I want to learn chess, but I am scared that it would mess me up in GO. What should I do?
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Thatâs like asking if learning tennis would mess up your existing skills in downhill skiing.
Donât worry and dive in
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Ok, Thanks!
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Lol, I have the same fear. Just like I donât think itâs effective to learn (seriously, and not just the basics) a lot of languages (especially with very different grammar structures). But my guess would be that two games shouldnât be a problem. I see that there are lots of players who are highly proficient in both games or players who successfully transitioned from one to the other.
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Both games are absolute beauties and very similar regarding the thinking process.
The only question is if you want to split your time or invest all time in one of them.
Iâd suggest to learn both and then decide which you prefer to get âreally goodâ at.
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I found that go improved my chess
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I think this is the key. If your goal is to become expert, you probably canât do both. If you just want to dabble in one, it probably wonât hurt.
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For our western world, at some level I think itâs more tempting to give up go if you are trying to reach some expert level for two main raisons:
- In chess you may have stocked a large book knowledge you are afraid to waste. (Opening)
- Chess is much more in our culture. Chance is that your dad or your mom teached you or you got some practice at school. Chance you ll find more easily opponents to play too.
I met players good at both so you donât have to sacrifice one anyway.
Itâs possible to be good at both:
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To be fair, GM is a much much higher level than amateur 3d, particularly in terms of time required to invest. I think the idea that you only have time to get really good at one (if any) still holds
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Converting from chess titles to go titles, my guess would be that GM is something like 3p, or something like becoming European go champion a couple of times in the last 2 decades, or ending top 3 a few times in the WACG.
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I didnât say that 3d is anywhere comparable to GM, but starting go after 40 years old and becoming EGF 3d is still quite a feat, I donât think there are many examples of this kind.
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A similar one is Alexander Morozevich, a 1d EGF at go and a stronger GM than Tiger Hillarp Persson. There is also IM Willy Hendriks 3d EGF, who I know from my time at the Leiden go club around 1990. And from the same time at the same go club I remember FM Frits Fritschy who was 1d EGF.
But I donât know others than these players.
Edit: corrected names that I mixed up
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I met a strong dan (5?) in the Hamburg go club who in the same place played some chess regularly too.
And I teached go to a young swiss chess master but this one was satisfied to reach a 6k rank and in some way gave up after.
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I wonât say that chess is a prerequisite to play go but the fact is I enjoyed a lot my games of go with them because unlike most of other beginners without a chess experience, they had a very interesting way to try to refute your moves, to go against the stream to figure how to bring more complexity.
I wonder how chess players feel about people coming from go.
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Iâve played some chess with a coworker who is a ~1800 Elo chess player (perhaps comparable to something like 1k in go). Iâm probably more like a ~1000 Elo chess player (perhaps comparabe to something like 20k in go, i.e. an experienced beginner).
He told me that he can definitely notice that Iâm reading: I avoid hanging pieces and Iâm trying to set up tactical traps.
But of course the skill gap is too great for me to have a chance to win. He doesnât need to trick me to win. He can just outplay me positionally and keep me on the back foot until I end up with my back against the wall. Iâm guessing I might have a chance with a rook handicap.
Iâd say that experience and knowledge are very important in reading. I once played a game of shogi with an intermediate chess player. We were both inexperienced in shogi, but we both had reading experience in another game. I happened to win that game of shogi. Perhaps my go reading experience was a greater advantage than his chess knowledge.
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Shogi does have that part of the game where youâve to imagine pieces that can get placed almost anywhere at any time.
Itâs an extra dimension to the reading and it could mess up some calculation shortcuts you do in chess.
Even the shogi checkmate patterns are funny. A lot of them can come from dropping many pieces from your hand.
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Stopped reading here. If you want to learn chess, then learn chess, do wathever makes you happy and have fun, donât understand the issue.
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also writes about chess. And does this in an original an innovative way.
Other books by Willy Hendriks:
- Move First, Think Later: Sense and Nonsense in Improving your Chess, 2012.
- On the Origin of Good Moves: A Skepticâs Guide to Getting Better at Chess, 2020.
- The Ink War. Romanticism versus Modernity in Chess, 2022,
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Do you want to put in the time? Are you okay with a heavy emphasis on the opening? Any interest in 960? Looked at tsumechess? Accessible social opportunities? Other resources?
Suppose that you âshouldâ. What plan would you make âto learnâ? Getting a set isnât that expensive and study material is plenty. The annotation for records is pretty neat too.
This is a game where people will bring up their favorite players and playstyle, so the idea of âstudying past gamesâ is encouraged unlike go. This game emphasizes tactics and reading deep. In contrast, go is more strategy and has a lot of reading wide.
While I think historical games in go are much cooler for their gameplay ideas, the personalities in chess had to play under huge circumstances in the 20th century. The memes are pretty funny too.
Doing comparisons on ranking systems are hard given a variety of factors (cultural, organizations & servers, online & offline play, extra stones & komi, potential of ability, difficulty curve, self-selection, etc). Perhaps a rough approach by % of regular players could be made.