fun playing go ??????

[dokbohm]

resently i have been getting after I thank the person for the game, the return lately has been, and this is on just the last week or so” hello’’’’’ followed by’’’’’ have fun’’’’’

Do people who play this game actually have fun? I find the game addictive in the highest order. I have even given up playing poker to keep playing this game, and soon I think chess will fall by the wayside.

Do people at lower k and dan levels have fun playing this game? I see where teaching this game may be fun or even fullfilling but just playing a game- where you are constantly being outwitted at every corner – how can that be fun? What is the point of motivation for it to be fun? Any comments, please, and why is this salutation happening? Are people just trying to be kind, knowing my k level and playing style inadvance and just being kind, say something nice, or is there another explainantion iam missing? – chime in please

[Uberdude]

Yes, and if it’s not, why don’t you do something else which is fun for you?

Also “Have fun” is one of the standard OGS greetings.

[mikhail.trusfus]

Why do you play go?

[garlicsoup]

@dokbohm

Do people who play this game actually have fun?

Lmao, this is your funniest comment yet.

[jlt]

Playing go is not the same type of fun than partying with friends, but is more like solving puzzles. On the other hand we can have both if we play with friends at a go club.

[corner.square]

@DVbS78rkR7NVe

[shamisen]

In other games like poker, u feel high highs but low lows. Go is consistently mid, once in a while a high if you win a tournament or make some kind of breakthrough.
Going to a theater to see the best movie of the year, playing immersive adventure games like Split Fiction with a significant other/best friend, going to a concert for a favorite band, etc. …are all more fun, but you can’t do those things 24/7.
Go is always available 24/7.

That’s why I believe improving at Go and general self-improvement is where much of the value of playing Go comes from. If your main goals are having immediate fun or socializing, it’s not the best hobby.

[dokbohm]

very good answer - i liked the way you explained that and in a concise manner

[dokbohm]

love this picture think i will frame it – thanks for the chuckle i needed that

[GreenAsJade]

FWIW I totally agree with the sentiment.

Not everything we choose to do has to be “fun”.

I would not describe my experience playing Go that way.

Something can be “worth doing”. And “sometimes even rewarding”. Without ever being “fun”

[Groin]

Is it supposed to be fun in the beginning?

I have a history with Go. I have started and stopped multiple times and I have always stopped because the game never got fun for me. I find Go fascinating, which is why I keep picking the game up (and why I own several books on Go) but it’s always a year or more between when I put the game down and pick it back up again and since Go is not a “bicycle skill” (at least not for me) I am always starting from the beginning. And maybe it’s just me but starting out in Go is the opposite of fun. It’s a …

Most fun rank to play at?

I’d imagine that you can’t really enjoy go if you’re a complete beginner, because without basics it’s hard to even understand what’s going on in the game. On the other hand I think it’s hard to have fun playing go on high dan level, because reading and evaluating everything becomes tedious. If that is true that there should be a golden rank at which go is the most fun to play. Is that true? And if so then what rank is the golden one?

When was the last time you had fun playing go?

Pretty much the title…

Lies about this game being fun

lies, game not fun at all

And somewhat related:

Getting frustrated about getting frustrated?

I know that I should expect to lose more than I win starting out, I know the proverb “Lose your first 50/100 games quickly,” I’ve been told multiple times that rank and rating aren’t the end-all-be-all. This post isn’t about that, but I guess some might call it a “by-product” of that (I’m not entirely sure myself). Recently, there have been times where I find myself getting frustrated/ashamed about getting frustrated about rank. When I get frustrated after a series of losses, I’ll start asking …

[JethOrensin]

@dokbohm

Do people at lower k and dan levels have fun playing this game?

Good question.
Most probably, yes.

[GoInfluenchess]

@dokbohm

Do people at lower k and dan levels have fun playing this game? I see where teaching this game may be fun or even fullfilling but just playing a game- where you are constantly being outwitted at every corner

Well, I’m outwitted in all the board, not only the corners.

Jokes aside. “Have fun” is a way to describe something you enjoy doing, is not directly to being fun and laughing, just enjoying. In the same way you can do a football match between friends, is fun even if you loose (not being smashed).

A lot of players play because likes the game and enjoy their time playing. Others likes me love the competitive side of the game too, and enjoy trying to improve studying the game and visiting tournaments.

Ranks are exactly for this, to be able to find a balance match against an equal player. If you don’t find balanced matches and “constantly being outwitted at every corner” you have to work on your weaknesses and basics. Ask for reviews, check videos, books and so on.. Reviews from stronger players is the best way to improve.

[dokbohm]

very well thought out explanation of fun as it refers to the game of go – had not thought that way before as fun to me was laughter and a free carlessness to an endeavour that the game of go is not/ your way of thinking maybe changes my mind on the matter

[trohde]

@dokbohm

Do people who play this game actually have fun?

Good question.

I’m “old and sick” just like you, well, maybe not quite like you but 68 and suffering from deadly COPD.

I’ve scratched at 3k (or was it 4k) ~5 years ago (and not ~3 years ago like I recently wrote somewhere here) … and after that have fallen back to <gasp>meanwhile 13k!

So … no, it definitely is NOT ALWAYS FUN, rather the opposite, it can be, at least for me, quite painful sometimes.

I mean, losing a stone in strength – or three, if you will – can happen, and I was used to “two steps forward, one step backward”, which, as I felt, made for a quite stable stance at whatever rank I had in the past, and for solid, if slow, progress. But losing ten stones in five years is quite worse than that, right?

Possible reasons:

• getting old and slow

• lack of oxygen in brain due to the COPD (I quit smoking 15 months ago but the disease doesn’t care and progresses mercilessly)

• depression

• lots of other priorities – i.e. no study, no reviews, etc., only a few Tsumego off and on

• and the folks I play with are younger and most still have ambitions in Go, i.e. many of them study and review.

Anyway, whatever it is, it IS, and I must try to live with it, like, “what is, is, um what ain’t, ain’t”, right?

A few times I was close to quitting because it was just too frustrating, but then I always caught myself again (do you use this idiom also in English?) and stuck with the game, also because the people I play with (almost exclusively here on OGS, very rarely IRL) are simply so nice persons with whom I like to stay in this friendly sparring contact.

So … is it masochism? I don’t think so; I rather believe that, while YES, it often is painful, it still gives me enough positive feelings, for example when, even in a game that I’m losing, I play a few good moves that steals a few points from the opponent and gives them the creeps

I don’t know, though, what the future brings. Will I fall back even more? Will I still enjoy it if I fall back to 17k? I cannot tell.
But just like I learned to resign a particular game when I realize that I’m losing it very badly, no chance to turn it around, and when it is simply getting too painful to continue playing, so I might even quit Go as a whole in case that should happen.
But as of yet I cannot see that happen.

[The_Holy_Gote]

@trohde

and after that have fallen back

I truly believed you were doing that by choice, out of humility. I’ve watched another OGS player over the last two years slowly drop from 4 dan to 2 dan, maybe they got busy or married or both. Anyway, I am both inspired and encouraged looking at Michael Redmond’s rating graph. It’s one thing to see it dip then rebound - but takes on another dimension when I realize that the timescale of that “dip” is several years.

---

Fun playing go? I’ve quit multiple times, for years at a time….more of a watcher than a player. When watching others I can be quite philosophical while seeing a group of 30 stones die I’ve been thinking about scales of focus recently. We hear about tactics and strategy but I’ve started thinking of a third focus scale; for now I’m calling it mindset. Like, “why am I even playing this game?”, “what are my expectations or aims?“. I think honestly I’m mainly in it for the distractionism. Mindset is to strategy as strategy is to tactics. If I’m not enjoying it, I’ll just quit.

[corner.square]

@The_Holy_Gote

Michael Redmond’s rating graph

[Maikol_2]

Tom, While you may have dropped rating points some your legacy is in your wiliness to play and teach Newbs (myself included). When we first started playing each other my ratings were getting inflated from beating you, a 7k with a 4 stone handicap on a 9x9 board. Not sure how you’re faring against people at your level but teaching games must also be impacting your ratings slide.

[Maikol_2]

In General, GO is a game where you win by making less mistakes. If you manage to kill a large group or make life in an area that seemed impossible it is invariably because you made less mistakes in that area than your opponent. I guess that could take away some of the “FUN” (like yay ha ha fun) out of it because you need to maintain pressure and basically wait for a mistake to take advantage of.. Its not like you make an unstoppable shot to win a football game (Siiiuuuuu) . its about the absence of playing bad, if I’m explaining myself correctly here. That means that every loss is 100% just your fault. No Luck, no chance. Maybe that affects how people see it as being fun or not. In any case, its challenging, that is where the enjoyment lies, and maybe that the distinction. We enjoy GO even when we may not be having “Fun”.

so.. Enjoy your next game

[Laralike]

There are two different questions here:

• why do they say have fun? answer - they are being polite/kind
• does anyone actually have fun? answer - depends on your definition of fun! (I personally find the game to be a kind of addictive torture, but periods of steady progression are satisfying and that, I suppose, is a kind of fun. Do I find it fun in the moment? Never!)