All Things Go Podcast

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Timestamps correspond to the supplied episode audio.

Introduction

[00:00] Travis: This episode is sponsored by BadukPop and SmartGo One.

[00:28] Travis: I came across an article from the American Go Association about a new English edition of a book by Ueno Asami, the Japanese player. And it was called Play like the Hammer Princess, I believe.

[00:40] Travis: But it showed a picture of Ueno Asami standing with the publisher of the book, Gunnar Dickfeld. And I've seen a few of these other pictures of Gunnar with other Go players for his books.

[00:54] Travis: And really it just made me much more curious about Gunnar and his work and his role in Germany with the creation of his Go publishing company, BOARD N'STONES, and the English side of things.

[01:08] Travis: So I connected with someone who had his contact information to see if he wanted to just talk about his experience, how he got into publishing from being a Go player.

[01:20] Travis: And a really great conversation came from that. So I'm going to go ahead and switch over to that interview with Gunnar Dickfeld of BOARD N'STONES.

[01:28] Travis: Okay, take a listen.

Gunnar's Go Story

[01:33] Travis: Gunnar, again, thank you so much for being here.

[01:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: Thank you for the invitation.

[01:38] Travis: So maybe we can start with your Go story. How did you first discover Go?

[01:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah,

[01:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: that's a really long time ago.

[01:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: There was an article in a German magazine. I don't know if this magazine still exists, maybe.

[01:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this article was comparing chess and go.

[01:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: So it was saying that Go is much more interesting because it has less rules,

[02:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: just the same pieces of stones,

[02:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: not always kings and pawns and so on.

[02:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so I started with a friend to try out the rules and we played together and he was winning all the time.

[02:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that was a little bit annoying at the time. And so I started to look around if I find some people in my hometown who can play and can maybe give me some advice.

[02:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: And when I found the kontact, it was like,

[02:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: yeah, I had to stick to it. It felt like this is a game you need to play.

[02:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: And since then I continuously played and got a little bit stronger over time.

[02:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: Not as strong as I hoped to get,

[02:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: but still I think it's quite okay.

[02:51] Travis: When did it change from being something you enjoyed to being a really more important part of your life? Was there any connection between your interest in Go and other things?

[03:01] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think there was not really like a turning point or a tipping point.

[03:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: I would say it was almost immediately.

[03:08] Gunnar Dickfeld: I was playing chess a little bit before,

[03:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: but I always thought that chess is a little bit stiff or rigid, so you have to move your figures. And if you want to move something or advance with a figure, you have to remove some other ones to make the way free.

[03:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: And until you have done that the opponent changed his position and you don't want to move your figure anymore.

[03:33] Gunnar Dickfeld: And sometimes, very often, I had this feeling: I have a very nice defensive position.

[03:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, I can defend every attack which is coming now. But the problem was, it's my move and I had to destroy something, so I had to release some backing up.

[03:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: So if I was protecting another one, I just had to move something and it was all breaking down. And that was so annoying that I stopped playing chess.

[03:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then you come across Go, and you have this completely different flow of a game. You start with an empty board and you always need to add something to the game.

[04:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: And the problem here is you have to find the point which is most important right now.

[04:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's a completely different game flow. And I think that was the one which attracts me more than the flow of a chess game.

[04:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's why I think I fell immediately in love with the game.

From Banking to Sinology

[04:25] Travis: My understanding is that you also studied Sinology, so was there any connection there? Was that a completely separate interest?

[04:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: Um, it was mainly influenced by Go, of course. Um, I started playing Go when I was about 17 or so,

[04:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: and so I did know the game already. When I went to university later on,

[04:50] Gunnar Dickfeld: I had some very strict parents who said, you do first an apprenticeship, learn something proper.

[04:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so I made an apprenticeship in banking. And after working two years,

[05:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: I felt this can't have been enough. So you want to go to university, you want to study something, but now you follow what you would like to do.

[05:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you have no constraints, you have your income, you have your own base education,

[05:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: your profession, and so you were free to choose anything. And the main question at that time was, do I study Japanese studies or Chinese studies? And so at that time,

[05:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: China had just joined the World Trade Organization. And the prospects for China growing economically were quite good.

[05:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's why I took Chinese as decision.

[05:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: And the second reason was if you want to travel in the kountry to study the language,

[05:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: China was much cheaper than Japan at that time.

[05:50] Travis: How interesting.

[05:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah.

Gunnar's Playing Style

[05:54] Travis: When you think about yourself as a Go player and think about, like, things like your style,

[06:03] Travis: what are the parts of the game that you find that you focus on the most? Is it the opening, the middle, the ending, fighting?

[06:10] Travis: How has your play changed over time? Like, tell us a little bit more about Gunnar, the player.

[06:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's a very interesting question.

[06:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: When I read commentaries like, this player has this kind of style and that player has another kind of style, it's for me very difficult to see this kind of style in a certain move.

[06:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: So Describing myself seems also difficult. So let's start with your question. What I focus on.

[06:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: This depends on time. So sometimes I focus more on opening,

[06:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: sometimes I focus more on life and death problems. And sometimes really, really sometimes I also focus on endgame. It's always depending on what I feel like I would like to study right now.

[06:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: What I feel I miss in my games or whatever book I discover where you have some nice content prepared for the reader and you just think this is a nice book, this is a nice topic or this topic is presented very well, I want to study and go through it and this is revolving.

[07:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you do sometime opening, sometime middle game, sometimes fighting, sometimes relaxed games. If you find some professional games of a player who was not so much into fighting and then also do some endgame and when you start again from the opening and so on and there's no real rhythm and I think,

[07:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: well, it should be for everyone who's practicing our training goal. It is changing over time the different parts of the game.

[07:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: My style, I think I like shapes and I play very much shape based so I don't think too much.

[07:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: If I see a nice shape, I play it.

[07:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: Sometimes it happens that the shape move is not a good move,

[08:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's even the bad move.

[08:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: Or I just feel oh it's a fighter point here. You have to attack and this is just overplay and that's usually crushing my games.

[08:13] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I play too fast.

[08:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: I would say sometimes I do read.

[08:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: I read maybe two or three different variations and then I don't like them all. For me,

[08:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: I just play a fourth variation and don't know what's going to happen.

[08:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I'm always curious what's going to happen.

[08:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think people who play with me,

[08:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: the regular club players, they like it, but I always bring up complicated positions, difficult positions where you have to think about like a whole board problem.

[08:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's the fun of the game. So not just make it very boring, but also offer your opponent something to think about,

[08:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: how to crack it.

Teaching Go and Reaching Beginners

[08:56] Travis: My understanding is that before publishing became one of the more major things you were doing in the Go community,

[09:02] Travis: you really spent years introducing people to go through workshops and courses, including at universities and adult education programs. What made you want to begin teaching Go rather than only playing it?

[09:17] Travis: This episode is sponsored by BadukPop, the app that makes learning Go fun and accessible with interactive puzzles, bite sized lessons and an AI tutor to guide you step by step.

[09:28] Travis: It's perfect for players on the move. You can download it or learn more at badukpop.com that's B-A-D-U-K-P-O-P dot com this episode is also sponsored by SmartGo One, the all in one go toolkit for Apple devices.

[09:44] Travis: Replay professional games, solve problems and keep your SGF collection organized all in one elegant app.

[09:50] Travis: Check it out at smartgo.com or wherever you go to get your apps.

[09:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it's simply what I wanted to share some knowledge about the game so that people are aware that this game exists and that it's a very nice one.

[10:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: When I learned about Go and started really diving into it, I more and more played less board games or other kind of board games because I just felt this is the game of the games,

[10:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: the one and only.

[10:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this made me think if I should also help the kommunity to grow and to bring new people to the kommunity.

[10:33] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's the way it started.

[10:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: I had some time left over to do so and why I shouldn't invest it in that. And during these courses and workshops I did, I met a person who did learn about this new printing method, Books on Demand.

[10:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: And he explains a basic principle to me and that was the starting point to look into publishing Go books or to think about making your own Go book.

[11:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: So without this phase where you met a lot of people who,

[11:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: whom you were sharing your knowledge about Go and they were giving you something back. So it was always very interesting what kind of stories the people had to tell you in the workshops.

[11:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that was quite amazing.

[11:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: A little bit I miss it,

[11:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: but from time to time I do workshops or make Go courses, and not really courses, but some events where I introduce people to Go.

[11:33] Travis: Yeah. You have also been teaching beginners, I think, for more than 20 years, and that includes children.

[11:41] Travis: And this is something that, you know, has been kind of of interest for me on the show. But when you think about that and teaching children specifically,

[11:51] Travis: what have you learned about the best way to introduce the game to beginners, especially children?

[11:57] Travis: Is there anything you think the Go community could do, do better? Hear from your experiences.

[12:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: I was not training kids so much. I was usually introducing the game.

[12:10] Travis: Okay.

[12:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I think that's the biggest problem. The community has everything. What you do is on a voluntary basis for almost everyone.

[12:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: There are no paid teachers who really go on a regular basis to schools and teach children go.

[12:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it's just the funding that is not available.

[12:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so every teacher is doing it on a voluntary basis. And every teacher has to decide for himself how much he can invest of his own time to give something to others.

[12:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: For me, it was very Difficult from a professional point of view or from my working life to really have a course which is running every week on a certain time and on a certain date.

[12:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's why I usually stick to weekend workshops, introducing beginners to the game, or going to some fairs where the Go associations were presenting Go and joining them, or going to schools and giving children in a class an introductory workshop during the day.

[13:13] Gunnar Dickfeld: So unfortunately I never did the second thing to make these kids still playing.

[13:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: And all the teachers at the school, they were busy with other things. They had not enough room to say we can start a Go course on our own, or we were not trusting themselves that they could do so.

[13:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: This is the main problem for the kommunity overall, not only for me, but almost for everyone, that it's on a voluntary basis. And if you don't find someone who is able to afford this time,

[13:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: you have no chance to keep the kids playing or to start a regular club or some regular teaching.

[13:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah,

[13:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: Teaching children Capture Go is always good if they are smaller, and even if they are older, Capture Go is quite good to start with.

[14:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then you increase the difficulty a little bit by capturing bigger things.

[14:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: Or when you see the first games where we did not capture anything,

[14:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: you say, well, you are,

[14:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: you are good now. But imagine what people do if they don't capture anything. We don't have a result.

[14:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: Who is the winner?

[14:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: We introduced a new rule,

[14:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: that's the rule of territory.

[14:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: So that's the way I usually do it.

[14:33] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's fun,

[14:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: it works.

[14:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: And usually the first time is so that everyone's excited.

[14:40] Gunnar Dickfeld: What is missing is usually the follow up. It's something on a regular basis is introduced.

From Workshops to Writing Go Books

[14:50] Travis: And so you were teaching for quite a few years. And then back in 2003 you wrote your first book. I believe it translates as Stone by Stone.

[15:01] Travis: My understanding is that grew directly out of your experience with teaching Go at these workshops and trying to make an accessible beginner book.

[15:11] Travis: So in your mind,

[15:14] Travis: what were you hoping that book would do differently than what you had seen before?

[15:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: Not so much. I think we had in German, I think about one, two or three different beginner books.

[15:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: And the timing was quite nice because all of these three books were not available on the market anymore.

[15:36] Travis: Oh, okay.

[15:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: So there was currently nothing. We were all out of print.

[15:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I had the experience for my workshops. I had all the kontent available and my workshops were on a modular basis. I started with capturing Go,

[15:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: then I did some exercises on how to capture, throw in techniques and shortage of liberties and so on. And so on Net and ladder and all the stuff. And when I never had a straight plan how to continue, I had modules or building blocks.

[16:08] Gunnar Dickfeld: And if the participants discovered the ko,

[16:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: I started to introduce the ko. If they started to ask,

[16:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: when can I not be captured anymore?

[16:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: When I started doing something about life and death.

[16:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I always had something for seki in the end. And I had some other special topics,

[16:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: like connection and separation,

[16:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: keeping your stones connected, or separating the opponent, and some endgame moves, sente, and so on. And all these blocks were there and I was handling them in the workshop.

[16:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: Depending on how the flow of the workshop was going to have it, always a little bit flexible and different each time.

[16:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: So the material was there. And when I heard about the story that you can make your own books,

[16:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: you just need to create a PDF and you upload it somewhere to some company and they print it for you.

[16:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: The idea was quite simple to try it.

[17:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: This book was not making so much different. Maybe it was just putting the real basics together,

[17:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: omitting any. Any not needed stuff. Sure.

[17:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it was just filling the gap at that time.

[17:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: Today I would more call it like a first viable product.

[17:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: It was very simple, very basic. But it was quite successful because there was nothing else at that time.

[17:27] Gunnar Dickfeld: Later I was approached by a real publishing company in Germany and they asked me to write a new book for their company.

[17:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this one is a much better one.

[17:38] Travis: Are these the Black to Play series or. No, this is something else.

[17:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's something else. This one was called Go für Einsteiger, Go for beginners, Go for starters. Something like that.

[17:50] Travis: Got it. Okay.

[17:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: The idea was here to really think more about it, to invest more time and to split the books in two parts. The first part is that you have the cultural aspects and that's a history.

[18:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: The etiquette,

[18:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: the big players. So to give half of the book is just presenting a word of go.

[18:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's not just a game, it's a world you dive into. And the other half of the content is dedicated to the rules and techniques, to playing and learning about the techniques.

[18:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this is not first half, second half, but it's in sections.

[18:27] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you start. It has five chapters. It starts before the game,

[18:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: where you learn the rules, where you learn something about history. When you have opening, you have learned the rules, you make your first moves, then you have the middle game.

[18:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's getting more excited, you have more tactics,

[18:42] Gunnar Dickfeld: end game. And in the last chapters after the game, where you learn about some useful stuff like etiquette, what you should not do what you should do when playing with someone.

[18:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: So greet your opponent. Don't make this noise with the stones and the bowls and all this stuff. And for this I also had a Lektor.

[18:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: Don't make this noise with the stones and the bullets and all this stuff. And for this I also had a lecture.

[19:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: A Lektor in German is someone who is like a sparring partner of the author.

[19:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: So he, he is helping to focus on the kontent, to find gaps in the kontent, to see where something is not going as the bridge from one chapter to the next one is not working well.

[19:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: Transitions and, and improving on language and even in the end, helping a lot. When the layout is starting to work. He says, oh, we have some space on that page.

[19:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: Okay, just write one more sentence here, right? Or maybe you can shorten this page on that side so that be finished at the end of the page.

[19:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: So it's more than an editor, I think it's. It's really like a sparing partner who is proofreading and giving a lot of advice to. To authors in the German publishing world.

[19:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's very common. I think I spoke to some publisher in the north of Germany.

[19:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: More than half of the staff are this kind of advice. Wow.

From Author to Publisher

[20:00] Travis: So you got exposure to this through the first Stone by Stone book. And then the publisher contacted you. You built out the sort of Go for beginners.

[20:12] Travis: And then from that point,

[20:15] Travis: my understanding is that you kind of started going through a lot of creation of instructional material for all different levels of Go players. So again, I mentioned you have the whole Black to Play series,

[20:28] Travis: books on life and death and things like this.

[20:30] Travis: And this has been translated now into many different languages.

[20:34] Travis: After you have sort of written these books,

[20:37] Travis: it sounded like you were finding better ways to describe things and say things in collaboration with these Lektors or, you know, the term you use for the people that help you.

[20:47] Travis: looking at all those different aspects of the book.

[20:50] Travis: Where was the moment where you started to say, I'm,

[20:54] Travis: I guess, enjoying this process or I'm really getting so involved with it that I actually want to take it a step further and pivot and go into maybe publishing itself.

[21:07] Gunnar Dickfeld: That was quite early because the mainstream publishers were not so much into Go because chess books are already a difficult field as we have some beginners chess book with the mainstream publishers.

[21:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: But if you want to have some specialized chess books, it's usually also specialized publishers.

[21:28] Travis: Okay.

[21:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: Um, so for go, there was no appetite with these publishers to do anything. And I was making, or I was having three books. So the first one, Stone by Stone, which is,

[21:40] Gunnar Dickfeld: yeah, let's forget about it.

[21:42] Gunnar Dickfeld: The second introductory book, which is really good and still selling and I made a book about life and death in German.

[21:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then there was coming the point, what shall I do now?

[21:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: Self writing is quite a lot of effort. You spend a lot of time to put some material together to organize it and all on. And there were so many good books already available.

[22:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: And my first idea was that I want to bring books to the German community.

[22:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I heard a lot at that time that people don't want to learn about the game in a language we are not familiar with.

[22:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: So many people said, if I have an English Go book, that's nice, but I have to.

[22:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: I have to work through it in English and I don't want to.

[22:28] Travis: Right.

[22:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: So we are reluctant to do so. And that was my idea to help them and to say, I start bringing out German books and it was a bit easier taking books which are already available and translate them into German.

[22:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: You can split the work of translation not only with yourself, but you can invite someone else who would be interested to translate a book or two,

[22:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: and then you can share the work a little bit.

[22:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that was a basic start.

[22:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: Today, when I speak with Go players, we all say English, no problem. I read everything in English today.

[23:02] Travis: Interesting. Yeah.

[23:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: Over the last 20 years, I think this has changed in Germany as well.

[23:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: But sometimes you meet some people mostly who say, well, I'm not that fluent in English, but I would like to read books in English. I prefer German ones.

[23:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: But if you go with the younger generation, English is usually standard.

[23:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: So German books are not that needed. So not. Not anymore so needed.

How Gunnar Chooses What to Publish

[23:29] Travis: So publishing with Go seems to be very niche.

[23:34] Travis: When you are thinking about the work you've been doing for BOARD N'STONES as a publisher, and you decide,

[23:42] Travis: okay, I think I am going to publish this Go book, or I think I'm not going to publish this Go book.

[23:48] Travis: How do you start to think through that process around what the kontent exactly is,

[23:54] Travis: whether there's a, you know, professional player involved.

[23:57] Travis: How do you think through that whole process of creating a Go book?

[24:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: That also depends a little bit,

[24:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: or it has changed over time. In the beginning I was thinking like, what kind of topic is not yet covered. What would be interesting?

[24:13] Gunnar Dickfeld: In the beginning, I was looking for nice English books, which you can easily translate from English to German to avoid. It's a direct translation from Japanese to German.

[24:22] Gunnar Dickfeld: But once you start to have a nice choice of books with almost every topic covered, you are more like doing something where you are,

[24:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: say it's your own personal interest.

[24:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: You don't follow what the kommunity needs.

[24:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: You just decide on your Own I find a nice book that's really lovely. I really want to work through it in detail and if I translate it, I really go deep into the kontent.

[24:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's more or less the way I.

[24:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm working for the last years,

[24:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: with some exceptions, of course,

[25:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: but now it's really… I found a nice book, like the tsumego collection from Go Seigen,

[25:07] Gunnar Dickfeld: which I. I bought and I said, that's really nice content.

[25:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: I. I really like to share with the kommunity.

[25:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: Go Seigen is also a name which attracts buyers.

[25:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I'm picking books which I personally like and where I have the feeling this could be interesting for someone else as well.

[25:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then I started to saying to myself, I did a lot of books on the last time. I want to take a break.

[25:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: I want to focus a little bit more on playing myself.

[25:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: When somebody's coming around the korner and say, hey, have you seen this book coming out in Korea? You need to translate it. That's a very nice opportunity you have to do it.

[25:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: And you look at the title, you just see the front page and say, well, I can't say no,

[25:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: let's go for it.

[25:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: And yeah, that's,

[25:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: that's how it happens. So when you get a copy of the book, you look into the kontent and you say, well, it's really worth doing it and even if I didn't want to do any book.

[26:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then you go for it.

Translation, Languages, and AI Tools

[26:06] Travis: And how are you dealing with the translation ability? Are you just using,

[26:10] Travis: you know, at this point, are using translators? Which languages do you speak and are able to read? How does that work?

[26:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: Um, if I have translators, I don't do it myself.

[26:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: I have two guys in Germany who were translating quite a lot from English to German or from German to English also.

[26:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this Korean book was made by Daniela

[26:37] Travis: for Daniela Trinks, Correct?

[26:40] Gunnar Dickfeld: Exactly, exactly. That's a book by Shin Jin-seo.

[26:43] Travis: So yes, which was great. Which was really fun reading through it. It's been really enjoyable. So yeah, thank you both for that.

[26:50] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, that was her fault. When this book came to English, I didn't know about this book, but then she came and said, have a look.

[26:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah,

[26:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: originally I didn't want to do any books. This year, let's go for it.

[27:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: If I translate myself,

[27:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: I can use a little bit of my Chinese studies.

[27:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I know a lot of Chinese characters which are equal to many Japanese characters. So it's quite good to screen books in Japanese and English or to read.

[27:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: Well, I won't call it reading, but if you have problem books,

[27:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: I Know enough kanji to understand what's going on.

[27:27] Gunnar Dickfeld: If you have game commentaries, it's a little bit more tricky.

[27:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: In Chinese, I would say I can follow a game commentary halfway through without help in Japanese.

[27:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: Not anymore. You can use these modern translate tools to help you.

[27:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: They are not perfect. Or when I started to look at them, they were not perfect. They are still not perfect.

[27:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's getting better with all these AI technology,

[27:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: we are improving,

[27:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: but still, you cannot throw in a book and say, make a translation and give it back to me.

[28:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's not working yet.

[28:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: If I translate, I use some tool to give a rough idea. I check if the rough idea works. Sometimes the translation doesn't fit to the diagram anymore. And then you think, like, what's going on?

[28:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: And in the first books, which I tried to do with technical help, I was taking a native speaker afterwards and say, here,

[28:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: these parts of the book, I don't trust what I made. Can we have a look together?

[28:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's a big thanks to iku.

[28:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: She was really, really helpful during that phase when I was translating how to play the AI way.

[28:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: And she was coming back with very good advice. Because sometimes in game commentaries,

[28:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: the Japanese, they say,

[28:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: that result is even both sides can play it.

[28:50] Gunnar Dickfeld: This is, like, a tiny bit better for Black, but also White is doing well.

[28:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you have all these different phrases and you don't know, are we meaning the same in just different words, or do we really mean something different?

[29:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: And she was quite helpful with that to put that book into being.

Ueno Asami, Ichiriki Ryo, and Books Worth Translating

[29:12] Travis: Yeah, because I'm just thinking about what you've recently been posting about, and you've talked about the book with one of the top female Japanese players, Ueno Asami, played like the Hammer Princess.

[29:25] Travis: And then you were also mentioning, I think, a book written by Ichiriki Ryo, one of the top Japanese players and in the world. And you were.

[29:35] Travis: You were describing it and you were saying, oh, you know, this is a collection of stories and there's some really interesting things in here that might be worth reading.

[29:44] Travis: I then tried to take that and say, okay, is it available in English? And I said, no, it's not available in English. So you were able to. With your understanding of kanji and things, you were able to sort of read that yourself.

[29:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: I developed a style of reading such books with translation help.

[30:01] Gunnar Dickfeld: It looks quite fine.

[30:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: This book was really like, I was turning every page and was looking forward for the next one. And. But in my background, when I read a book or when I work through a book, I always think, is it Worth publishing or not, or translating and publishing.

[30:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: So it's give me any book and say, just work through it. I can't turn it off. It's always thinking, what would I do if I translate it? And what if I do it if I publish it?

[30:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: And these feelings I was describing as a post about this Ichiriki book was just what was going through my mind all the time.

[30:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: I was thinking, like, who. Whom he is addressing in this book? Yeah. In the first part, he's explaining the Go rules. Then he's explaining how he's studying and on a very high level, which is nothing for beginners, but the introduction for the rules of the game is nothing for high advanced players.

[30:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then he's going to make some complaints about the Nihon Ki-in and all the organizational stuff and the financial crisis there.

[31:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it doesn't fit together.

[31:07] Gunnar Dickfeld: So that's why I felt like I have to comment on that book because the title was so tempting. It was so like, oh, you now you get something.

[31:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: How to use AI to play. And it turned out that it's almost not what the title promises you, so.

[31:22] Travis: I see. So it's actually less in a positive way and more in a disjointed way. Okay.

[31:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah. So that's why I was working through that book to the very end, and I felt like I need to comment on that one and making more or less clear why I don't think it deserves a translation.

[31:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah.

[31:42] Travis: Well, I like this. Right. This makes a lot of sense. Over the years, you've been able to now be more particular about what interests you, what draws you in, to then say, oh, this is a really interesting book.

[31:54] Travis: I think this should be translated into English. So that one just didn't pass the smell test, it sounds like, but maybe there'll be another one. Are there any other books you've come across recently where you.

[32:06] Travis: You think that there could be possibility? I mean, if you could give us like a. A sneak peek?

[32:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: Uh, I cannot give a sneak peek because I'm. I'm myself not sure what's going to happen exactly.

[32:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: There's one book, I really appreciate it, and it's a post before on Instagram,

[32:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: the one which looks like Trouble Master from Inseong Hwang.

[32:29] Travis: Yes.

[32:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's a very nice concept. I really like it.

[32:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: But Inseong Hwang made the better books.

[32:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: The positions don't look that artificial, so he was really composing them from amateur games and putting it more like a 'find the aji' exercise.

[32:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: While this book is more like,

[32:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: do you see if you can kill or Kill the group or find some big endgame. But I like,

[32:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: I liked it very much.

[32:59] Gunnar Dickfeld: But I won't bring it into translation because you have direct competition with Seong's book and I don't want that.

[33:07] Gunnar Dickfeld: The other book I found which was quite putting an impression on me, is a biography by Yoda Norimoto.

[33:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: I didn't know that he went into insolvency and that he had always had trouble during his life.

[33:22] Travis: Oh my gosh.

[33:22] Gunnar Dickfeld: So then I saw that book and I turned to Hajime who was at the same time in the bookstore and ah, yeah, that's the one who went bankrupt.

[33:33] Gunnar Dickfeld: Okay, I need that book. I want to read it.

[33:35] Travis: That's interesting.

[33:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, yeah.

[33:37] Travis: And he was a top Japanese player, I imagine.

[33:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, yeah, he was four or five times Meijin. He won the Judan title and he was really a prodigy.

[33:48] Travis: So.

[33:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: But he had some other problems and he was in the Japan China Super Go.

[33:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: One of the players.

[33:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, he has his hall of fame, I would say.

[34:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so this book was quite fascinating to, to work through and I made a translation for myself to better understand all, all the things which are really were happening.

[34:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: But I don't think that this is something which would find broad audience to, to read and to sell to.

[34:22] Gunnar Dickfeld: Well, it was a trip to Japan and every bookstore you go in and look what kind of Go books they have and in the end you come out with at least one.

[34:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I bought about 30 to 40 books home with me and I'm really keen on looking for all of them. But I have a collection already which is hundreds of books.

[34:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I always say I have more books than I can ever study until

[34:46] Travis: the end of my life.

What Go Readers Buy

[34:47] Travis: So if you are looking at most of the potential for publishing a book or translating a book at Board in Stone from your personal lens, which makes a lot of sense, it needs to be interesting to you because there's also significant work that goes into that process.

[35:04] Travis: Can you look at the Western world in terms of what Go players are interested in reading in the west and say, oh, this is interesting, here's something that I've published that maybe you were not as interested in personally, but you were getting indications from the Western Go community that they wanted it.

[35:28] Travis: What has surprised you about some of the interest in types of Go books that perhaps you didn't think would be there?

[35:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think I had some surprises,

[35:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: but mostly not from my own publishing.

[35:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: I follow all the other publishers who were existent or still exist and do some publications every year and I,

[35:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: I don't know the exact numbers, how much they are sold. So it's almost hard to say guessing. And yes.

[36:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: And you learn by feedback from forums or from speaking with other people if these books are sold well or not.

[36:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: Sometimes you have a feeling that you wonder why this book is so popular.

[36:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, you just think like,

[36:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's like,

[36:20] Travis: why do people love this so much? I don't get it. Yeah, sure.

[36:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, yeah. And then there are books where you really think like, yeah, that's a good one. But I also see that marketing is one one thing if you have like in seong, a strong base with regular customers and regular contact to your community.

[36:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's much easier to sell a book if you just know one somewhere in Germany who's bringing out a book.

[36:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it's very difficult to get in touch with the kommunities and to promote it.

[36:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: Of course you have all these online possibilities. You have it available in every store. But still,

[36:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: my feeling is that I'm not very good at marketing to sell my books. And I usually, I'm really happy when a book is ready and I announce it and my mind is already on the next book.

[37:08] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I really forget about really selling it and I just say, it's available. If you like it, go and buy it. And I don't push too much for it.

[37:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: What did surprise me as well was that I made the book How to Play Go the AI Way! in both German and English, because I was always convinced that if you have the English book first, it's not worth doing the German book afterward because it won't sell at all, since people are already capable of using English literature or reading English literature.

[37:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: So at the German translation with a time lag of usually half a year, one year would not make any sense anymore. So this book I published first in German to sell it to the German buyers.

[37:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then I said when I go to the English one and sell to the English ones and I make a big margin.

[38:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it turned out that the German version did not work at all.

[38:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: The title was maybe not the best, but it's a German language is sometimes a bit difficult to make a catchy title.

[38:11] Travis: Sure.

[38:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so I was so disappointed. And when the English book was going to the start, it was selling quite well.

[38:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: At that time, everything which was AI was selling quite well, but I didn't want to sell any AI book. You were seeing quite some books which were very thin, very low content and price for.

[38:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: For quite a lot of money and we didn't have the real content.

[38:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: But when I saw the book by Yamada Shinji.

[38:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: I said that's the one, that's the best one.

[38:42] Gunnar Dickfeld: As I said before, I have a friend, iku.

[38:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: I was asking her to buy almost everything the chat AI in the title in the Japanese Amazon. And she was coming with a big parcel of books. And then I was going through all of it was published in Japan at that time.

[38:59] Gunnar Dickfeld: And there was a lot of books where you saw it's just putting some content together,

[39:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: put the stamp AI on it and try to sell it to the market.

[39:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so there was quite a lot of low quality books or from my personal perspective, not really worth buying.

[39:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: But this one was standing out and that's why I said I want to make that book happen.

[39:23] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this was really the one which I still think is very, very good. If you want to understand the basics of AI opening AI Joseki, that's the one you really have to look into.

[39:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: I really like that book.

Can Go Books Survive the Digital Era?

[39:36] Travis: When you think about the current landscape for publishing, I've got to imagine that it's changed quite significantly.

[39:43] Travis: Like we think about, okay, there are videos now on YouTube for learning about Go and there are different teaching websites and these sorts of things.

[39:53] Travis: How do you think about the changes that have happened over time?

[39:56] Travis: How does that change how you think about your work with BOARD N'STONES and publishing?

[40:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: In German we say Begleiter.

[40:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's always a partner of myself as thought what do I do with all the digitalization? It's from the very beginning this question is where because everyone,

[40:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: many people said books are dead,

[40:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: books are not surviving the new world.

[40:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: But still if you see the sales of books, we are still existing. You still see Amazon selling books and still there are publishers who are creating books.

[40:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: But as you, as you outlined the environment,

[40:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's getting more and more difficult because you have so much content on the Internet, so much quality content as well. And even I, I would like to follow maybe Michael Redman's video stream.

[40:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: I would like to follow another one and I don't have the time to watch all these videos. It makes me really sad because I would need to win a million or two and just spend a year to watch all the videos which are available and which would be interesting to me.

[41:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: So that's really one of the sad things. And I can understand everyone who says there's enough free content available and even there are some lectures where you have to pay a little bit money and you get your lectures.

[41:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: I really understand that there's so much out there that books are dropping in the market that they are not really that they don't have a big future, I would say.

[41:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: But still, if you have a tournament and you want to give prizes,

[41:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: give them online video as a price. It doesn't look that well. So that's the only thing. I think their books are still better than any digitalized content.

[41:40] Gunnar Dickfeld: And maybe for a Christmas present it's also maybe better to have a book and not some computer with some videos on it.

[41:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: But it's true, the sales are going down and it's really hard to make books sell.

[41:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that's why I think I'm quite happy that it's just a hobby and free time activity of myself and not my living.

[42:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I can continue with what I want to do where I have my interested in. And I like a book and I say that's worth to put more effort into it and maybe worth putting the money into it to pay the license to get this book translated,

[42:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: then I can do it. And if I don't want to, if I don't think it's worth to put my money into it and my time, I don't need to do it.

[42:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: So that's why I'm quite relaxed. I say I make the book I want to. And if somebody like Daniela is coming around and says, oh look, there's another nice book Lisa Doyle was making also one of himself, of his life and so on.

[42:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: I look into the book and think about it if he do it or not.

[42:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: But actually books don't sell that well.

[42:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: I could stop it and nobody would notice.

[42:45] Travis: I think I disagree. I don't think that's the case.

[42:49] Travis: My reaction is that when you release a book or even when a competitor releases a book and it's on all of these sort of in between, like the background, the cultural history or what somebody said or spoke to whom, their thoughts on those things, it feels like it's gold and it's like oh my gosh,

[43:06] Travis: wow, like this came out and we can take it. I wonder if just the main situation is that the sheer size of interest, the number of people is just relatively small compared to other parts of the world.

[43:20] Travis: Is that your sense or is it hard to say?

[43:22] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it's half of the truth.

[43:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yes, the kommunity is small.

[43:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: The community has a lot to digest from all kinds of sources.

[43:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think if there's less available on the Internet and in digitalized form, you would maybe have more people buying books.

[43:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: But still, if you make a good video, you can almost bring everything what is in a book also into a video.

[43:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: It might not be 20 minutes or it might not squeeze into a wheel for, for the 30 seconds.

[43:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: But if you see some game commentaries or some game videos on, on YouTube sometimes you have these clickbaits where somebody's just replaying a game with no comment and puts some music on it, sure, that's no value.

[44:07] Gunnar Dickfeld: Then you can take an SGF and just click through it on your own, or you use it as a screensaver to run the game, I don't know.

[44:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: But if you have some nice game commentaries which shows variations, which explains things very well, this might be more interesting because you don't need to fit it into a diagram.

[44:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: You see the stones moving because you use either physical board or some app to, to demonstrate the flow of the game.

[44:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: So videos can be really good. I don't think they are bad. I just think that there's also very good content. And sometimes I find videos where say well that's well made and then there are average ones and then they are really stupid ones.

[44:51] Gunnar Dickfeld: But that's the Internet, that's everywhere.

[44:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: And with books it's the same. I told you before, there are books which are not so good and they are average books and they're really good books.

[45:01] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you have this problem in all types where people want to earn money and on the Internet it's I think every channel or most of the channels, they are also looking for their follower numbers to gain some revenue back from following from streaming or from providing content.

[45:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: So that's life.

[45:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: Would there mean more buyers if the kommunity were growing? Of course. Many would have more buyers for books as well.

[45:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think so, yeah.

Growing Go Without Turning It Into a Job

[45:32] Travis: It just makes me think about two points you brought up earlier in the interview. One is that because this is a hobby for you, I mean it's a very in depth hobby.

[45:41] Travis: But because it's a hobby and you could really do it when you want to and it's. You can use your money to do that.

[45:47] Travis: It also allows for there to be.

[45:49] Travis: It's a double edged sword, right? There's trade offs. So one is that you, you can't produce as much as somebody that's doing it for their job.

[45:56] Travis: But on the other hand you can really focus on maybe we could say quality, right? Like things that you think are good, you want to do it to a certain level of quality.

[46:04] Travis: So that's probably a plus. That's probably a good thing for the western goat community in a sense because you're not tethered to it financially.

[46:13] Travis: And then the other thing you were mentioning around trying to get material for beginners about learning Go, is that you said? Yeah, there's, you know, it's all volunteer basis. There isn't a dedicated person at a school or anything that just does, you know, go or.

[46:28] Travis: Or teaches these things.

[46:30] Travis: And so what I've noticed is that some groups have said, hey, in the east, if you look in Asia and parts of Asia,

[46:38] Travis: there are many Go schools, there are many Go courses. They charge for things.

[46:42] Travis: There's no problem with that. Why don't we charge in the West?

[46:46] Travis: But then I think on the other side to that is that you also get into these situations, like you said, where there's a focus on marketing and it turns into clickbait, it turns into getting followers,

[46:59] Travis: it turns into this whole sort of like trying to hit all these metrics in the process of trying to make a living.

[47:05] Travis: Do you have any thoughts on how to reconcile that? So I guess, in other words,

[47:11] Travis: would you want Go to become more visible and more popular in the West?

[47:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: Me personally, no.

[47:22] Travis: Tell me why.

[47:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: There were many people who were saying, well, you could start a YouTube channel to promote Go and do more advertising for your books and you could do something for your community.

[47:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: But it just takes you about 10 minutes to make a proof of concept.

[47:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: And you see all the hurdles and you say, and if you want to really do it, you have to invest a lot of time.

[47:52] Gunnar Dickfeld: You have to work for all the technical equipment you need for all the technical things you need to consider.

[47:59] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think you know best. Yeah, you need to know a little bit of my recording techniques, of cutting techniques, and if you add pictures to it and videos, it's getting a little bit more complicated.

[48:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think when this group,

[48:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: the Korean lady who started the channel, Yeon Woo,

[48:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: yeah, she was making a game commentary and during the game or after the game,

[48:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: in the video, she was complaining that she was spending five hours just to cut this video and put it together. And now she wants to have the clicks.

[48:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: I really felt that I was doing right, not going into that area. There are many people who try that.

[48:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: I saw and I was following some channels for some time. How we are evolving. And you always see also they have to fight for their clicks, for their revenues. And they see that they invest a lot of time and energy into it and maybe also equipment.

[48:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it's not turning out to be a success.

[49:01] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think who was really popular with a very easy concept was Haylee's World of Go/Baduk.

[49:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: She was just playing online games, recording them,

[49:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: telling what was on her mind, and that streaming was very, very popular.

[49:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: But all the other ones,

[49:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: they also struggle,

[49:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: maybe as you said, the kommunity is not big enough to create all these numbers,

[49:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: the konsumers, and there's maybe already too much available to consume.

[49:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: And for me, I really said in the very beginning, I was thinking about it, but I said, I have to invest so much energy to get to know how to do it, when to do it, and this time and effort, I don't want to invest.

[49:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: I stick to my books. I know how it's working.

[49:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: I can estimate the time I need for a book. And I really feel happy when I work on a book. It's fun for me. It's my hobby. It's when I start feeling this is getting work, it's getting ugly.

[50:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: I don't want to anymore. And then I finish it. And then I say,

[50:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: stop. That's not the book. You. It's not worth it.

[50:07] Travis: Sorry.

[50:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so that's why I said online things. That's for someone else. They can do it. It's not for me.

Authors, Players, and the Licensing Process

[50:18] Travis: Maybe we can talk about some of your interactions and some of your experiences over the years doing your work in publishing.

[50:26] Travis: For example, you mentioned that you published SEVEN about the super match between Shin Jin-seo and Park Junghwan.

[50:34] Travis: You also had the situation with translating Shin Jin-seo's book, My Go Journey, with the help of Daniela Trinks.

[50:42] Travis: What has it been like to go from those different experiences? Were you able to interact at all directly with any of the players? I know? For example, with Ueno Asami's book, I know you had that sort of photo opportunity with her,

[50:56] Travis: and you were able to do a, you know, make a finished English version,

[51:01] Travis: and you went and visited in Japan. So can you just give us like a sense, like, what are those experiences like when you get to interact with the actual players?

[51:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: Interacting with the actual players is very rare, to be honest.

[51:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: So sometimes you have books which are already quite old. I started with Kato's Attack and Kill to translate from English to German.

[51:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: You know, it's very difficult to get in touch with him.

[51:28] Gunnar Dickfeld: Kageyama was also.

[51:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: It's a classic in the English word and classic in the German.

[51:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: And when I was in Japan, I saw that the Nihon Ki-in was reprinting that book, that we have it on the shelf again.

[51:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: But this may have two reasons. On the one hand, the book is very popular, and on the other hand, the Nihon Ki-in has no money for new books.

[51:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: But still, people love that book.

[51:49] Travis: That is one book, if you named it. Everybody wants that book. In English.

[51:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah,

[51:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: yeah. And in German as well. If you ask someone, if A beginner is coming asking someone,

[52:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: I want to buy a book.

[52:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: Give me some advice. Do you know the Kageyama? No, you don't.

[52:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's the book. You can't make anything wrong.

[52:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, that's. That's a real classic.

[52:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: So every book has its. Its story,

[52:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: and every story is different.

[52:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: When I was in touch with the author,

[52:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: it was Hajin Lee. Of course,

[52:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: My translator was doing the translation for that one and he was finding a lot of questions during reading the English edition and was approaching her for clarification. Because sometimes you use an English word and in German you can.

[52:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: Can be either this or that or it doesn't really correspond to the Korean he was expecting and so on.

[52:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: And Hain was really surprised how much he goes into detail to translate that book. And he was really taking a lot of effort to do so.

[52:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: Who else I was in directly contact with?

[52:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: Not so many. No. Usually when you translate books from Japanese authors,

[53:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: I go through the agency. The agency goes to the publisher and the publisher corresponds with the author a little bit. And then you also have the language barrier and these contracts that say you are not allowed to go directly to the author.

[53:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: Maybe one…

[53:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: One story where I was in touch with the author before the book was Ohashi Hirofumi, because he's a regular visitor to the European Go Congress.

[53:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: He's a creator of Sumo Go. And because he speaks a little bit English, he's quite often at the European Go Congress.

[53:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so his face is known and he knows the kommunity here a little bit. And I was meeting him twice and then I said, I need to do one book one day.

[53:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: And more or less I promised 10 years ago to do so.

[53:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it was still on my list that I have to do and to fulfill.

[53:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: So here I was really in touch with him. But the translation was made by Antti Törmänen, the Finnish professional.

[54:05] Travis: Yeah.

[54:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: Because he was also aware of his books. He's a close friend to him and he was suggesting to make an ebook out of it. But he didn't get the license from the publisher.

[54:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: And Ohashi couldn't give the license directly because he gave all the licenses via contract to the. The publisher, even the translation wise.

[54:26] Travis: Wow.

[54:27] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so you have to go through the publisher and he could not bypass his Japanese publisher. And that makes it a bit complicated in this area.

[54:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: I spent quite some time about explaining how licensing works and to get licenses and to.

[54:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah.

[54:44] Travis: Do you ever get to points where you're saying like, is this worth it? All of this licensing and contract, it can be quite frustrating, I imagine, at times.

[54:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yes. Especially if you deal with people who have not been in this business or have come from a different jurisdiction where it works a little bit different.

[55:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it was last year I was in touch with some interesting books and people who were in touch with the authors.

[55:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: And it was a chain over two or three people.

[55:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: And there were so many questions.

[55:22] Gunnar Dickfeld: In the end,

[55:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think we had both sides of feeling it won't work. The expectations. On one side the revenues which you can gain, and on the other side the standard clauses which were not accepted because the expectations were differently.

[55:38] Travis: Oh, interesting.

[55:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: You come. You come to a point where you say it's not really worth continuing and maybe let it, set it down and try later next time.

[55:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: That was a more recent one. There were other ones. Like,

[55:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: you see a nice book where you say that's the one,

[55:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: you want to have it,

[55:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: but you don't get in touch with the author. You don't get in touch with anyone who's responsible for handling the licenses anymore.

[56:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: And if you want to be on the property path,

[56:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: you cannot do it just without asking or without having the legal background to do so.

[56:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it's too risky to do it and then get a problem and you have to stop publishing completely because you are in such a contractual mess. So that's why I really work out to get the license first and to get the agreement to do so.

[56:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: And if you don't find anyone who can grant you the license,

[56:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: then you have to let the project go as well.

[56:40] Travis: Yeah, that's so disappointing. I mean, just to go through finding a great book and saying, oh, it should be as simple as now connecting the dots. And it just does not happen.

The Future of Go in the West

[56:50] Travis: Gunnar, when you look forward 10 or 20 years into the future,

[56:54] Travis: you've talked to me a little bit about what role you think books and publishing may play or may not play. If you want to tell us a little bit more about that, that'd be great.

[57:04] Travis: But what would you most like to see in terms of change,

[57:09] Travis: particularly the West? When it comes to go,

[57:13] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm a little bit too down to earth, I think, to answer that question with a nice vision.

[57:19] Gunnar Dickfeld: We have our troubles in Germany to organize our association, our clubs, to promote Go. And the main problem is that everyone investing energy is doing it on a voluntary basis.

[57:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so everyone's focusing on wants to do it his own way. And there are sometimes not compromises between different views. And so we get stuck and one side is running that way.

[57:43] Gunnar Dickfeld: The Other side is running that way and you don't have a real overall experience.

[57:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: Overall manager who's putting it one way to really make it so… like Hikaru no Go, there was a hype, a short hype, but we could not benefit on a long-term basis.

[57:59] Gunnar Dickfeld: It was like a nice gain in the korner, but you lost the game in the long run.

[58:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: And having this experience now. I play now for more than 30 years and I saw all these developments in our small area and if I watch the other countries,

[58:20] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's I would say similar, at least that there's not a big progress. You keep the association running, you keep the activities running,

[58:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: but there's not a big breakthrough. Maybe the U.S. we have these Go professionals and start to have some high level of investing more on a high level.

[58:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: But the base work, I think it's maybe the same like 20 years ago.

[58:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: And in Europe the same. We have also a small professional league which is sponsored by some Chinese enterprise and geopolitically, I don't know if this will turn back as a boomerang, but let's.

[59:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: Let's wait for that.

[59:04] Gunnar Dickfeld: But it's nice to have this on the top level. But base level is the same as 20 years ago, as 40 years ago.

[59:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: If you have voluntaries who do the work, you have some base work to broaden community.

[59:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I don't see how this could change.

[59:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: If you don't find a big sponsor who's saying I have this much money, I can pay people to do regular courses, go for schools and offer on a regular basis some courses and Go playing opportunities.

[59:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: There won't be a big change we had.

[59:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think it's also about 25 years ago, even more, that Yuki Shigeno, a 2-dan professional at the time, was sent by the Nihon Ki-in for one and a half years to travel through Germany with a translator and go from school to school and explain the rules of Go.

[59:57] Gunnar Dickfeld: Explain the culture and the background. Really she was. Was one and a half years in Germany on. On the way to Go for all kinds of schools. And it still did not last because it was one event,

[01:00:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: it was an introduction.

[01:00:10] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I don't know if any of these children are still playing Go or if it just took it for that was a nice change from normal lectures.

[01:00:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you need to invest much more on. On a regular basis. And if you cannot fund it and if you just base this on voluntary work,

[01:00:29] Gunnar Dickfeld: it will be, I think the same in 10 years, 120 years.

[01:00:33] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm sorry that I'm so pessimistic or so realistic.

[01:00:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I think books can change that.

[01:00:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: And even the Internet, we see if people get addicted and they play online a lot,

[01:00:47] Gunnar Dickfeld: you see some very nice surprises.

[01:00:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: Some years ago, we had a tournament in our city and there was a player coming and say, oh, I'm about a 1 dan. I live here in Frankfurt. Of course,

[01:00:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: everyone was looking like in Frankfurt. We have never seen you at a club.

[01:01:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yeah, I have two children. I just play online.

[01:01:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: So just from playing online, he grew one down and nobody didn't know him before.

[01:01:10] Travis: Wow, that's amazing.

[01:01:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: So you have these nice stories. Yeah. And often people come and say, I met someone in Japan at the Go club, and he came from Korea, and he learned Go in Korea when he was studying there.

[01:01:24] Gunnar Dickfeld: And he was about,

[01:01:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: I would say, 5-kyu now.

[01:01:27] Travis: And then he comes back to Germany. He will just enter as a 5-kyu or maybe even as a 3-kyu.

[01:01:27] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then he comes back to Germany. He will just enter as a 5-kyu or maybe even as a 3-kyu.

[01:01:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: And he has never seen anyone of the German community before.

[01:01:37] Travis: Wow.

[01:01:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: Because he just learned in Korea during his studies.

[01:01:41] Travis: Amazing.

[01:01:41] Gunnar Dickfeld: And yeah, that's. That's amazing.

[01:01:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: That's really fun. So. So you have these possibilities that it can happen that somebody gets addicted on a very interesting race. But to make it like in football, you have all these programs to select youth to.

[01:01:58] Gunnar Dickfeld: To train you.

[01:02:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: It may be too much on that side,

[01:02:02] Gunnar Dickfeld: but if you don't have this on a broader basis,

[01:02:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: the kommunity will not grow on a big scale for you.

[01:02:10] Travis: Would it change things if it did? Would you still be just as interested in Go as you have the last 30 years?

[01:02:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think the game is surviving for the last 4,000 years.

[01:02:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think that game will survive another 4,000 years without us.

[01:02:26] Gunnar Dickfeld: There will always be people who love this game and bring it forward and keep it going.

[01:02:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: If it's on a smaller basis here in the Western world,

[01:02:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's nothing. What we can influence much, I think. Sure,

[01:02:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: I try my best, but I'm just one.

[01:02:42] Gunnar Dickfeld: It needs more.

Lightning Round

[01:02:44] Travis: Well, I was wondering before we end our conversation, if we could do a little lightning round.

[01:02:50] Travis: So the first question is, what is your favorite Go book of all time?

[01:02:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: Wow. I was expecting such a question, and I was really trying to think about it. Kageyama was great. We were talking about it.

[01:03:07] Travis: Fundamentals of go. Okay.

[01:03:09] Gunnar Dickfeld: The Empty Board by William Cobb.

[01:03:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: The Empty Board by William Cobb.

[01:03:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: I really recommend that one.

[01:03:18] Gunnar Dickfeld: This was also putting a big imprint on me during my younger years.

[01:03:24] Travis: Okay, second question. What is a book that you have published that you are the most proud of?

[01:03:32] Gunnar Dickfeld: It changes Every time I publish a book, I'm proud of it.

[01:03:40] Gunnar Dickfeld: Well, maybe one book where I'm less proud.

[01:03:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: I was very proud of How to Play Go the AI Way! because I made a very good choice of selecting a title covering a certain topic.

[01:03:54] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm very proud on seven because when this game series was announced,

[01:04:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: I thought that's a nice thing to have a tournament of seven games between these two players.

[01:04:05] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I had the feeling that this could be turned out amazing because at the time, Park Junghwan was the number one player, right?

[01:04:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: And Shin Jin-seo was the informal number one, not yet recognized as the number one.

[01:04:20] Travis: Okay.

[01:04:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I was doing all the game commentary, putting together after the game and trying to finish before the next game started.

[01:04:31] Travis: Oh, geez.

[01:04:31] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so I was walking in time and every time he was winning, I was like, yeah, one more, one more.

[01:04:37] Gunnar Dickfeld: And now.

[01:04:38] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I was somehow really convinced after three games he can make it to all the seven games.

[01:04:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: And so every game was more and more fun.

[01:04:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: The funny thing was the more he was winning.

[01:04:50] Gunnar Dickfeld: My feeling was that the interest on the Internet was getting less,

[01:04:55] Gunnar Dickfeld: but I was getting more excited because I felt like he will make it for full seven.

[01:05:01] Gunnar Dickfeld: That was fun.

[01:05:03] Gunnar Dickfeld: So I was proud that I was starting early enough with that book. But I was. When the tournament finished, I had a lot of content ready. I had all the live streams seen on a Korean tv and there are many more.

[01:05:16] Gunnar Dickfeld: Sometimes I think Cosmic Go is also a great book by Takemiya Masaki.

[01:05:21] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm very happy to some French people who helped me to get a license for that one and to get into the translation for that one. It's also a very funny story.

[01:05:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: I'm in touch with a French shop that is selling Go books to the French community. And he's usually buying from me. And one time he was asking if I could not reprint this book, which had been out of print for many years.

[01:05:44] Gunnar Dickfeld: The cosmic Go in French.

[01:05:46] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I said, yes, I just need to agree on the license and let me find some contact to get this agreement.

[01:05:53] Gunnar Dickfeld: And then working through these contacts,

[01:05:56] Gunnar Dickfeld: it turned up that there is a guy who made a complete English translation.

[01:06:00] Gunnar Dickfeld: And this translation was offered to Yutopian many years ago. And it was almost settled. And then Yutopian did not publish any books anymore. So this translation was never published.

[01:06:12] Gunnar Dickfeld: And I was so happy to say, you are.

[01:06:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: Let's pull it into print.

[01:06:17] Gunnar Dickfeld: And that was a really big surprise because I thought, this book is so old, this playing style is so old. You have now AI and all this new things. And this is one of the books which is really selling well compared to other books.

[01:06:30] Gunnar Dickfeld: Yes, it's not like that you can make a living order of it. It's not a.

[01:06:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: But still I was really surprised that this with Takamiya and his playing style and where you recognize the style of a player. To come back to the original question.

[01:06:45] Travis: Yes.

[01:06:45] Gunnar Dickfeld: That this is still so interested and that people are keen on replaying and studying commentaries of his games. It was really a good surprise and I'm really proud. But here I'm happy that so many people helped me to make this book.

[01:07:01] Travis: Final question. If you could play Go with any human, alive or dead who would it be and why?

[01:07:11] Gunnar Dickfeld: Just for the fun of the game. I would like to play a game with Ueno Asami.

[01:07:15] Gunnar Dickfeld: I followed her games for quite a long time and I know I won't have a chance to win and it will be a real massacre with many dead groups on my side but she is such a nice and kind person.

[01:07:35] Gunnar Dickfeld: But I think just the time spending together not being able to communicate but just playing a game that would be a lot of fun and would be a great time I would really look forward to.

[01:07:48] Gunnar Dickfeld: By the way,

[01:07:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: it's quite funny. I read another book which I also bought from Japan and there was a professional player who set him was trained by Kato Masau and he was known as the Killer As a very famous player.

[01:08:05] Travis: Yes.

[01:08:06] Gunnar Dickfeld: And he said in person he's a very gentle guy, very nice, very friendly, very helpful and you would not imagine what kind of playing style he had that reminds how you could look at on the board.

[01:08:25] Gunnar Dickfeld: She's really fierce and makes big groups die and this fierce fighting but in life she's completely different but in a good way.

[01:08:36] Gunnar Dickfeld: So yes, I think that would be a nice game to have.

[01:08:39] Gunnar Dickfeld: And maybe not the game itself but the whole atmosphere, the partner you are playing with that's more than the kontent of the game.

[01:08:49] Gunnar Dickfeld: I think there are many, many, many persons you would like to play with, because it pops up in my mind right now. Many years ago I played Pair Go at the European Go Congress with a Taiwanese professional player, and she was about, I think, 2-dan professional. And this was fun because we had a similar idea of the game. That was really cool, and such kinds of games

[01:09:14] Gunnar Dickfeld: I would also love to play again.

[01:09:17] Travis: That must have been really great to play. Yeah. Pair go with a professional player. That's amazing. And to feel like you're on somewhat of the same page must really feel incredible.

[01:09:28] Travis: This is probably a good place to end.

[01:09:31] Travis: Thank you again for the time.

[01:09:34] Gunnar Dickfeld: Thank you very much for giving me that opportunity. That's really great speaking to you. Thank you for these nice questions as well.

Gunnar's Follow-Up Thought: Go Needs Infrastructure

[01:09:50] Travis: After my conversation with Gunnar, he sent me an email with some more thoughts he had about our conversation, and I thought it was worth sharing.

[01:09:58] Travis: He compared go to having a great car but not having enough roads or gas stations.

[01:10:03] Travis: The game itself can be excellent, but if there aren't enough places to play,

[01:10:07] Travis: ways to learn, communities to join, or other infrastructure around it, it becomes much harder to attract and keep people.

[01:10:15] Travis: With that. We'll wrap things up. Thanks so much for listening and catch you next time.

[01:10:19] Travis: This is all things Go.

Final Sponsor Thanks

[01:10:36] Travis: On a final note, I just want to thank again our sponsors for the episode. SmartGo One is your all-in-one Go toolkit for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

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