{"id":514,"date":"2019-11-05T18:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T00:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/?p=514"},"modified":"2019-12-24T21:31:38","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T03:31:38","slug":"knowing-vs-being-skilled-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/blog\/2019\/11\/05\/knowing-vs-being-skilled-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowing vs. Being Skilled – Go"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I have been making notes and brain maps and other such things on Chivalric\/Christian virtues<\/a>, Admonitions of Peerage<\/a>, Judaic ethical concepts<\/a>, and the Five Constants of Confucianism<\/a>, I’ve been thinking a bit about peerages in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember this bit of Corpora?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They shall have made every effort to learn and practice those skills desirable at and worthy of a civilized court. To this end they should have some knowledge of a wide range of period forms, including but not limited to literature, dancing, music, heraldry, and chess, and they should have some familiarity with combat as practiced in the Society.<\/p>SCA Governing Documents, VIII.A.1.g. [Source<\/a>]<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

See that! CHESS!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody said you had to be good<\/strong> at chess. Just knowledgeable and, well, practiced. I’ve never been a good chess player. I’m bad at that sort of spatial reasoning, and I have a hard time thinking several moves ahead. I enjoy<\/strong> chess, but as a casual player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as someone who has spent the last four-ish years eye-deep in the Tang Dynasty, playing chess doesn’t really fit. But playing Go<\/a> does! And Go is pretty much chess. It’s about territory control and capturing enemy pieces to score points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’m not good at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some excellent<\/a> videos<\/a> out there<\/a> that walk you through the basics<\/a> of a Go game<\/a> and can help you wrap your head around the concepts. But understanding how a game is played and being a “good player” are two very different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We played Go in the Extra-European Salon at the Meridian Grand Tournament in September, and I was so very thankful that someone who was much more knowledgeable about the game helped me think through moves and played a few games with us. He recommended using puzzles to help hone your skill<\/a>. I feel like I’d have to do a lot of puzzles to hammer the trickier concepts into my head, but hey – that’s Go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a free app<\/a> that I have played now and again, but I’m still heavily reliant on the hint button. [Here is a list of iOS apps.<\/a>]\n\n\n\n

This is one of those things that I’ll get better with in time, which means making an effort to play a bit on my phone every day, or carting around my 9×9\/13×13 board and bags of stones. Maybe I’ll make a small 9×9 board on a piece of fabric and bug people at events to play with me. Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throwing arrows at a pot<\/a> is a different kind of fun, and totally a worthy and desirable skill in the upper echelons of the Tang Dynasty. (Psst. You can see a pot with its arrows in the back of a scene of scholars playing Go with Li Wei painted on a screen<\/a>. But it’s a game of skill, not strategy. And involves more wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m working on some class notes for Tang Dynasty Games, which I’ll be teaching at Magna Faire<\/a> – hope to see you there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I have been making notes and brain maps and other such things on Chivalric\/Christian virtues, Admonitions of Peerage, Judaic ethical concepts, and the Five Constants of Confucianism, I’ve been thinking a bit about peerages in general. Remember this bit of Corpora? They shall have made every effort to learn and practice those skills desirable … Continue reading “Knowing vs. Being Skilled – Go”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[64,5,79,92],"tags":[105,104,32,96],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eTPU-8i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biblionalia.info\/leah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}