🤯 Why do Go players drop out? Addressing anxiety and stress in Go

I think that you will find that is more of an individual’s issue, than the activity’s issue, so it is a bit hard to pinpoint the “this” and “that” in broader terms.

For example, I take this attitude I mentioned to everything I do, things that have nothing in common with Go like learning music or playing basketball. Certainly it is an attitude that does not push someone to excellence, but it leads itself to a wide range of learning/experience and minimum (if any) stress/anxiety/fear involved. :slight_smile:

Therefore what you are trying to find is why people have different, more anxious prone, mentalities in general (which they later apply to Go) and I’d say that this is hardly an easy issue to even gather data on, let alone offer any kind of solutions to (therefore the “adressing” part of the topic is hard to fathom).

For example, I have a friend that is full of anxiety and self-doubt and she brings all that to everything she does, because that is who she is, as a character. Do you think that it is Go itself that would make her stress on “where to play?” when anxiety is a problem she would have even on Monopoly after rolling the dice and having only one place to move to? :thinking:

The fear of “judgement and fear” of “defeat” (well, the feeling of “not being worthy of winning” in her case), come with the person and not from the game.

I’ll give you another example from basketball. There was this kid, back in the day, which would always appear in the court, would inevitably join a team and regardless of the result at the time, he would give up and leave, every single time, and leave the game in the middle and the teams imbalanced, thus ruining the match for all of us.
Do you think that person would approach Go with a different mentality or would he quit very fast or at least quit the games he joined? Of course he’d quit, because that’s his character (or that’s as far as his attention span would take him) and Go itself would have had nothing to do with it.

So, unless you plan on the biggest phychological survey and research of all time, I highly doubt that this will lead to anything tangible, because the problem lies beyond Go.

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Let me express myself. Go is not just a game for me, it’s a mental practice that has an impact on my lifestyle. I have been doing the mental practice of Go for 9 years. I was able to get rid of smoking (I smoked for 20 years), got rid of the addiction to computer games. It is just right for me to consider Go as something of a panacea, but I see the shortcomings and perfectly understand those who stop their Go practice.

First, Go takes a LOT of time. Of course, if you’re just mimicking pros or AI moves, or relying on theory, competing, or just having fun slapping the board, it can be dealt with quickly, but if your goal is to stretch your brain and get some food for thought and health benefits, be prepared to spend a lot of time for the game and analysis of the game played.
Secondly, the Go game audience outside of Asian countries is small and its growth dynamics is depressing. For me, for example, finding a partner to play outside of the Internet is an impossible task. There is no Go club in my city, as well as in my entire region, and Go competitions have not been held since 2016 (if I am wrong with the date, it is very slightly). It’s okay to play Go online, but it’s impossible to achieve the level of immersion that you get when playing in the real world. The difference is the same as when drinking tea bags and tea brewed according to all the rules. Well, as they say, in the absence of stamped paper, you can write on a plain one.
Third, it is very difficult to convince people to even try Go. In this day and age of fast-paced computerized entertainment, it’s almost impossible to get someone excited with a board of stones, especially after the announcement of how long it will take to play. As a result, many of the few non-Asian Go players are left alone and can only watch contented chess players who don’t have our problems in real life.
Fourth, the popularity of Go is declining not only outside of Asia, it is declining in Asia itself, in the homeland of Go. This trend indicates that Go has come into conflict with the ever-increasing pace of human life. What will be the outcome of this confrontation, only time will tell.

I know the power of Go. I have felt the healing effect of this power on myself and I am grateful for it. But I also understand those who abandon Go in favor of chess or other activities.

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I do not really understand what optimized means here.
I had the chance of being able to spend a lot of time with activities of my choice. And I had a lot of them. Go is one with longevity. I had quit it twice because of location and internet not being invented yet. But also I abandoned it few times because there were other activities that interested me more. And I really wonder how some people are able to maintain the same hobby for an entire lifetime. Like collecting stamps for example. Did that for a while too. I played correspondence chess, and had a lot of other correspondence too, and it was kind of implied to save the stamps. But it was purely amateurish. Never spent a dime on collecting. I only collected what I received, and exchanged what I had. Maybe this was the reason that no hobby lasted too much.

Anyway, lack of novelty appeared even in the case of novels and movies. Even every book is a new book, after a while any book will be somewhat similar to some other one.

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A go set is a one time spending not that expensive. Go is a pretty cheap activity in itself.
Ofc one can argue on the time you will spend, or the cost to participate in a tournament or to join a federation but that’s something else.

Took me a long time to grasp that you will not convince someone to play go. People from your very first words will be already interested. Or not.

Really? I dunno myself and didn’t see any charts.
We got some popularity in the past decades with Hikaru and Alphago. Besides through the centuries go has never been so popular.

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I’m sorry, but there’s a misunderstanding here. The phrase about money got into my previous post by mistake and it has already been corrected.

As for popularizing Go, alas, I know what I’m talking about. I have been a sports referee in Go for several years, giving lectures, conducting seminars, but, unfortunately, my efforts were in vain.

As for the dynamics of Go’s popularity, in this matter, for me, no charts can be compared in clarity with photographs of my friends who visited Japan a few months ago and visited many Go clubs there. From the photographs taken by my friends, I can judge that the predominant audience of Japanese Go clubs is the elderly. Middle-aged and young people are a rarity there. I hope things are better in Korea and China.

I believe most young people engage with Go through school or university clubs, and do not frequently visit public Go salons. But it’s a bit rare indeed to find young people who can play Go. The predominant abstract board game is shogi, which is actually quite common and growing in popularity (just like chess is in the West)

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In China it’s difficult to say, some are mostly middle age populated but as @Vsotvep mentioned there are some university clubs and many schools.

about spreading the game i think that if you find the right people it works. or you have to start from childhood and that is some deeper investment.

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I think this is an excellent post. If there are stresses in our life, or inside of ourselves, we often can’t help bringing them into our recreation of playing Go. Then it becomes much less of a recreation, and more of a frustration.

If we recognize this problem, and wish to find a solution, I would suggest that a solution cannot be found within the field of Go itself. Learning about the life and death of small groups, for example, is not likely to reduce any of the problem situations so well described in this post, at least not in any real depth.

I would like to suggest, gently, and only for those open to discovering a natural solution, that effortless deep meditation is such a solution. What I mean is a unique state of deep rest that allows the nervous system to dissolve its accumulated burden of stresses and dysfunctions.

I teach an easy-to-learn course called Natural Stress Relief™ (NSR). This course is learned at home, and takes about an hour a day for three consecutive days. The technique of NSR itself is not religious or psychological. It is a deep state of rest practiced for 15 minutes twice a day while sitting in a comfortable chair with the eyes closed.

This technique has been successfully learned by 3000 clients without any failure, meaning that everyone who learns experiences some inner peace, which serves as an excellent motivation to continue practicing the technique. So NSR continues to provide benefits in daily life over months and years. I love teaching NSR because few of my students need any support; but I do offer free and low-cost forms of support as needed.

These benefits seem amazing: peace and happiness, love and contentment, productivity, creativity, intelligence, and a reduction in anxiety and other psychological problems.

But they all make sense in terms of the elimination of stress and dysfunction from the nervous system as a result of this state of deep rest.

Anyone interested is invited to contact me privately or visit the NSR website.

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I feel that the rating system could be detrimental to enjoyment of the game and encourage a fear of failure. I used to play chess frequently many years ago, on a real board, with no idea about ratings. Winning or losing wasn’t a big deal cos simply playing the game and also seeing the skillful play of an opponent was enjoyable. When I started playing chess online I suddenly acquired a rating, which definitely coloured my experience of playing. Losing a game was reflected immediately in a lowering of my rank in the grand scheme of things. I think ratings and grades automatically fire up that part of the psyche wherein the external measures that are commenced in childhood are stored. You have to win the race, be top of the class, get good grades etc. Then you can get a good salary, a good job, health insurance etc. Subconsciously the subtext is that with higher scores you can be somebody - nobody wants to be the dunce. With Go there are none of these carrots - unless you’re heading for pro - and the fact that it’s very likely that you’re going to lose around 50% of all of your games, no matter how high your rating, is worth bearing in mind. I made ratings invisible some time ago so I would have know idea if I was facing a ddk or a sdk which immediately felt better.

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I really do not see that. The ranking is just a tool, and it is there with a precise purpose. Use it properly and it is fine. Abuse it, and pay the price. The same as abusing smartphones. So much hype about how bad smartphones are, but I never believed in it. I simply hate it. As any tool, it have its uses, and also downsides. Cars actually kills, and have not such a bad reputation.

I enjoyed amateur chess with no ranking. But when I entered official competitions got an Elo and enjoyed better knowing where I am.

If there is no ranking we invent one. Even at backgammon we kept track of wins to see who is better.

On the other hand, that thing as playing without a score, or school without grades is nonsense for me. This works at preschool, where actually really do not matters who is better. At that age you only need to move, to develop faster. But later you need to compete, to develop in a more conscient way, find your proper place.

In Go is even more useful than in real life where you can get a sense of how good you are without an actual ranking. Otherwise a game can be a nonsense without a proper handicap.

And sure you will lose half of the games. But enter a tournament out of you league and you will lose them all. Or enter a triple digit tournament, win them all, with zero joy in the game. Looking at these extremes can put the ranking system in proper light.

I believe you but frankly I think it is beyond debate. Yes the rating system is a tool and it is here for a reason, but there is also no doubt that it has a detrimental impact on many people, even persons who fully understand it is silly and should not impact them.

Which is also why OGS has the option to hide all rankings. It can help get over this fear.

On the other hand I suppose it may also be a motivator for some other people.

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Never heard or imagined that, and I played Go for decades.

I agree with this… except the word some. I will say most of the players :slight_smile:

Well it’s often the same ones. You care about your rank and it motivates you, but at some point this positive trend may shift into ladder anxiety and you’re afraid to go down.

Those who truly don’t care about their rank are neither motivated by it nor anxious.

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Maaan, your point of view really triggered me. I mean that I had fell in this rabbit hole of thoughts. And I intended to try to forget it and say nothing more. But since you keep explaining it, I cannot refrain.

I remember my first ranks 3 decades ago. It motivated me. I knew that chances are slim for shodan, but I wanted at least to be SDK. And followed the CIV quite feverlishly. And because we were a growing community. I mean grew in strength, but not in rank due lack of tournament participation, every year we got a rank for free. In 4 years I grew from 20 to 6 k. 10 ranks I got in tournaments. But 4 I got at the green table. But I still enjoyed it, because I knew that reflected a reality. In the fourth year it was my time to go to an european go congress. And I jumped at 4k in two weeks. I knew that this will happen, because other countries , like Japan had inflated ranks, and of course we were paired by ranks and had easy wins, and stole their points. Not fair competition, but was not my fault. Still enjoyed the new rank. I was not sure if I could get 2 more ranks, but I was sure for at least one.

Then I stopped playing for few years. And I was sure that my rank will stay there when I returned. No anxiety, no drama. It was to be expected. A decade later with some health issues I was sure that I will drop in rank, and I did. No anxiety, no drama, just life. I was 4 now I am 7 what is the problem? Anyway, before that I had some thoughts to push forward to shodan, but I knew that this will mean a lot of study and effort, and I chose just to enjoy, and not ruin the fun with study. So later actually instead of 1 I was 7. No big deal. Somehow, my health stabilized and my rank returned to 4. But I was already on the way out of Go life.

And like me were all my club partners or others I knew from other clubs. But I have a friend who only watches Go. Never participated in tournaments. Never had a rank, and he refused to play. just commented. Somehow after years I ambushed him for a game or two. And he was freakishly strong for a beginner. Did not defeated me, but was not far. I estimate him to be at least 6. I needed 4 years of intense club playing, and an active competitional life. He with just watching, and be so strong for sure will have reached shodan, with the experience gained in competitions. He never admitted, but I said it to his face that he is too afraid of losing., So the problem is in the brain, not in the tools you use.

Now that I explained my opinion, backed by a lifetime experience I will try to make few short comparisons to explain how I see that hiding the rank thing.

So, hiding the rank, is like moving to North Korea because you are distracted by overflowing shelves and cannot refrain eating. And you are fat and your brother has a 6 pack. (by the way, I got fat at 25, when I realized, I just reduced the intake and burned more. Slimmed fast. Happened again at 40,solved again. Not so easy. Then at 50 reached a tenth of a ton. This was psychological.Tried hard, but I stayed there. At least I managed to stop. So finally I accepted the reality. From now on I will be fat. And just 4 k. This is it. No drama ).

And again. hiding the rank is like setting your car on fire because your neighbor has a 6 cylinder.

Or hiding the ranks is like accusing the smartphone being evil because you cannot refrain using it only when is actually a need.

So my point is that all is in the head, Tools are just tools.

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What ghastly temptation is hidden in the exposed ranks?

A curious analogy - Severe self deprivation inflamed by jealousy?

With respect, that sentence doesn’t make sense - an inverted double negative?
Amongst many other things, smartphones have created immense damage to the natural development of social skills but they’re hardly evil. Hidden ratings cause no damage at all, but merely remove the possibility of acquiring unnecessary mental baggage whilst engaging in the delights of a game.

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I assume that you do not followed the whole thread.

All these exaggerated comparisons had burst from a comment regarding ranks, and the good feature of hiding them.

My logical point was that ranks are just a tool, with the benefits for what were devised to bring. And sure, as any tool may have some negative effects if not used properly.

And I apologize if I pushed things too far. I am kind of a powder keg since mainstream media evilized the smartphones. I do not an idolatrize smartphones. I prefer a desktop computers. But all that campaing against social media, and mobile devices really pissed me off.

You said it yourself.

And that was my point.

And by the way what is the damage to the natural development of social skills?
In my own case… in summers I socialized with bees and boars out in the hills. And during school with 30 classmates. Bringing friends at home was interdicted. And even it it was I would gave been confined at neighbors. Later in life, the same, social life was with locals. And since common interests were rare, no social life. from a quarter of million of locals I had two dozens of sciFi lovers, a a dozen of Go players. Online I had a lot more social interactions. On desktop. I do not move around. If work would have required for me to be mobile, for sure a smartphone would have helped. So where is the damage?

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Look around you - people of all ages glued to screens - addicted. It’s well documented that this addiction can lead to more children being socially awkward, withdrawn, shy, or intimidated by social situations. They might not know how to engage with other children or adults. Developing social skills takes practice, and if technology is often in the way, there are fewer opportunities for kids to develop these skills. Before smartphones/internet an argument at school would be forgotten the following day. Now the arguement is carried on into the evening and resumed the next day. More often than not, the ability for true understanding and, in turn, empathy relies on body language, tone of voice, and eye contact. With cell phones, these important aspects of communication are often list, such that empathy may suffer. Smartphones have their uses, but like any tool, they can be dangerous.

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It’s true, I once moved to North Korea because I was drinking too much soda. Did wonders for my health. Now that I am back in the west, the only thing remotely close to this experience has been OGS’s “hide rank” feature. Thanks you OGS for providing this!

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Another lost soul longing for an even Northerner, Koreaner, OGS. I guess.

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Having taught Go for 20 years, I can very safely say that way more people drop out than continue playing. The game is not for everyone.

The most healthy thing that people can do – whether with Go or anything else – is realize when they are not actually interested in it anymore. All too often, I see people hold onto the “want” to do a given thing, and be too afraid to release the “want” because they perceive it as some sort of personal defeat. You hear these people all the time: “Oh, I wish I could _______”. These are never things that they need to wish for. They could have them if they want them. The truth is that they do not actually want them.

However, if you are truly interested in the game, but find yourself challenged by any of the issues cited in the original post, I can give another piece of advice: All of these issues are solved by playing more any time you feel like playing less. Does losing feel bad? Play 10 times a day, and you will see that losing any single game no longer matters.

Go has a lot of lessons to teach many people. It can bring the emotional development and fortitude that would serve most people throughout their lives, if they allowed themselves to learn and grow instead of ducking out at the first sight of personal adversity. Failure is an important part of success. The more you can numb yourself to failure and persevere, the better off you will be.

Play, play, play. Because it is the greatest game we have ever known, and may ever know.

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