All Things Go Podcast

ChatGPT, the Sorites Paradox, and Go

[00:00] Travis: So I was doing some research for a commentary I wanted to do for this season, and it was on the topic called the Heap of Sand Paradox. I don't know if you're familiar with it, it's also called Sorites Paradox, and I think that it has a lot to do or shows a lot of things about how Go works.

[00:20] Travis: And so I decided, hey, why don't I ask ChatGPT what it thinks?

[00:26] Travis: And I asked it the question, in light of the paradox of the heap of sand,

[00:31] Travis: how do you think this paradox can help us understand how the game of Go works? And ChatGPT gave this response.

[00:38] Travis: The Heap of Sand paradox can provide insight into understanding the game of Go, particularly in how concepts of incremental changes and thresholds apply in both contexts. Number one, incremental decisions.

[00:51] Travis: Just as each grain of sand added to a pile brings it incrementally closer to becoming a heap, each move in Go adds complexity and potential toward victory.

[01:00] Travis: understanding that small, seemingly insignificant moves can accumulate into significant change is vital in both the paradox and the game.

[01:10] Travis: Very good so far. I thought that was spot on.

[01:14] Travis: Second, vagueness in strategy. In Go,

[01:16] Travis: the line between a good and a bad position can often be vague and hard to define.

[01:21] Travis: Like the heap of sand, strategic positions gradually shift from advantageous to disadvantageous,

[01:28] Travis: and understanding where and how that shift occurs requires insight similar to examining the threshold of when sand becomes a heap.

[01:37] Travis: That was reasonably good.

[01:40] Travis: Third, emergent properties.

[01:42] Travis: The paradox highlights emergent properties, how the addition of individual grains eventually creates a quote heap.

[01:49] Travis: Similarly, in Go, the emergent property of control or influence over the board arises from individual moves shaping the overall game landscape. This actually reminds me a lot of my conversation with Frank Lantz, the game designer, and he talked about how the reason Go is so great is because it has that quality of emergence.

[02:10] Travis: And then the fourth thing that ChatGPT said,

[02:13] Travis: The fourth connection between Go and the heap-of-sand paradox is continuous evaluation.

[02:18] Travis: Just as we struggle to determine the exact point a heap is formed,

[02:22] Travis: players must constantly evaluate the board state to perceive shifts in power dynamics,

[02:28] Travis: making decisions based on an evolving situation,

[02:31] Travis: and then it gives a little bit of a summary. Says though the analogy isn't perfect, the heap of sand paradox helps illustrate how accumulation,

[02:39] Travis: emergence and the intricacies of judgment play crucial roles in the strategy based game of Go.

[02:45] Travis: Both require an understanding of how small individual elements contribute to the broader picture,

[02:51] Travis: influencing either philosophical understanding or game outcome.

[02:56] Travis: I was pretty impressed. I don't know about you,

[02:58] Travis: it was a very articulate way to combine those two concepts. So with that we will get the show started.

[03:07] Travis: This is All Things Go.

Gabe of Strugglebus Go

[03:26] Travis: Now I'm going to play for you an interview I did with Gabe, who is also known as Strugglebus Go or Strugglebus on his YouTube channel.

[03:35] Travis: I originally connected with him through his YouTube content. Thought it was really good.

[03:40] Travis: He was also offering insights and things when I had game reviews and such because he really likes to give back to the Go community.

[03:47] Travis: And through that we were able to start to have some conversation and connect a little bit. And it led to the opportunity for me to actually get to have the interview with him.

[03:58] Travis: And I was so glad I got to learn more about him because he has a fascinating background. We are going to jump into that interview now.

[04:10] Travis: Gabe, or Strugglebus Go as they call you.

[04:13] Travis: Welcome.

[04:14] Gabe: Thank you for having me.

[04:16] Travis: We know each other because I reached out to you for lessons and because of your channel. I was glad that I asked for a little background and a biography, because it is fascinating.

[04:24] Travis: Maybe we can start there.

[04:30] Travis: You have a long history with board games, which is really cool. Tell us how you began playing chess at four years old.

[04:39] Gabe: I guess I was kind of just like a natural born gamer. And so my dad has played chess his entire life. And as with, you know, just like all little kids, I'm very interested in what my parents were doing.

[04:49] Travis: Right.

[04:49] Gabe: And so I saw my dad playing chess and so I wanted to play.

[04:52] Gabe: And at the time, you know, it started off with, you know, me taking the pieces and rolling marbles at them because again, a little kid there. But then one day I asked him to play and I was four at the time and he was like, no, no, I can't teach this to a 4 year old.

[05:03] Gabe: And then my mom was like, ah, just teach him. You know, he'll get bored of the game and he'll move on.

[05:08] Gabe: But then the opposite happened and I absolutely just grabbed right onto it and loved it. And so, yeah, so I just played a ton with him.

[05:15] Gabe: And then, you know, once I was old enough to start going to tournaments, that's what I did. And so yeah, I went to my first tournament at age 6.

[05:23] Travis: Wow.

[05:23] Gabe: And, and then played up until probably I was around 14. At that point in time,

[05:28] Gabe: most of my friends had, had stopped playing and the tournaments started shifting from one-day events to two-day events and they were just getting a little too stressful for, for 14 year old Gabe, especially since my friends weren't There.

[05:39] Gabe: And so I, you know, just slowly stopped playing. But it was obviously a big part of my life for a long while. I then, you know, eventually found my way to Magic: The Gathering.

[05:47] Gabe: I have always been the kind of person who has a lifestyle game. There are other games I enjoy on the side, but it is important to me to have something to which I can devote real energy.

[05:58] Gabe: And so, yeah, first that was chess. And then I got into Magic: The Gathering around college and then right at the end of college and afterwards, I played really competitively for a long while and had some success and played on the pro tour a bit and literally traveled the world to play for a couple years.

[06:13] Gabe: So that was really fun.

[06:14] Gabe: You know, eventually that stopped and then in 2010, I was introduced to Go, and I've really never turned back. Once I found that game, I was like, yeah, this is going to be it.

[06:22] Gabe: This is the game I'm going to eventually settle on, even if it's not right now. And it's been obviously a fairly large staple in my life.

[06:28] Travis: So where was that first interaction with Go? How did that come about?

[06:32] Gabe: Ironically, it was. It's funny, one of my coworkers in 2007, I think came over for a board game night because I was. I had board game nights then. Cause I didn't have kids.

[06:41] Gabe: He brought his Go board and I had no interest in it. It was just really. I just completely blew it off. And then two or three years later, a good friend of mine was playing with his friend.

[06:51] Gabe: He's like, oh, Gabe, come, come take a look at this. You'll love this game. And I just instantly fell in love with it. And I was like, oh, this is what the other guy was trying to show me.

[06:57] Gabe: I'm like, now I feel really bad. So like I had to reach out to him and apologize because it's like he tried introducing this to me. So my first real dive in was a friend of mine who also got me into climbing.

[07:07] Gabe: So he's the same person who got me into both of my main passions.

[07:10] Travis: A watershed friend.

[07:11] Gabe: Exactly. There were three of us: two beginners and a 5-dan. Coming from chess, I naturally assumed that controlling the center would be important.

[07:21] Gabe: So a natural born Go player has black. I played tengen on my first ever placed stone.

[07:26] Travis: First of all, I want to say that I love it almost feels very healthy the way that you transitioned out of chess. You're like hey, I'm 14 years old. I want to have fun and do other things.

[07:34] Travis: Maybe this isn't what I want to be doing, but I'm sure you were also gauging.

[07:38] Travis: All right, this is where I am, like, skill wise. This is where clearly you were good at it because you'd been doing it for some time, and then you transitioned.

[07:46] Travis: When I heard that you had gone on the Pro Tour for Magic: The Gathering,

[07:48] Travis: I was just like, this is so cool.

[07:50] Travis: Who gets to say that they competed on a professional tour for a game? Where did it take you, and which places stood out?

[08:00] Travis: Oh, yeah, for sure.

[08:01] Gabe: I totally lucked out. So for those of you who don't know Magic: The Gathering, it's a tradable collectible card game. It's been around since 1995, and it's large enough that they have a pro tour.

[08:11] Gabe: The payouts to the winners are like $50,000. So it's not a ton of money, but it's.

[08:16] Gabe: It's real money. Um, but anyway, so it's really hard to get into the pro tour. Takes a lot of grinding, especially back in the day in New England, because that's.

[08:24] Gabe: There was just a large concentration of strong players there. So I played for years,

[08:28] Gabe: At that time there were three Pro Tours each season, generally one in North America, one in Europe, and one elsewhere, with events such as Pro Tour Chicago or Pro Tour Berlin.

[08:39] Gabe: Nothing too fancy.

[08:42] Gabe: One day, the Wizards of the coast, who's the company who owns Magic, they wanted to jazz things up. And so they made this big announcement. They're like, we are now going to make pro tours even cooler.

[08:52] Gabe: Then Wizards of the Coast announced that the Pro Tours would be held in more exciting destinations. I happened to win a qualifier for the first one under that new approach.

[09:02] Gabe: So this was for the North American one. So instead of going to, you know, pro tour Philadelphia or Chicago, it was pro tour Honolulu.

[09:08] Gabe: Oh, gosh.

[09:09] Travis: Yeah.

[09:10] Gabe: That led me to Honolulu, Geneva, and Valencia. In Geneva, for example, players could go skiing in the French Alps.

[09:22] Gabe: And I was like, yeah, I'll sign up for that. Yeah. And then, you know, Valencia was held in this, like, world recognized aquarium. And so we got to, like, get these free tours of the aquarium.

[09:30] Gabe: Like, it was really neat to fall into that groove during that time when that was happening.

[09:35] Gabe: So, yeah, so I definitely got to see some cool places.

[09:38] Travis: That is really cool. So, in 2010, you became deeply involved with Go.

[09:44] Travis: You were very big into KGS, the online server, which you said was really during its heyday, you would have multiple players that would be watching games, reviewing games before, after,

[09:56] Travis: you really enjoyed that process. And then you played more or less a game almost every single day for a year. And that took you from beginner all the way to 4-kyu, which is incredible.

[10:05] Travis: Tell me about that process.

[10:07] Gabe: Yeah, I mean, I dove in hard and a big part of it, you know, I didn't, didn't have kids at the time and my wife was in grad school and she was very, very busy with grad school.

[10:16] Gabe: So there were plenty of days where I'd be coming home and she'd, you know, she'd be too busy. So it wasn't like I was spending a lot of time. So I had an excuse to have a big time sink in my life.

[10:24] Gabe: I would either do it when I got home or in the evening I would play a game, have that game reviewed, and then maybe play a second game.

[10:32] Gabe: I did that almost every day for a year. Reaching 4-kyu in that time sounds impressive, but it came with roughly 300 reviewed games.

[10:44] Travis: Right.

[10:44] Gabe: And so it's. So for me anyway, it was so easy to progress when I had that immediate feedback from stronger players after every single game I played.

[10:53] Gabe: Back in 2010, KGS was a really popular server and you know, there was a big community there. You could tell that it was a pretty tight knit community. And like I said, you know, I would just be playing a game.

[11:03] Gabe: It was common for three or four spectators to watch a random 14-kyu game. At the end, one or two 1- or 2-dan players might ask whether we wanted a review.

[11:14] Gabe: There were two teachers in particular who were on a lot. And so I got consistent feedback right from the same teacher. So it wasn't getting, it's not like I was getting pulled in different directions.

[11:25] Travis: Maybe we can shift a little bit to your streaming and your YouTube channel, because that's how I first got exposed to you.

[11:31] Travis: You were saying in a little bit of your background that you were teaching and giving lessons and you're just getting Feedback that you had a really nice, calm way and very systematic, methodical way of sort of approaching and explaining things that were really helpful.

[11:44] Travis: And you had a friend that was streaming and you said, well, why shouldn't I do it? Is that how it went?

[11:50] Gabe: Pretty much. I am a big proponent of giving back to the community. On KGS, stronger players reviewed my games simply because they enjoyed helping.

[12:01] Gabe: I wanted to give back in the same way. I would log on to KGS and look for a 10- or 12-kyu game that was nearly finished.

[12:06] Gabe: I would watch the final few minutes and then offer a review.

[12:13] Gabe: And then I would ask them if they want to review. And so, so I was doing this. And so I, you know, I met a number of people this way and helped give reviews and, and lessons and whatnot.

[12:21] Gabe: And,

[12:22] Gabe: yeah, one. One particular person who, you know, I became friends with after, you know, helping him out for a year, and he got just as strong as I did. He started streaming, and I was like, oh, if he could figure this out, I can figure this out.

[12:33] Gabe: And so, yeah,

[12:35] Gabe: set everything up. And I was totally ready to just be talking to myself because, you know, who. Who's just gonna watch a streamer on day one? You have to start somewhere.

[12:45] Gabe: And I'm like, okay, I'm like, I am mentally prepared to just talk to myself.

[12:49] Gabe: But fortunately, with Twitch, when you stream, you can say what game you're streaming. So I showed up as a ghost streamer, right? And so, yeah, even on my, on my very first stream, you know, I still had four or five people, which, which blew my mind.

[13:03] Gabe: I was like, whoa, again, I was expecting zero.

[13:05] Gabe: So that was. So that was really. And, yeah, and it was. It was really clunky back then and really bad, but it was my start. And then, so. And I was streaming for a long while before you, you know, before I transitioned to YouTube channel.

[13:18] Gabe: At the time, you know, I became more active on Reddit and, you know, I'm sure most of the listeners here will recognize me from there because that's where people seem to know me other than YouTube.

[13:26] Gabe: And so I was finding people to, you know, any. Anytime new players popped up and I had time, you know, I'd reach out to give, you know, initial lessons or introductions to the game.

[13:35] Gabe: And I had my list of basic rules. So anybody's familiar with the channel knows the struggle Bus basic rules. But there was somebody who I helped out and yeah, he said, you, you have a really calm demeanor.

[13:44] Gabe: You present this in a really clear and calm way. If you just figured out some basic video editing, you could make some good content. And so I gave that some thought and I was like, oh, you know, I've got my basic rules, you know.

[13:54] Gabe: And then I recognized that there, you know, there was kind of a hole in the genre of our little game where there weren't a lot of videos out there for newer players.

[14:03] Gabe: Right. There were videos for brand new players and videos for people like you and me, but not so much in the middle, right?

[14:10] Gabe: I focus on players around the 10- to 15-kyu range. I am only so strong myself; I am currently 2-kyu on OGS.

[14:16] Gabe: If you are looking for elite advice, I am not the person to ask. But a 15-kyu player can still learn plenty from someone at my level.

[14:25] Gabe: So I was like, okay, that will be my little, my little niche, just targeting the double-digit kyu players and giving them access to some more material. So. So, yeah, so then it just kind of progressed from there and eventually it started going well enough and I used money from lessons to get some actual equipment.

[14:43] Gabe: There was a big jump in video quality. And it's kind of funny looking back now because the original basic videos I did, oh my gosh, is on the old recording setup and it just, it looks so hack compared to what it is now.

[14:53] Gabe: It gets to the point where I'm like, ah, do I need to rerecord these? But yeah,

[14:56] Gabe: I'm just keeping them there for just like historical purposes.

[15:00] Travis: I can really attest to the fact that it did feel like there was somewhat of a gap out there. I mean, there are definitely other personalities and content providers that are phenomenal and do a great job.

[15:10] Travis: But I found myself, as you know, in that spot too, right where my rank was.

[15:15] Travis: And the way that you were laying it out and explaining and going through the games and thinking through every step at that level and providing rules was really helpful. And also you have your particular strengths.

[15:27] Travis: Is it fair to say that you have a little bit more of that fighting mentality perhaps, or a little more aggressive style where you really like to use thickness and things in the middle of the board or maybe that's where you feel like you excel?

[15:39] Travis: Is that fair?

[15:40] Gabe: Yeah, I definitely didn't start there, right. For all new players, maybe not all, but I'd like to think the majority of new players struggle with influence in general because the player who's getting territory is getting immediate gains.

[15:51] Gabe: It's very clear what they're getting. But then influence turns into just a big old question mark. I certainly didn't start there in the past probably two years. I noticed a slow transition into first starting to appreciate what.

[16:04] Gabe: What you can do with influence. It is clearly my. My trend, my preference to take influence and play an influential game because you're going to get fighting in all games.

[16:14] Gabe: But I like having the influence because then you've got better control of the fights. And fighting is probably my favorite part of the game. It feels natural to be the player, to play the role of the aggressor and controlling the fights.

[16:25] Travis: I love it.

[16:26] Travis: The Road Rage videos have been just made for a really nice change of pace. You have these different lines of videos for different things. Like now. I love that you have the sort of the beyond the basics, which has really been helpful for me.

[16:37] Travis: How did you come up with the Strugglebus concept and naming?

[16:41] Gabe: So I've always enjoyed the term struggle Bus. I just think it's a funny term. You know, when I first started streaming, I was just using, you know, my avatar name on all the servers, which is Go, Gabe Go.

[16:50] Gabe: But that's not like. That's kind of a lame streaming name. So I wanted to come up with a concept other than just having me playing Go.

[16:58] Travis: Right.

[16:58] Gabe: I wanted there to be an aesthetic there. And so, yeah, so I decided to come up with the Strugglebus. You know, tongue in cheek, pointing to the fact that Go is just a really hard game.

[17:06] Gabe: Right. And we're all just struggling to try to figure this out.

[17:09] Gabe: And then I was able to get, like a good aesthetic and a background for the videos within. So I was really happy with where that landed.

[17:16] Travis: I love the Every. Is that every move or every game is an empty triangle.

[17:20] Gabe: Every wheel is an empty triangle.

[17:22] Travis: I love the tongue in cheek concept. And I also like when you just start to get entertaining on some of your videos. So Easter videos was Gabe showing up in, like, a pink bunny rabbit suit.

[17:34] Travis: And it's like, I'm not expecting this at all.

[17:36] Travis: Yeah.

[17:36] Gabe: I do actually put a lot of effort into trying, trying to be entertaining.

[17:40] Travis: Right.

[17:40] Gabe: And Go is a. We all enjoy it, but it's a pretty dry concept. Right. And so sometimes it's tough to watch videos just because of how dry they are. Yeah, they're entertaining.

[17:50] Gabe: They're, you know, meaningful for us, but they can be dry. I try to liven things up a little. Bit and be a little goofy at times just to,

[17:57] Gabe: you know, just to interject some humor and not everybody appreciates it and that's fine. You know, my videos don't need to be forever.

[18:04] Travis: I find it very much appreciated.

[18:05] Travis: And even if it's something that somebody

[18:07] Travis: wouldn't like, I feel like you could still appreciate and say, okay, you know what, he's trying something.

[18:11] Travis: Let's transition a little bit, Gabe, to the somewhat unique opportunity to take sort of a sabbatical from work. And you've been able to focus on other things. And one of those things that I' believe you were telling me you were looking to prioritize was really your focus on Go,

[18:27] Travis: not only from a personal study and improvement perspective, but also from a content perspective. So can you just tell us a little bit about, like, how has that been going?

[18:36] Travis: What are your thoughts on it?

[18:38] Gabe: Yeah. So I've decided to take this summer off.

[18:42] Gabe: I have two young children. Obviously they Go to school and they have summers off. And my wife now works in a school system and so she has summers off.

[18:49] Gabe: And so last year, you know, the seed got planted because my son asked me when my summer was going to start, you know, because, you know, the rest of the family was off.

[18:56] Gabe: That kind of hit like daggers. Shortly thereafter, a really good friend of mine took a six month sabbatical from work. And I was like, oh, I'm like, so maybe this is just a thing and, you know, I can consider it for next summer.

[19:07] Gabe: And then from a work standpoint, you know, it just happens to line up that I had a good opportunity to take the time off without it being like, too detrimental to my career or my position within the company that I work at.

[19:19] Gabe: And so it just lined up enough. And so I decided to take four months off and focus on spending time with the family, also obviously focusing on my hobbies as well, primarily Go and climbing.

[19:31] Gabe: One of the difficulties with me and Go is, you know, I've kind of spread myself thin. That's not a bad thing. But it's impossible to fully engage in studying if I also want to create videos and teaching.

[19:44] Gabe: And the thing is, you know, like, I legitimately enjoy doing all of these things.

[19:48] Gabe: You know, I legitimately enjoy producing the videos. Right. And I legitimately enjoy teaching and I obviously love to play. But if I focused on just playing and studying, then, you know, then I'm kind of giving up on the other side of it and, you know, that I don't really consider that acceptable.

[20:01] Gabe: I have been able to study more. I Feel like I've gotten stronger. Of course, my rank hasn't changed.

[20:05] Travis: Not yet on OGS.

[20:06] Gabe: So I never really took my OGS account seriously.

[20:10] Travis: Right.

[20:11] Gabe: I had never put much effort into establishing my OGS rank, so the account sat around 3-kyu even though I believed I was closer to 2-kyu.

[20:20] Gabe: I have now reached 2-kyu and am working toward 1-kyu. That still feels some distance away, but it would be a major milestone. The eventual goal is 1-dan.

[20:30] Gabe: Originally that rank was on KGS. I am not sure how directly 1-kyu on KGS compares with 1-kyu on OGS today, but either way I am improving.

[20:41] Gabe: But no, it's definitely been a positive experience.

[20:44] Travis: That is really cool. Let us move into a short lightning round. Who is your favorite player of all time, and why?

[20:50] Gabe: I will go with Cho Chikun. He seems like a funny guy. Have you seen the tea-stealing tesuji?

[20:56] Travis: Yes, I have. Can you explain what that is? So.

[20:59] Gabe: I do not know who he was playing. It was the familiar professional setup, with two commentators seated behind the players on a raised platform.

[21:07] Gabe: you know, he's in deep thought and goes to grab tea, but he doesn't grab his tea. He grabs one of the commentators tea and just takes it and starts drinking.

[21:14] Gabe: And she's like, well, I guess that's my life now. And was recorded.

[21:17] Travis: Right.

[21:17] Gabe: So it's just a very funny moment.

[21:19] Travis: So I spent a year living in China and it may be completely different, but my sense was that in Eastern cultures, this concept of honor and tradition and sort of following what is expected,

[21:31] Travis: my sense is that's a bit more rigid than it is here.

[21:34] Travis: So for him to up and sort

[21:36] Travis: of do that just. I imagine it must have been quite shocking. But it's fun to watch.

[21:40] Travis: Yeah, it's really fun to watch. And what's the play on words with saying tcg?

[21:43] Travis: Yeah.

[21:44] Gabe: The word is tesuji. It is a beloved term in the Go community for a sharp play or sequence of moves.

[21:53] Gabe: Tesuji fits right into that.

[21:55] Travis: And there is also a time tesuji, correct? What is that?

[21:59] Gabe: So time tesuji. I'm a Big fan of time tesuji.

[22:02] Gabe: A time tesuji is a move used in byo-yomi to gain enough time to think when one period is not sufficient.

[22:10] Gabe: Basically, what you do is you waste a co threat that and it resets your time. So, you know, it's a meaningless move. It doesn't do anything, but it demands a response.

[22:17] Gabe: The move resets your byo-yomi period, which is why it is called a time tesuji.

[22:20] Travis: I love it.

[22:21] Travis: Okay, next question. What would be your ideal setting to play a game of Go?

[22:27] Gabe: This is a bucket list of mine. I still. I still really, really want to do this. I want to take a vacation to Korea. I mean, it looks like a beautiful country to begin with, but I just.

[22:35] Gabe: I want to find a park, you know, one of the stereotypical parks where you got all the old guys, you know, smoking their cigarettes, playing Go,

[22:41] Gabe: and then just like, somehow find a way to play a game against a random old guy and probably get my butt whooped. That is my ideal setting. I really enjoy playing in person.

[22:51] Gabe: I really enjoy playing outside. You know, I like the outdoors in general. And so, you know, I can't think of anything better than just, you know, sitting in this. Sitting in a beautiful park, nice autumn weather, playing a game of Go.

[23:03] Travis: What's the worst piece of advice you may have heard about learning Go?

[23:07] Gabe: So this doesn't just apply to Go. I think this applies to everything. There's no one way to do anything or to learn anything. I always get a little frustrated at how common it is for new players.

[23:18] Gabe: I see this often on Reddit and other forums: a new player asks how to improve, and the answer is simply, 'Do more tsumego.'

[23:26] Gabe: And like, that isn't the answer, right? Like, that might, you know, for the person responding, that might be what helped that them. But there are a lot of people out there where that just simply is not the answer.

[23:35] Gabe: More tsumego will not necessarily stop someone from playing empty triangles or self-atari. The right answer differs from person to person.

[23:44] Gabe: Everybody learns in different ways. You know, that's one of the things I learned early as a teacher, is recognizing that, you know, you need to adjust your teaching style based on the student, right?

[23:54] Gabe: If you're teaching in a way and they're not understanding it, it's on you to change your teaching style and not the other way Around. So yeah, that's the big misconception is there's, you know, everybody's too quick to say this is the way.

[24:05] Gabe: You know, the other one you'll get is study professional games. That's all you need to do. And it's like, no, that's not all you need to do. That might have been what helped you, but that's, you know, there's obviously much more to it than that.

[24:13] Travis: And I bet a lot of it

[24:14] Travis: Cultural context matters too. In some traditions, players may be told to replay professional games or repeatedly work on life-and-death problems and tsumego.

[24:23] Travis: But that might not be for everybody.

[24:26] Travis: What about any ways that you've seen recently from other things, chess, other sports, areas of society that might help towards making Go little more popular in the west that you just haven't seen done in a significant way?

[24:39] Gabe: Unfortunately, I'm pretty pessimistic on it because I think,

[24:42] Gabe: I think chess has the foothold for the people who are interested in that type of game. Right. So obviously, you know, we, we can draw very clear parallels between chess and Go in terms of the demographic of people who would enjoy these games.

[24:55] Gabe: Right. They're both lifestyle games, they're both pure strategy, no luck,

[25:00] Gabe: you know, so there's a certain type of person who's drawn to that.

[25:04] Gabe: And at least in the west everybody knows what chess is. And so, so I'm a little pessimistic on that. That said, you know, a big proponent of, you know, fostering the community.

[25:14] Gabe: I do intend on when the kids are older, you know, starting up probably a chapter and doing some tournament organization because that's the biggest thing that we're missing as a community is regular tournaments, small tournaments that you can go to on a, you know, on a Saturday or a Sunday where 20 people show up,

[25:29] Gabe: you play for six hours and you go home.

[25:31] Travis: Right.

[25:31] Gabe: Chess has a lot of tournaments like that. As somebody who played competitive chess, I know the events that are out there and you know, within New England, within probably an hour drive, I could probably find a tournament every single weekend or at least every single month.

[25:44] Gabe: And that just simply isn't true for Go. Right. I have access to, to about two of them a year that are within two hours of my house.

[25:51] Gabe: And both of them are multi day events, right. So they're really hard to get to. But you need the community to be able to support those kind of tournaments. And so it's, you know, it's kind of like what came first the chicken or the egg type thing.

[26:02] Gabe: But, yeah, unfortunately, I think the grasp that chess has just makes it tough for the. For the smaller game to. To rise up.

[26:09] Travis: Do you feel like there's any particular trend? I feel like I've come across quite a few Go players that started with chess and then they eventually went to Go.

[26:18] Travis: Obviously, as you said, they're very. There's a lot of similarities in the game as much. There are a lot of differences.

[26:24] Travis: Because you played quite competitively and seriously with chess earlier on in your life, do you find that there's something that might be happening across a lot of chess players that make the leap to Go?

[26:36] Gabe: I'm not so sure about that. In my case,

[26:39] Gabe: I hadn't played chess in many years,

[26:42] Gabe: so it was always back there, and I'd always be willing to play, but I was never going to dive back in competitively.

[26:48] Gabe: And so I think Go was just. For me, it was something new that scratched the same exact itch, you know, then got drawn in because I was able to progress through it.

[26:56] Travis: Right.

[26:57] Gabe: That's one thing that, you know, would be tough to get back into chess is that I wouldn't be progressing.

[27:01] Travis: If I returned to chess, I would be weaker than before but still at a level where progress was difficult. In Go, I felt stronger almost every week.

[27:01] Gabe: If I returned to chess, I would be weaker than before but still at a level where progress was difficult. In Go, I felt stronger almost every week.

[27:10] Gabe: Right. So that's what pulled me in. In terms of chess players going over to Go, I'd be curious to see what percentage of, at least in the west, what percentage of players who played Go started with chess, because I.

[27:20] Gabe: I imagine it has to be really high.

[27:22] Gabe: And so for me, I consider Go to be the better game. I like it in every way. I think it's more elegant. I just think it's a better game. With that said, chess is obviously still a fantastic game played, you know, has a huge place in my heart.

[27:32] Gabe: So I'm not detracting from chess at all. But, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people find Go and Go. This does the same thing, but does it better, and I like it.

[27:41] Travis: Well, Gabe, thank you so much for this time. This has been really enjoyable. I'm going to make sure that we get your struggle Bus Go channel in the episode notes.

[27:51] Travis: And, yeah, thank you again.

[27:52] Gabe: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

BenKyo: Tournament Pressure and Time Controls

[28:02] Travis: I'm back chatting with BenKyo again.

[28:05] Travis: We discussed some of the more serious tournaments that he participated in during the 2024 season.

[28:12] Travis: And we also talked a bit about time controls and what some of his preferred time settings were.

[28:20] Travis: If we just take this for a second and go back to the North American Go Federation Pro Qualifier that you participated in this year versus last year, which I believe you were commentating in the 2023 edition,

[28:33] Travis: what was it like attending it as a competitor versus as a commentator?

[28:38] BenKyo: Yeah, so I commentated actually only one game.

[28:41] BenKyo: It was the finale of Michael Chen versus Eric Lee.

[28:45] BenKyo: It was a pretty small deal. And it's a big deal and a small deal at the same time because there's only 12 of us.

[28:49] BenKyo: There's like, families and stuff, and then there's a bunch of, like, scribes and AGA people and CGA people. It felt very, very small scale, but yet still extremely important. We know a lot of people are watching on Twitch and different places, a lot of people are following the game records.

[29:05] BenKyo: So that was pretty cool.

[29:07] BenKyo: The playing room itself was not a place where people could linger after finishing, especially during the semifinals and finals.

[29:08] BenKyo: you couldn't really hang around in there too much, like when you're done your game,

[29:12] BenKyo: People gathered in the review room, focused on each other's records and games. It was very stressful.

[29:23] BenKyo: It was very stressful. You know, I tried to go into it totally casual, especially because I don't think I'm up to the level yet to really be the winner of the Pro Qualifier, right?

[29:32] BenKyo: Not yet.

[29:33] BenKyo: I'll keep trying, though. I went into it with no real expectations. Maybe just trying to get to the semifinals, but. But despite my casual approach,

[29:41] BenKyo: I felt that the pressure was like nothing I ever felt before.

[29:45] Travis: Wow.

[29:46] BenKyo: Yeah, I had a pretty blundery tournament, unfortunately.

[29:49] BenKyo: Some good games actually. Like, I actually gained confidence both from this and the Canadian Open that I just got back from today. But way more giant blunders than usual in a lot of games that I was kind of winning or had a good position, so.

[30:02] BenKyo: But that's whatever I, I. It's kind of like losing streaks, right? When you experience enough of them,

[30:06] BenKyo: you're just used to it. It's just like a weather change, right?

[30:09] Travis: To be a Go player is to be familiar with losing streaks.

[30:13] Travis: I don't know if that's more than

[30:14] Travis: other hobbies or sports, but yes, the losing streak is pretty common. So that's actually an interesting point you make because this concept of making big blunders. So trying to remember who was commentating this year for the Pro Qualifier,

[30:27] Travis: while You were playing or somebody else was playing and they were saying, oh, the time settings they had set was a,

[30:32] Travis: you know, 75 minutes of main time with five one-minute byo-yomi periods, I believe and the hope there,

[30:39] Travis: and I'm gonna preface this by saying that we all know Go is very, very hard and the level of reading and positional judgment that you're doing at your level is incredible.

[30:50] Travis: And at the same time, you know, having the 75 minutes and those longer byo-yomi periods was to try to reduce the chances of there being, you know, massive blunders. Yeah, like you said, this is a high pressured, high stakes tournament.

[31:02] BenKyo: I was surprised that this still happened even with the longer byo-yomi periods. At the U.S. Go Congress the previous year—my first Congress—I played in the Masters Division.

[31:11] BenKyo: I had a loss by default to start off with because of airport stuff, but I felt okay with my 33 that I ended up with and some of the games.

[31:18] BenKyo: Even compared with the shorter 30-second byo-yomi at Congress, the five one-minute periods here should have made a major difference and helped me avoid those blunders.

[31:31] BenKyo: And blunder is different from a mistake, right? Blunder is like on the one hand, 100% part of my strength, part of my skill, have to accept. But you know, a mistake is something that's a natural product of your skills.

[31:42] BenKyo: Right. A blunder is also that. But it's like something that's ridiculous, right? Like Self, Atari or.

[31:48] Travis: Yeah, like the famous YouTube clip of the Japanese pro.

[31:51] Travis: Oh God, that's so good. Yeah, exactly.

[31:53] Travis: So with that time setting and then think comparing it to the Canadian Open,

[31:58] Travis: was there one time format you preferred?

[32:01] Travis: What's your ideal time setting if you had one?

[32:05] BenKyo: Well, my ideal is no time limit.

[32:07] Travis: Hahaha.

[32:10] BenKyo: I have infinite patience for Go actually

[32:12] Travis: because I know it's different for everyone. You would say, hey, I would actually keep focusing on the game for ad infinitum. Whereas other people like myself,

[32:20] Travis: it also might be just a product of my ability to concentrate. But it's like after so much time, a certain amount of time, I'm just not going to be able to keep going.

[32:28] Travis: But I am slow as a player personally, so I can't do the, you know, blitz is good practice for me.

[32:34] BenKyo: Yeah, I feel like from experience,

[32:37] BenKyo: when I have enough time, which I think the congress was close to that, like an hour and a half each. Right. Main time,

[32:44] BenKyo: I can play even a loss that I'm very satisfied with, there's some games where there wasn't anything that I wanted to change even when I lost. And then, you know, every, every mistake that I made was like 100% the most like learning point kind of thing that you could ever have.

[32:58] Travis: Right.

[32:59] BenKyo: Because you truly put your full power in. That's the kind of games I love. That's why I envy those kind of pro games and old historical games that have like hours and hours and hours.

[33:08] Travis: Yeah.

[33:08] Travis: So there's a value in that. But the fact that you can have a game where you're like, wow, I lost this game and going through it like I wouldn't have played anything differently or every move I played I felt was really solid, it was sound, it made sense.

[33:21] Travis: Is it takeaway that you then need to make sure there are still long time control situations or tournaments? Because I feel like if you go one way with trying to make things maybe more enticing, more popular to other people, you're probably going to shorten the time and tradition.

[33:38] Travis: Do you think there still needs to be room for long time controls and traditional tournament formats? Efforts to make Go more accessible or entertaining often shorten the games.

[33:45] BenKyo: Were the old multi-day Japanese title matches partly about giving players enough time to search for the purest move?

[33:45] Travis: Were the old multi-day Japanese title matches partly about giving players enough time to search for the purest move?

[33:52] BenKyo: Right. Very kind of ritualistic in a way. And yeah, it's different from modern Go in a way. Right. So I'm. I'm okay actually with just like an hour and a half each or something.

[34:01] BenKyo: But that's still very long. Right. An hour and a half. Or in the European Go Congress, which it'll be my first this year, maybe there's like two hours each.

[34:09] Travis: What prompted you to do both this year?

[34:11] BenKyo: Well, it's going to be exciting to meet a lot of people and check out what the European Go scene is like in person and meet some of my students who are over there also.

[34:20] BenKyo: Like, it's for business too, right? In a way.

[34:23] Travis: Do you have a lot of students in like Germany or France or places like this?

[34:26] BenKyo: A substantial group came from Europe—perhaps around 30%. Roughly 40% to 50% were from the United States, with Canadians and a few others as well.

Trying Correspondence Go

[34:54] Travis: I wanted to talk a little bit about my recent and new foray into correspondence Go.

[35:00] Travis: And for those of you who don't know, correspondence means playing turn based Go.

[35:06] Travis: So you're not playing live, you're not Sitting and having a time control that's in a matter of minutes or even an hour. It's in a matter of multiple hours or multiple days.

[35:17] Travis: I wanted to give it a try. I haven't played it at all until now.

[35:23] Travis: Originally, my excuse for not playing was because I didn't want to have to constantly be worrying about it, thinking about it, or I didn't feel like I had the time.

[35:31] Travis: And I was really able to say, you know what, I have a ton of moments in my life where I'm taking a pause from work or I'm taking a pause from doing things at home.

[35:41] Travis: I would love to check out a game and it would get me playing games because my issue has been and I'm not playing enough games or I'm not playing as many games as I want to.

[35:50] Travis: And so I was able to do this. And if you go on the Online Go Server, which is what I use, you have to figure out what time setting you want.

[35:58] Travis: And this is a key part of it. I started with a one-day-per-move setting. Some people use byo-yomi, with perhaps a week of main time and three periods of one-day byo-yomi.

[36:17] Travis: But to me that felt really, really, really long.

[36:20] Travis: I kind of wanted to avoid having these games Go forever and ever. And I didn't want to have 50 games going at a time, which is what a lot of people do, which is great.

[36:28] Travis: But for me that didn't work. Right now I'm feeling like three to four to five games at a time is really nice.

[36:36] Travis: The shortest time setting I was finding was actually 12 hours per move.

[36:40] Travis: And that's what I've been sticking with. It seems to be working for me.

[36:44] Travis: I find the waiting psychologically difficult.

[36:45] Travis: I really enjoy getting into little periods of the day where the opponent is on at the same time as me. And instead of getting in one move a day or two moves a day, we get in five or six or seven moves, like a little skirmish that happens.

[37:01] Travis: And so I really enjoy that. It's been super fun.

[37:05] Travis: The other side to it though is that it's actually been also kind of frustrating at times. So let me start with the enjoyable stuff.

[37:12] Travis: So first I noticed that I do a lot more conscious and subconscious reading out of the board.

[37:20] Travis: Not only reading sequences of moves, but also just rolling over the overall board in my head when I'm doing other things. So for example,

[37:30] Travis: when I was at a wedding this weekend for my wife's friend.

[37:34] Travis: I would notice that at idle moments where we weren't doing anything, just sitting around in my head, I'd be looking at that board and saying, okay, okay,

[37:42] Travis: what could I be doing? Or if my opponent plays this,

[37:46] Travis: where's the next spot I should be playing in the end game.

[37:49] Travis: And it is helping me see the board overall more.

[37:54] Travis: Whereas when I play a game of a main time of 10 minutes or 20 minutes and it's a live game,

[37:59] Travis: I'm not having that as much. There's just not as much time to process.

[38:03] Travis: So I get to savor the game a bit more. And in the certain state or moment in a game a bit more.

[38:11] Travis: The other side to that is if I'm in a moment in the game where I feel like it's not going well or I feel like I made a bad move,

[38:17] Travis: it also makes me live in that moment for a bit longer. So that's not so fun.

[38:22] Travis: It's definitely a dopamine hit. I mean, I feel like I start to develop some habits that are not so healthy around compulsively looking at my phone every two seconds,

[38:35] Travis: especially when I'm at home. My wife has noticed this, and I've noticed this as well. So we've started to make a rule that I leave my phone over where the charger is in the office.

[38:46] Travis: That has actually helped out a lot because I've gotten a little bit less compulsive about it.

[38:52] Travis: So there are a couple things that I've noticed would really help the situation for me at least, which is when I play a correspondence game,

[39:01] Travis: I need to be very aware of when I am creating that custom challenge.

[39:07] Travis: Because if I create it in the morning and somebody takes my game, I'm finding that because the Online Go Server is such an international server and I'm in America,

[39:17] Travis: I will get a lot of players that are overseas, and a lot of times they will be 7 hours ahead of me or 12 hours ahead of me,

[39:25] Travis: and it will start to create a little bit of a challenge because they will be most active in playing when it is maybe the morning my time,

[39:34] Travis: or later in the night my time.

[39:36] Travis: And that might not work with my schedule because I'm working during the day and these sorts of things. So I still need to figure that out. But that would be really cool if you could somehow control for who is accepting your games and what time zone they were in.

[39:50] Travis: But that's pretty specific and maybe a bit too much.

[39:55] Travis: I feel like I actually play at a higher rank when I play correspondence on the one hand, this makes a lot of sense. I have more time to think through my moves, therefore I should be more careful with my moves and I should be making less of the stupid mistakes that I make when I play live games.

[40:11] Travis: But I'm wondering, is this true for you?

[40:15] Travis: Is this true across the board? Like, are most people better at longer games?

[40:20] Travis: I have heard some stories where people don't like having too much time either,

[40:24] Travis: and that can be too boring or just be too intense for them.

[40:28] Travis: I have to say I've recently been playing these correspondence games with players that are a few ranks stronger than me,

[40:36] Travis: and it has made the games very challenging.

[40:38] Travis: All of a sudden I'm navigating two or three or four games that are a bit more intense and complicated than I'm used to.

[40:45] Travis: And because it's correspondence, I have more time to think about it.

[40:50] Travis: The cognitive load feels quite a bit heavier.

[40:53] Travis: It doesn't feel like in the live game where you're only in it for that 20 to 30 minutes and it's over.

[40:59] Travis: This is sort of like following you. And so I'm still getting a sense for that. I need to take breaks between having sets of correspondence games.

[41:09] Travis: My current strategy is to barbell it: play some correspondence games, but also play shorter live games, such as 10 minutes of main time with three 30-second byo-yomi periods.

[41:24] Travis: That gives me alternating perspectives: correspondence games with ample time to examine the position, and shorter live games that emphasize shape, intuition, and the flow of the stones.

[41:40] Travis: Because if I learned anything so far from the Go community, it's that there's value in having those alternating perspectives.

[41:50] Travis: The final thing that I would add to my thoughts on correspondence is that it does bring down my game stress. So whereas before I would get so intense when a live game would start,

[42:02] Travis: it's desensitized me a bit and that's been really nice.

[42:07] Travis: Those are my thoughts on correspondence Go. If you have never tried it—or stopped playing it years ago—it may be worth another attempt.

[42:19] Travis: A different time setting may make the format more useful or enjoyable for you.

Devin Fraze: Why Local Go Clubs Matter

[42:33] Travis: Now we're going to have a little more of a conversation with Go organizer Devin Frase. I enjoyed our conversation so much from last season that I had to ask him back, and he was more than happy to entertain my questions.

[42:45] Travis: So first, we're going to start with what it means to be a Go organizer.

[42:49] Travis: And he's also going to tell us about why it's so important to have your local Go club.

[42:56] Travis: What does it mean to be an organizer in the world of Go?

[43:00] Devin Fraze: Yeah, this is my favorite topic, you know, talking to people who've known me for a long time. They've noticed I haven't kept getting stronger, maybe a little bit.

[43:08] Devin Fraze: I said, well, you know, my goal is no longer to become a pro Go player, but I'd love to become a pro organizer. The journey started for me back when I came back to Columbus after all my traveling, and the club started to transition away from the guy who taught me Go.

[43:22] Devin Fraze: And he was the main organizer,

[43:23] Devin Fraze: and he was the president of the Columbus Go club before.

[43:26] Devin Fraze: And so when he stepped down and kind of, you know, slowly faded away, I stepped into this vacuum of power. But I've always been more of an egalitarian sort. And so instead of calling myself president,

[43:37] Devin Fraze: I created the title lead organizer. And the main idea with that is simply that I want to be inviting others to step up to the plate of organizer as well.

[43:47] Devin Fraze: We can be co organizers and work together.

[43:49] Devin Fraze: And then really I saw my position not as just a dictatorial or benevolent leader like president per se, who is kind of the locus of power,

[43:58] Devin Fraze: but rather facilitator of the weekly meetups and tournaments and any other activities the club is doing to help our players come together. And so that's why I use the term organizer and why I love that term so much.

[44:11] Travis: You've described the local Go club as sort of the lifeblood of the Go community,

[44:17] Travis: and that it's a very instrumental part of building awareness of Go in the West.

[44:21] Travis: What are some best practices for other people who want to set up their own Go club where they live?

[44:28] Devin Fraze: For sure.

[44:29] Devin Fraze: Just to quickly recap, I believe that for especially new players,

[44:33] Devin Fraze: the magic moment that hooks them into Go is when they come to club and not only find that this game that they're intrigued about is fun and they get the chance to learn more,

[44:43] Devin Fraze: but also that they create the connections and build friendships and community,

[44:47] Devin Fraze: and then they realize this is something they can keep doing over and over again for a very long time.

[44:53] Devin Fraze: That philosophy—how to create and retain new players—should inform how we run Go clubs in the West.

[45:07] Devin Fraze: one of the things that I always lean into is thinking about this new player and also the returning players. So how do you create a warm, welcoming environment?

[45:15] Devin Fraze: You want to choose a good location where people feel comfortable. Food can matter, as can the noise level.

[45:24] Devin Fraze: A quiet location often works well, although some clubs meet in bars because the social atmosphere is part of the appeal.

[45:33] Devin Fraze: That can be fun for people who enjoy it, though not every Go player wants drinking to be part of the club experience.

[45:45] Devin Fraze: So creating a space that is enjoyable to be in, whatever that is,

[45:50] Devin Fraze: that also leads to some tensions. That means as an organizer, you actually have to defend that space very carefully. If someone comes in and starts to disrupt that space, you know, they are not kind of abiding by the social conventions.

[46:03] Devin Fraze: They're not being friendly. They're not having a certain disposition. If they're like, you know, just yelling all the time and stuff like that, and it's disturbing the other players,

[46:10] Devin Fraze: As the organizer, you may have to leave your comfort zone, speak privately with that person, and have a difficult but respectful conversation.

[46:18] Devin Fraze: We want you here if you do like them. We actually had one player who was coming to our club,

[46:24] Devin Fraze: and we also had a small child who's gotten older, and he's in college now, and he's still part of the club, and we've maintained him all these years. But early on, there was someone that came in.

[46:32] Devin Fraze: He seemed to come from a rough-and-tumble background and was being overly playful with the child, to the point that it was becoming unkind.

[46:44] Devin Fraze: The child’s parents eventually told me that he felt so uncomfortable that he no longer wanted to attend the club. I felt bad because I had noticed the behavior but had not intervened.

[46:52] Devin Fraze: I'd seen it and I felt uncomfortable. I didn't say anything, but by that time it had gone too far. And I actually took the person aside before he came into the next meetup.

[47:00] Devin Fraze: I stopped them at the door. I said, hey, listen here, man, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but you're no longer welcome here. And it's not that you're a bad person.

[47:05] Devin Fraze: I explained that some key members felt uncomfortable. He was not necessarily a bad person, and perhaps his behavior could have changed, but I had allowed the situation to go too far.

[47:15] Devin Fraze: If I had spoken with him earlier, we might have avoided that outcome. Instead, I kept hoping that members would defend themselves rather than taking responsibility as the host.

[47:22] Devin Fraze: And that also means doing the hard stuff too. So that was key.

[47:26] Devin Fraze: Putting the club and its regular members first sometimes requires difficult decisions, including canceling a meeting or changing an arrangement.

[47:36] Devin Fraze: Be firm, concise, and well reasoned, and explain the decision to members. For changes such as meeting nights or locations, discuss the options with the group first.

[47:49] Devin Fraze: Again, I don't try to be the dictator. And so I did a survey the first time I ever moved our location from a popular spot we were at. But it started to get too noisy, the parking was getting bad, stuff like that.

[47:58] Devin Fraze: So we moved to a tea shop and it worked out a lot better

[48:03] Devin Fraze: Or no, we moved to the tea shop about 10 years ago. What I did is I did a survey of our members and I also asked them about things like dates of the week and I asked them about where they lived.

[48:15] Devin Fraze: I said, hey, give me your addresses. I'm going to make a map, I'm going to plot where we are and then I'm going to try to find the location that makes it easiest for all of us.

[48:22] Devin Fraze: And I found a spot that actually works for everyone but me.

[48:25] Devin Fraze: But I'm like, okay, I'm willing to make the drive.

[48:27] Travis: That's called sacrifice.

[48:28] Devin Fraze: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so we moved to the tea shop and people instantly loved it. I also noticed kind of a hot tip for clubs is doing new activities. So changing locations or saying, hey, this week we're going to have a guest lecturer or hey, this week we're going to review a fun pro game or something that just happened in some cup or something and then broadcasting it to your club through an email list or some other way

[48:53] Devin Fraze: Publicizing a special activity can drive re-engagement and renewed interest.

[48:57] Devin Fraze: It's good to do that every so often.

[48:58] Devin Fraze: It actually really reinvigorated a lot of clubs and I think a lot of clubs can get stale because you think, oh well, you know, your players are coming. It's just another week.

[49:06] Devin Fraze: If I skip this week it won't be a big deal because you know I'll see them next week. But that can also start to avalanche in a way of, you know, someone comes and they say oh man, like hey, you know John skipped this week.

[49:18] Devin Fraze: Gosh, maybe, maybe I should skip too. Like you know, like I like John and now he's not here. So like that kind of reinvigoration every once in a while is good and also gives players reasons to come other than just playing their game which we all love.

[49:31] Devin Fraze: Playing in person is beautiful. But still

[49:36] Travis: That is all the time we have. Have you visited your local Go club or gathering? Check Baduk Club and the American Go Association; if nothing exists near you, consider starting something yourself.

[49:52] Travis: I'll talk to you next time.