50] Travis: I didn't realize this had happened.

[21:52] Jessie Janowitz: Yeah, that was much more like an, oh, wow, cool.

[21:55] Jessie Janowitz: Okay, got it. And I saw it more as I got to the end, and it built itself naturally. As Roxie and Milo understand the game more and the reader understands the game more, then it was easier to kind of make those connections.

[22:13] Jessie Janowitz: The idea of connectedness was something that was always there from the beginning.

[22:19] Jessie Janowitz: Like, in terms of what was most intentional was the idea of having Milo be in touch with his grandmother so closely through text.

[22:32] Jessie Janowitz: And my initial ideas about connectedness in the book related to being present.

[22:40] Jessie Janowitz: That was something that was intentional from the beginning. Part of the reason that I think kids playing games or reading books or playing musical instruments, you can't be in the zone.

[22:52] Jessie Janowitz: You can't be connected to anything if you're multitasking. Right.

[22:56] Jessie Janowitz: If I am watching Grey’s Anatomy for the fifteenth time while playing Spelling Bee on my phone, or if my daughter—who is obsessed with the card game SET and may become its first professional player—is playing on an app, do you know the game SET?

[23:11] Travis: I don't.

[23:11] Jessie Janowitz: SET is an amazing pattern-recognition game.

[23:15] Travis: Oh, cool.

[23:16] Jessie Janowitz: You gotta go out and get the cards. You gotta teach your kid how to play. It's a beautiful.

[23:21] Jessie Janowitz: My daughter's obsessed with it. There's an app for it. But my point is that when she's doing that, she's not really fully engaged. She's not really fully connected or present with anything.

[23:31] Jessie Janowitz: And so it doesn't give the same catharsis, imagination. Like, she's not really in the zone of everything. Unlike when she plays the piano, for example. And she'll say, it's like therapy, because when I'm playing the piano, I can't do anything else.

[23:46] Jessie Janowitz: I have to be reading the notes. I have to be playing the keys. I've got to be.

[23:50] Jessie Janowitz: And what I love about the physical game of Go, and the same thing I would argue goes to reading a book, is that you can't multitask. And it is engaging your eyes.

[24:02] Jessie Janowitz: If you're holding a book, your hands, your imagination.

[24:06] Jessie Janowitz: So this idea of being present and connected was very much a part of discovering the game of Go and games in general.

[24:17] Jessie Janowitz: It was also Connected to the idea of discovering books in the library.

[24:22] Jessie Janowitz: You know, the feelings of the stones in Go, the feelings of the books. I think what we don't realize, whether it's physically playing a game of Go or it's walking through a library, when we're doing something that is engaging as many senses as possible, we're more present. And therefore, I believe we open ourselves up to a more complex connection.

[24:44] Jessie Janowitz: So that was something that was intentional at the beginning. The connection between in Go, we're trying to find this balance between connectedness and risk only really came out when I was going through reading about the myths of the creation of Go, and I was like, oh.

[24:58] Jessie Janowitz: And then it kind of fell into the book.

[25:01] Travis: And I love it because you did a really nice job researching for the book about Go. So I saw in some of the books that they found Milo and Roxie in the library, some of the books.

[25:13] Travis: I was like, oh, yeah, I know that book. Right? I know that now.

[25:16] Travis: Right after reading it, I looked up one of the titles: Go and the Meaning of Life. Is that a real book?

[25:24] Travis: No, I wanted it so bad. So I was like, okay, I think it's made up. That was actually really well done. Because I think the people that do know Go, they're like, yes, I know that book.

[25:36] Travis: Tell me about how you thought about explaining how to play this game. Because you put it in different spots in the book. You know, whether it's about capturing or what a tiger's mouth is or these sorts of things.

[25:49] Travis: And a lot of the conversation that I find in the Go community, and maybe you do, too, is like, when you have a beginner and how you get them into the game.

[25:57] Travis: This book could be a really nice way to get kids into the game.

[26:02] Travis: What was that thought process like? Was it saying, okay, I'm just going to see where the storyline goes and find opportunities to bring in the basic elements of how the game is played.

[26:11] Travis: Or was it something else?

[26:13] Jessie Janowitz: So, a couple of things. First thing I want to say, because I don't want to forget, there aren't that many people who get the headings of the chapters. And so I feel like, for the people who mention it, I was at an American Go Association event in D.C. And there was a South Korean man who was so excited about the headings, and he was like. And they were really good players. Like, where did that game come from?

[26:36] Travis: That looked like a Japanese game. Very aesthetically pleasing. Like, really pretty. Do you have a source for that game.

[26:45] Jessie Janowitz: So, yeah, so I was gonna. It's like an Easter egg. In the book, there is still a Go club at Saint Ann's and I had the idea that the chapter headings could be a game that advances stone by stone as each chapter.

[27:00] Travis: Genius.

[27:01] Jessie Janowitz: Paul left the school after his son got sick.

[27:04] Jessie Janowitz: There's a new head of the Go club who was kind of trained by Paul. His name is Nick. And I emailed Nick, and I was like, I'm writing this book.

[27:12] Jessie Janowitz: I think he thinks I'm crazy. And he was like, how could you write a book? You're not a great Go player. Like, how? And I was like, but I have this idea about the chapter headings.

[27:19] Jessie Janowitz: I asked whether I could visit a Go club, record the moves, and send them to the production team at the publishing house. He immediately said no.

[27:28] Jessie Janowitz: It should be like, our best players.

[27:31] Jessie Janowitz: So he recorded the best two Saint Ann's players playing the first 54 moves or whatever of a game that they played.

[27:41] Jessie Janowitz: And I love that, the connection to Saint Ann's and. And everything. And my love that it's something that at least people who play Go get a lot of pleasure out of.

[27:52] Jessie Janowitz: So it was great.

[27:53] Travis: Did you get any comments from. When you went down to D.C. and things. Did anybody say anything about the quality of the game?

[27:59] Jessie Janowitz: Yes. This guy was like, this is a really, really great game.

[28:02] Travis: That matters because most media that shows Go gets the board positions completely wrong. These looked authentic, so very well done.

[28:14] Jessie Janowitz: Figuring out how to introduce Go relied heavily on my own experience. That really relied on my experience.

[28:25] Jessie Janowitz: One of the great things about being at a huge research university is that there are all these amazing people around, like, really different people, and they're so into whatever they're doing that if you just listen, they'll tell you. And there's, like, these libraries that have tons of books that no one ever looks for anymore. And especially in today's age, where, like, we all spend way too much time just looking at a computer screen, I thought, well, this is a great opportunity.

[28:57] Jessie Janowitz: That would be an easy way to discover Go, because things can happen on a university campus that, like, wouldn't happen in real life.

[29:07] Jessie Janowitz: Everyone understands that they're there for a particular reason. Like, there's more natural interaction, there's more trust.

[29:15] Jessie Janowitz: It was actually really Funny. With the first draft, just for your listeners who haven't read the book. Milo discovers this game from graduate students who are playing, and he and Roxie kind of nag them into showing them the game.

[29:27] Jessie Janowitz: They're neuroscience PhD students.

[29:30] Jessie Janowitz: And that I ended up putting in the book because I had discovered all this incredible stuff. There's all this research about how playing Go, like, changes your brain structures. And I was like, oh, well, that's so cool.

[29:42] Jessie Janowitz: And so I thought, well, that was great. I'll have them talk to these graduate students.

[29:46] Jessie Janowitz: And I have no idea where my editor or the assistant editor went to college, but maybe they went to college in a city. But they were kind of like, wouldn't that be weird?

[29:56] Jessie Janowitz: They are talking with adults on the campus even though they are supposed to be at camp. I thought that would not seem especially strange at Princeton.

[30:06] Jessie Janowitz: I think in the book, I ended up adding that the head of the camp lives on the same graduate hall as a graduate student, so he knows that they're okay.

[30:16] Jessie Janowitz: So it took 10 years for me to figure out how to, like, make a kid discover the game in a way that was gonna make sense, especially because just writing about a game, I didn't want people to get bored.

[30:29] Jessie Janowitz: And, like. So, yeah, it was a complicated process.

[30:34] Jessie Janowitz: I had long been a fan of The Queen’s Gambit, the novel. You know, and it's so funny because when the movie came out or the series, everyone's like, oh, the Queen's Gambit. I was like, do you know how old that book is?

[30:46] Travis: Oh, seriously? I had no idea.

[30:48] Jessie Janowitz: Like, high school. And it just shows you. Like, it takes so long to get any project really going, whether you're a filmmaker or a writer. But I really loved. I wasn't a chess player.

[30:59] Jessie Janowitz: And I remember in high school being like, it was, like, just enough of chess in there for me to be interested in, but not too much. So that, in my head, was kind of a model.

[31:10] Jessie Janowitz: The president of the American Go Association has been extraordinarily supportive, and he sees the book as an opportunity to interest children in Go.

[31:22] Jessie Janowitz: Besides the fact that he was like, it's not wrong, and it's not too complicated, and it's not like he was very excited. And I said, it helps that I'm really a beginner, too.

[31:32] Jessie Janowitz: I think if I were a really advanced player, it would have been really hard for me.

[31:38] Jessie Janowitz: My other two books for middle schoolers are about a boy who's really into baking and starts his own donut business. And people are always like, well, are you a huge baker?

[31:46] Jessie Janowitz: And it's like, well, actually I learned to bake with my kids. My mom didn't bake, I didn't bake a chocolate chip cookie till I was an adult. And I think that writing about something that I don't know really well makes it easier for me to retain that childlike discovery.

[32:03] Jessie Janowitz: When diagrams in the book show Milo puzzling through positions, I thought young readers would need some visual help to understand what was happening.

[32:16] Travis: At the end of the book. What I love is you give a little. This is how Go is played. These are some of the rules. Here are some resources like, that was so wonderful that whoever comes upon the book really has that to go off and give them, you know, a chance to do it. And I just want to say that I really understand where you're coming from in the sense of sometimes when we're so advanced in something, we forget what it's like to go through those beginning experiences and make those connections for the first time.

[32:44] Travis: And that's particularly difficult when you're a teacher, you're teaching something and you know, you know that thing so well, you forget it.

[32:51] Jessie Janowitz: One discovery and journey that was especially meaningful to me came when my family and I visited Japan. I had already written the book, though it had not yet been published, and I arranged a visit with a Go organization in Tokyo.

[33:07] Jessie Janowitz: I got an appointment and went with the president, who met me with a guide and translator. It felt like some version of Candid Camera.

[33:17] Jessie Janowitz: When I explained what I was doing, he kept giving me these weird looks. And it was only when I mentioned the surrounding game, the film, that he was like, oh, okay.

[33:31] Jessie Janowitz: Then he took my family all around and it was amazing. We saw incredible things. We went into the professional ceremonial Go room. He had my kids sit. It was incredible.

[33:43] Jessie Janowitz: And nobody visits, but on the main floor it was all these tables with mostly men, some women, septuagenarians, octogenarians, playing Go. They came there, it was open play and my kids were there.

[33:58] Jessie Janowitz: And this 80 year old man, spoke no English, came over and asked my son to play Go.

[34:05] Jessie Janowitz: And without any English, you know, he would say no, it was a teaching game. And I have this amazing picture of him, you know, shaking Leo's hand at the end.

[34:14] Jessie Janowitz: And I was like, that was it. That was, you know, making this connection.

[34:18] Jessie Janowitz: And the other thing that I saw through my kids that was so important to me is that all three of my kids are really different learners.

[34:29] Jessie Janowitz: All three of my children enjoyed Go.

[34:32] Jessie Janowitz: My middle son is not the mathy one, but he was so game to play Go with this guy. But when I came back and the book was coming out and people were connecting me to the Go community, I. I was feeling really nervous that maybe someone was going to feel like this was like cultural appropriation in some way.

[34:51] Jessie Janowitz: Maybe I. They thought I didn't know enough, that it was the height of arrogance. And I was so nervous. So I was so grateful when I met people who are from those communities who appreciated it.

[35:04] Jessie Janowitz: But it went even farther, which is that, you know, I go to book festivals and families walk around. There are only kids books and families walk around. And I have met several families where one or both of the parents are South Korean, Chinese, Japanese.

[35:21] Jessie Janowitz: And they have traumatic experiences of their parents trying to teach them how to play Go.

[35:28] Jessie Janowitz: Because in their home it was like super competitive and super structured and not about the connection, but about winning and like, you had to do this and like then you were going to go to school to do it and.

[35:39] Jessie Janowitz: And they were flooded with this nostalgia, but also like, oh, I could introduce my kid to this in a way that isn't gonna be really traumatic. Like, thank you, this is great. Like a woman who had a two year old bought the book. Cause she was so excited for when her daughter got older to be able to like reconnect in this way.

[35:59] Jessie Janowitz: So that's just something unusual and another like, gift that I never would have guessed.

[36:05] Travis: And how would you have known that? Right. Just to hear that those experiences and that expectation was happening in those households. So that's really powerful.

[36:12] Travis: Maybe we could start to close the conversation by taking this experience you've had and writing this book.

[36:19] Travis: What advice do you give for the community and for sort of the population in general on how to get others into the game? How would you articulate how to help people get others into the game when the opportunity presents itself?

[36:33] Jessie Janowitz: I think one of the best things we can do as a family is learn something together.

[36:40] Jessie Janowitz: It doesn't have to be competitive to start out. So like, if you download an app, you can talk about it together and you learn together.

[36:50] Jessie Janowitz: That way, it is not a matter of an adult possessing information and imparting it to a child. There is an incredible experience when adults and children learn on the same plane.

[37:02] Jessie Janowitz: When I went to this event in D.C., one of the things that I found like, so emotional was the range of ages of people there was just enormous. They were all playing together.

[37:16] Jessie Janowitz: And in American society, there are so few opportunities for multi generational interaction.

[37:22] Jessie Janowitz: It's interesting. I just got an email from a mom who's a homeschooler and she said they, She and her children listened to the audiobook of All the Ways to Go and then began playing Go together.

[37:34] Jessie Janowitz: So I do think there may be enough Go in the book to start out playing really basic capture Go, which I do think is a really great way to start.

[37:43] Jessie Janowitz: But if you live in like a major city center, there are Go clubs everywhere and they all have like an open session and they're so excited to have you come.

[37:53] Jessie Janowitz: I think that's a great in person.

[37:55] Jessie Janowitz: I strongly believe in-person family activities—everyone showing up, eating pizza, and playing pair Go.

[38:17] Travis: Jessie, I just want to say that this was such a fun and wonderful book. I love its themes and the way you masterfully weave Go into the story.

[38:26] Travis: It's going to be one of those great ways that we can now introduce it to the community.

[38:30] Travis: Everyone should read All the Ways to Go.

[38:34] Travis: Yeah. I want to really just thank you for your time.

[38:36] Jessie Janowitz: Thank you so much. This was really fun.

Sponsors

[39:02] Travis: We're taking a quick break to say thank you to our individual sponsors for the show. It really helps and I appreciate it. We also want to talk about the sponsors for this episode.

[39:11] Travis: The first sponsor is SmartGo One, a complete app for the game of Go. You can learn to play, practice against the computer, do a whole bunch of other things, including reading GoBooks that have been digitized. What I love about it is that you actually have these diagrams in the books that have been remade so that you can interact with them and actually play different lines.

[39:32] Travis: SmartGo One is available in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. GoBooks titles are also available in EPUB format for other devices.

[39:41] Travis: AI Sensei also sponsors this episode. Its advanced AI can analyze your games, identify major mistakes, and provide human-like bots at different strengths. Visit ai-sensei.com.

[40:00] Travis: Go Magic also sponsors the episode. Its online platform includes problems and courses covering the opening, middlegame, endgame, and many other areas.

[40:14] Travis: Visit gomagic.org. The final sponsor is BadukPop, an app where players of any level can solve Go problems, take interactive lessons, and play people around the world.

[40:28] Travis: Find it at badukpop.com or through your app store.

[40:38] Travis: With that, we will continue the episode. Thanks for your patience.

Isaac Machado: Reaching 1-dan in One Year

[40:45] Travis: We are going to shift gears and talk with someone I learned about through r/baduk.

[40:53] Travis: He accomplished the remarkable feat of reaching 1-dan within one year. I reached out to Isaac Machado—using the American pronunciation of his name—and he was super willing to chat and talk and told me all about his process, what it was like, some lessons he learned along the way.

[41:16] Travis: Let us jump into that conversation.

[41:21] Travis: Thanks for coming on Isaac. So maybe we can just get started and have a conversation first. You know, I found out about you, as I think a lot of people did, through Reddit and through your post.

[41:34] Travis: Would you be willing to just kind of give us a little bit of a summary of what you said in the post?

[41:40] Isaac Machado: Yeah, so in the post, basically I explain my whole journey since I began playing, which was about a year and two months ago now, I also discuss the challenges I encountered, tournaments I attended, and how I ultimately reached 1-dan within a year—a goal many people in the Go community think about.

[42:08] Isaac Machado: So I thought some people would be interested in me sharing how I did it and the whole story.

[42:16] Travis: And so as you provided that information in your post, you also just gave some of the details. You also very openly asked what people thought about your thinking about trying to become a professional player.

[42:32] Travis: And there was some really helpful posts, helpful responses from other people, and then certainly some less helpful ones too. But tell me a little bit about what the process was like going through that year and starting to learn and then finding you're interested and then how did you go from there?

[42:54] Isaac Machado: Yeah, so I first learned about Go through just a YouTube video that popped up in my field, I used to be very interested in chess and played it frequently.

[43:06] Isaac Machado: At that time, I was becoming bored with chess. When I saw the video, I wondered whether Go could replace it for me.

[43:15] Isaac Machado: The video explained the rules, and I learned how to play from it.

[43:20] Isaac Machado: I signed up for OGS, played a couple of games, and was almost instantly addicted to Go.

[43:28] Isaac Machado: I kept playing and found the game fascinating and enjoyable.

[43:33] Isaac Machado: That led me to join my local club. Decided to go there a couple times every week, and I ended up signing up for my home city's tournament just a few months later.

[43:49] Isaac Machado: I think I was 17-kyu at the time.

[43:53] Isaac Machado: And, you know, I just kept getting more and more into the game. I ended up making a lot of friends through it.

[44:01] Isaac Machado: And I just got sucked into this community.

[44:05] Isaac Machado: At some point, I saw that I was having some really good improvement.

[44:11] Isaac Machado: And so I decided to see, you know, if you want to become a pro, how good does your improvement have to be?

[44:19] Isaac Machado: And everyone always, When I searched online, people often described reaching 1-dan within one year as the gold standard.

[44:24] Travis: That's right.

[44:25] Isaac Machado: The gold standard.

[44:27] Isaac Machado: I decided to try for that goal and see whether I was capable of going farther.

[44:34] Isaac Machado: I kept improving, and eventually I reached that goal in January.

[44:38] Isaac Machado: I was able to do it.

[44:40] Travis: Wow. Well, first of all, congratulations. That's an incredible achievement.

[44:45] Travis: And what was nice about your post was that it didn't seem like you were really there to brag.

[44:53] Travis: What came across was also that you were trying to just think through.

[44:57] Travis: This was a challenge I gave to myself.

[45:00] Travis: I didn't know if I could achieve it. You could still love playing Go, but not achieve those sorts of things.

[45:06] Travis: But you did achieve it. And now you're sort of saying, okay, what's next?

[45:11] Travis: If we just for a moment talk about sort of outside of Go.

[45:15] Travis: My understanding is that you're about 17 years old and you graduated from sort of high school at what, 16?

[45:25] Isaac Machado: Yes. Technically, I think I was 15 at the time.

[45:30] Travis: You graduated quite young, then began university studies in physics. Is that right?

[45:41] Travis: What happened at that point? I think you said that there was a little bit of burnout, perhaps.

[45:47] Isaac Machado: Yeah.

[45:48] Isaac Machado: So my whole life I've been really interested in physics. It's always the career I've gone towards.

[45:56] Isaac Machado: And I was actually really enjoying my first year of physics.

[45:59] Isaac Machado: But I found the academic side tiring after so many years. Graduating early had required an enormous amount of study.

[46:19] Isaac Machado: And I felt maybe a bit at the time that I had used all of my time just to focus on this academic aspect of my life. And then maybe I didn't focus so much on other stuff.

[46:31] Isaac Machado: So for me, the way I saw it is that, you know, I have these two extra years of time that I gained by putting this effort.

[46:39] Isaac Machado: I wondered whether I could use that extra time for something else.

[46:43] Isaac Machado: I decided to step away from university for a while and focus on Go.

[46:47] Travis: I really like how you talked about how you're very comfortable looking at alternatives and other options and choices in life.

[46:56] Travis: And I think that's also a microcosm of Go, it seems, because when you're playing Go and something's happening on the board and maybe you wanted to build territory or strength or influence in one part of the board, and maybe the opponent plays something that might change those plans, you have to very quickly pivot and try something else and really go with the flow.

[47:21] Travis: How was the response and what was your reaction when you heard some of the different questions and responses on your post? Some people said, that's great. You have extra time. You know, you're clearly very smart, very intelligent.

[47:36] Travis: Why not, right? Like, give it a try.

[47:38] Travis: It sounded like other people had different opinions. So can you just tell us a little bit about that?

[47:44] Isaac Machado: The main response was that I should not even think about trying to become a professional.

[47:52] Isaac Machado: I expected that response.

[47:55] Isaac Machado: With this goal of reaching 1-dan, I had looked at other posts on the subreddit where people asked about doing something similar.

[48:09] Isaac Machado: Do not even think about it. It is impossible to make a living from Go, and you are only going to have a bad time.

[48:15] Travis: Right?

[48:17] Isaac Machado: I expected that kind of response. The top comment was from a 6- or 7-dan player who had also studied with Alexandre Dinerchtein, and he said essentially the same thing.

[48:30] Isaac Machado: I understood those comments and partly agreed with them. But if I never try, I will never know whether this path is possible.

[48:47] Isaac Machado: On the other hand, many people saw the potential for me to continue improving, perhaps becoming a professional or a strong amateur player.

[48:57] Isaac Machado: I appreciated that encouragement.

[49:01] Isaac Machado: One thing I found a bit funny is that I asked three questions on my post.

[49:05] Isaac Machado: One of them was if maybe I was deciding to go professional a bit prematurely, which most people answered.

[49:12] Isaac Machado: But the other two, in typical Reddit fashion, which I was expecting, no one even talked about, they just answer the first question and that's it.

[49:23] Travis: The other question I knew was would anybody be interested in learning about my journey and getting updates? Right. That was one. What was the other one?

[49:32] Isaac Machado: The other question was about different Go academies and resources for players who wanted to study in Asia.

[49:46] Travis: Understood.

[49:47] Travis: Some people, though, said even if you have some time now, this is such a critical time, it's such an important time where you can capitalize on things.

[49:56] Travis: Why try to go for becoming professional? And I think what I understand, or what I think you might have been saying is that you do show a passion for the game. You have to if you're playing that much.

[50:11] Travis: The question is how different is that from becoming a professional, which is obviously on another level. So do you think you would still love the game, enjoy the game, even if you discover that the professional path doesn't work for you?

[50:26] Isaac Machado: For me, becoming a professional is not the most important part. My broader goal is to make a living from Go, which may be even more difficult.

[50:42] Isaac Machado: Even if becoming a professional is not possible for me, I personally know some mid-dan players in Europe who are able to earn at least part of their living from Go.

[50:55] Isaac Machado: They scrape by, basically.

[50:57] Travis: Sure, sure.

[50:58] Isaac Machado: They may not make a full living, but they are able to earn something from Go.

[51:02] Isaac Machado: And that's more what I'm looking for at this point rather than just being a professional. I think maybe a lot of people focused on that because it's the big headline thing.

[51:13] Isaac Machado: Right? But it's not really my main goal. I just think getting to that level is necessary to actually make a living.

[51:23] Travis: If I may, Isaac, I wanted to ask you a little bit about a really nice response you had to someone on the post you provided that was just asking about what some of your learning process was, how many hours a day you were playing, Were you playing mostly games? Were you studying professional games? I think you gave a really nice response. You talked about trying to spend around six to eight hours per day.

[51:52] Travis: You take the weekends off.

[51:54] Travis: You talk about doing tsumego in the beginning of the day and then doing games primarily and reviewing them not only with AI but reviewing them with your teacher.

[52:04] Travis: One thing I think that stuck with me and I think you got nice responses from, was your point about how important it is to take a break.

[52:14] Travis: Can you speak to that a little bit?

[52:17] Isaac Machado: Yeah. So I think a lot of people maybe take the game too seriously and they can sometimes get really tired because of this, or they can get angry from losing a game maybe, or sad.

[52:31] Isaac Machado: And mainly what I refer to is these kinds of situations when you aren't actually enjoying the game, you just have to take a break.

[52:40] Isaac Machado: Because a lot of people, me included, for example, what happens is that we lose a game and then immediately we queue up to play another one and we don't even check why we lost.

[52:50] Isaac Machado: We don't do anything. We just go and play the exact same game, but now we are mad and we play even worse and we lose again and again.

[52:59] Isaac Machado: I just think it's important to try to consciously think that you're actually getting into this. You're getting mad, you're getting.

[53:07] Isaac Machado: In the video game world, we usually say tilted right and just stop, leave the game for maybe a day or two and then come back.

[53:18] Isaac Machado: But also more long term breaks. So maybe this doesn't happen for most people, but if you're putting a lot of hours into the game, there were some times where I just couldn't concentrate on my games if I spent too much time on it. And it was impossible to actually get a good quality game.

[53:36] Isaac Machado: So at the point I knew that I just had to stop, leave the game and maybe come back in a week or two and then keep playing again.

[53:44] Travis: I appreciate you sharing that because I don't think I always hear a lot of higher level players talk about the psychology of the game and how you should be handling your emotions, because emotions are very important.

[53:59] Travis: We all want to win every game, but that's not reality.

[54:04] Travis: Even if you're playing somebody of equal strength, theoretically you might only win half the time and that's somebody of equal strength.

[54:12] Travis: Are there any techniques that you use? I mean, beyond just stepping away?

[54:17] Isaac Machado: Mainly, I leave the game alone for a while and then return to it. Even though I am trying to take Go seriously, it still has to remain enjoyable.

[54:29] Isaac Machado: It's just a game.

[54:31] Isaac Machado: There is no single match important enough to stay angry about for a long time.

[54:38] Isaac Machado: Maybe at the top professional level, but for us, nothing like that.

[54:43] Travis: Got it?

[54:45] Travis: In a perfect world, suppose you could pursue every part of this Go career that interests you.

[54:56] Travis: Do you think it would look like doing teaching, That might include pursuing professional status, whether through the European Go Federation or elsewhere.

[55:07] Travis: And then do you think you would still combine that with other interests, like back to the world of academia with physics or something else? I mean, what are your thoughts at this point?

[55:19] Isaac Machado: Ideally, I would enjoy making a living through teaching and tournament play.

[55:27] Isaac Machado: Only a small percentage of players can live from tournament prizes in Europe because the prize pools are small.

[55:36] Isaac Machado: But even teaching, I really enjoy teaching, both in Go and in other fields. I've always really enjoyed it.

[55:43] Isaac Machado: Ideally, that would be my work. If I became a professional and still had time outside that career, I would also like to return to physics and perhaps earn a degree in it. Something that I've always really enjoyed.

[56:05] Travis: Tell me a little bit about the unexpected parts of being in the Go community or playing Go that you have enjoyed. Like you mentioned the social side of things. So can you just tell us what has that experience been like and was it a pleasant surprise or were you expecting to find, you know, friends and community?

[56:28] Isaac Machado: Yeah, I think definitely the most surprising thing was the whole community aspect in chess. I think we're maybe not so close. Also, it's a much bigger community here in Europe, right?

[56:41] Isaac Machado: Because there are fewer Go players, I think we need to maintain closer-knit communities.

[56:48] Isaac Machado: And so it wasn't really something I was looking for initially, this kind of thing, but made the whole experience much more enjoyable.

[56:56] Isaac Machado: Not just from the side of actually socializing, It also helped me improve faster because stronger players could explain my mistakes and show me which moves were better.

[57:15] Isaac Machado: I think it is beneficial to have a closer community within Go.

[57:21] Travis: It makes a lot of sense. And I heard you say in your post and other people say that AI is really helpful, Having a strong player, teacher, or several people offer advice about a position or move can also help build a more complete understanding of your game.

[57:47] Isaac Machado: People often ask me about studying with AI. Both AI and human teaching are necessary, at some point I think AI becomes more useful.

[58:06] Isaac Machado: Human guidance is especially important for beginners, including double-digit kyu players and weaker single-digit kyu players. AI does not explain why a move is good or bad, and it's often really difficult to understand, even at a higher level the sequences AI plays.

[58:27] Isaac Machado: So a lot of people just put their game into AI and just trust blindly what the computer says, Right?

[58:34] Travis: Of course, yeah.

[58:36] Isaac Machado: An AI may recommend a move that resembles joseki but is correct only in that specific position.

[58:44] Isaac Machado: And then people just say, oh, it must be joseki move.

[58:47] Isaac Machado: So in that sense it's really important to have another human player.

[58:51] Isaac Machado: At around 3-kyu and above, you can probably review most games with AI. When a position is especially complex and the AI gives an incomprehensible variation, Then you should go to the human player so he can explain.

[59:12] Travis: Interesting.

[59:13] Travis: Isaac. No, this is great. I really appreciate you taking some time to tell me about your situation, your journey so far.

[59:21] Travis: Is there anything that you wanted to say before we left or talk about?

[59:28] Isaac Machado: Well, I did.

[59:30] Isaac Machado: I want to thank my teacher, Alexandre Dinerchtein, because he was very supportive when I made the post.

[59:38] Isaac Machado: He himself made an article talking about it and all that and he has been really supportive throughout this whole journey. So I just wanted to thank him.

TelegraphGo on Playing Styles

[01:00:07] Travis: Our final conversation for the episode is with TelegraphGo. I asked him about different styles of playing Go.

[01:00:14] Travis: How should we think about it? Is one better than the other? Do you need to have a certain style?

[01:00:19] Travis: What should you be striving for?

[01:00:21] Travis: Let's jump right into the conversation.

[01:00:26] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Yeah, I am mostly thinking about styles as board positions that you can get into.

[01:00:33] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): And then I know that some people like particular kinds of board positions.

[01:00:37] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): And I've started to realize that you can get a board position which demands that you play a particular kind of way.

[01:00:45] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): So for example, if you have a massive amount of influence and a weak group to target, you are required to attack it.

[01:00:52] Travis: Okay.

[01:00:53] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Many people, their style is just the type of position that they have the deepest strategic or tactical understanding of.

[01:01:05] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): What that comes down to is still an imperfect understanding, right?

[01:01:10] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): For many amateurs, a personal style can actually become limiting.

[01:01:19] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): They repeatedly seek the same kind of position. If an opponent prevents the familiar plans they rely on, they may not know how to create another path to victory.

[01:01:33] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): You should approach each position as though you were the player whose wheelhouse is that type of position.

[01:01:43] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Like if you get an attacking position, that you should do your best to be an attacking player and to have an attacking style.

[01:01:50] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): And when you think that the position doesn't demand you be an attacking player, but to be a territorial player, then you should do your best to play a territorial style.

[01:01:59] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): In that sense, there is no universally best style. Each position should be played according to what it requires.

[01:02:08] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): However, what people are really talking about when they talk about style is often like just the tendency of which type of position they want to go for, right?

[01:02:17] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): When two options appear roughly equal, people tend to choose the one that leads toward the type of position they prefer.

[01:02:27] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): I have grown most when I deliberately played the style with which I felt least comfortable. So that's my recommendation.

[01:02:39] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Eventually you'll get good or comfortable with one style that you feel you can use it to win your games and it's a good way to win, but it still doesn't mean that like once you get to the next level up, your opponents will still punish you about your lack of skill at the other styles.

[01:02:56] Travis: This almost gets back to like this concept of whether I keep trying to improve my strengths or I try to improve my weaknesses. I mean, there are moments on the board where in reviewing it, I'll see that maybe AI says, or my teacher says that there are four, five, six moves that are all good moves that are almost close to the blue move or the optimal one.

[01:03:20] Travis: Is that a situation where, I mean, you gave the example there's two moves and I should, maybe I go for the one that's less my natural style when there are six or seven moves.

[01:03:29] Travis: Do you just see that again as another example of like, yeah, let me try something that might not be my natural tendency, but I will learn in the process I will be a more well rounded player over the long term, even if it makes it harder in this game, I'm learning. I'm trying something new.

[01:03:45] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Yeah, absolutely.

[01:03:47] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): I would say that for most players, the positions where you feel the least comfortable are the ones where all the groups are dying and all the cuts are being cut and everything is crazy.

[01:04:01] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): No one really knows what to do in that kind of position. Right.

[01:04:05] Travis: But some people thrive on that. They may not know the answer, but they enjoy the chaos.

[01:04:09] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Some people thrive in chaos and know how to navigate the messiest positions.

[01:04:20] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Most people aren't like that, and frankly, they should be if they want to improve. If you feel that you're less comfortable in a position of total chaos than in a position of relative stability, then becoming more of a chaos merchant is probably a good way to hone your skills.

[01:04:40] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): I would say that most of the people who are improving really fast, which tend to be like, the kids, have no shame in making terrible mistakes and absolutely go crazy and try to make insane things work.

[01:04:55] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): So in terms of best style for improvement, that's it. Until that becomes more comfortable than the sort of slower game, at which point you should try to get better at the slower game.

[01:05:08] Travis: And isn't there a point, though, where if you're being chaotic or reckless for reckless sake, but you're not actually trying to absorb any of that, I mean, that's just silliness or that's just like randomness.

[01:05:19] Travis: Right. It's like, okay, maybe sometimes I come out of this successful, other times I don't. But you're saying if you just say, I don't care if I lose big, if I'm really actually trying here, and it is very different and it's out of my comfort zone. You can really get a lot from that.

[01:05:35] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Yeah, absolutely.

[01:05:36] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): One of the least-used approaches is sometimes called zombie style, where you leave stones inside your opponent’s territory—or allow your opponent to nominally capture them—but preserve substantial potential to save or use them later.

[01:05:59] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): This is a very complicated style because you have to actually be able to follow up on your threats which are real, and not aim at threats which are fake.

[01:06:09] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): So to understand exactly when it's good to make a threat and when it's not going to be very effective, and when they answer that threat, it would be bad for you anyway, is quite complicated.

[01:06:22] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): But by far, this is like the best way to be able to handle a situation where your stones are relatively dead. So it happens all the time. In real games.

[01:06:32] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Many players, particularly in the kyu ranks, feel extremely uncomfortable with that situation. They simply give the stones away without trying to use the zombie style.

[01:06:41] Travis: Right.

[01:06:41] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Zombie style is both practically and theoretically effective, yet many players disregard it simply because they dislike chaos.

[01:06:52] Travis: At lower ranks—single-digit or double-digit kyu—I could see it though, where if I'm so far behind in a game and I say, okay, well that territory appears to be my opponents anyways, if I'm throwing a stone in there and they're following me, obviously just off of basic scoring rules, I'm not any worse off, but I'm still behind so I might as well try.

[01:07:14] Travis: At higher levels, this becomes more nuanced. You must position those so-called zombie stones carefully so that their aji can be activated.

[01:07:28] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Many players treat attacking as their main weapon: if they can kill stones, they believe they will gain.

[01:07:37] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): But much of the time that I win my games it's because I allow my opponent who likes to attack to attack me in a way which is not so good and I allow them to kill me in a way which is not so good.

[01:07:48] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): And then I prove it. I prove that I gained from that sequence, I did something else which is more valuable as they killed me and that their method of killing me didn't gain that much value due to the lack of effectiveness.

[01:08:00] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Not only does that open up many possibilities for defensive play and general strategies that you might not otherwise be able to use, it's also a great counter to the vast majority of players main strategy to win, of attacking, to seize initiative, to aim at kills. Right.

[01:08:22] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): If you show that their attack does not profit—because your stones do not die inefficiently or lose excessive value—then the attacking players will have a very hard time beating you.

[01:08:38] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): So it's not like this is a last resort option, it's something that you can play as a style.

[01:08:44] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): The kids who improve quickly do this. They have no shame about making terrible mistakes, trying wild ideas, and failing badly.

[01:08:55] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): Then they ask what went wrong. In terms of execution, they do not conclude that the whole strategy should never be attempted again; they fail and try again.

[01:09:05] Nate Morse (TelegraphGo): That's the proper way.

[01:09:08] Travis: That is everything we have for this episode. Thank you for listening, and I hope you will catch the next episode. This is All Things Go.