This post is about my son, most likly the youngest go player in north america, Adiran Thomas.

Born Dec,19th/09 He is a little over 16 month's old.

His go path started almost at birth, Watching daddy play go on the computer while sitting on his lap.

Eventually I became more involved in go and started reviewing games on my board and such. nd from the time he could walk he always tried to grab the stone's.

I figured that it was probably that "i grab at anything stage"
but one day i sat him down and showed him through repeditive action's how to place a go stone down on the lines. (the noob way)

Once i had it into his head that these were not candy, or toy's, And that he is only to touch when I am with him. i figured id would do a exparament.

once he began to "talk" i started havin him solve basic problem's.

namly "put stones down to kill this one stone"
placing multiple groups of one stone around the board and having him put down the black stones to kill them.

at first he didn't get the concept but after i showed him and reminded him how to do it. in total it took about 10 hours over 7 days to teach a child how to caputer.

then i taught him using the same method how to capture multiple stoned groups in a strait line.

Currently i am teaching him how to capture groups in varous shapes "L""V" etc.


His progress in acually playing.

Using repeditive examples.
(me sitting down with him for a hour a day, going over how to play/capture).
Ive showed him on a 19x19 board (ive never put him on a 9x9/13x13) that corners are better to start in. and how to "live" (allthough he doesnt know this concept yet"


Overall progress.

March 10th
Started teaching him basic's.
March 14th
Grasped How to capture one stone.
March 20th
Introduced first 19x19 game,ended due to mother bringing grandma by.
March 27th
Grasped how to capture groups up to 10 stones in a line.
Pretty sure he has a handle on it now
April 5th
started with odd shaped groups
April 13th
Learned what a ladder is.
April 15th
Showed that in a game, corner first.
April 20th
18 stone handicap game, ended when mommy brought lunch.
April 22nd
Watched hikaru no go with utmost intencity. i like were his go is going.
may 5th
first kgs game


May 6th
2nd kgs game. (will be the last as we are out of town for the weekend


Rank: (KGS)
june 17th
EST: 14-12k

This is a breif rundown so far ill make changes soon. PLUS PICTURES

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The unoffical Corndog Of Lifein19x19.
Please,Do not microwave for more then 60 second's as screaming will acure.

Very nice. If i ever have kids they are going to learn go starting early too.

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I'm thinking...

Make a soldier out of him

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be immersed

Well i figured hey, if he is interested in the stones and not eating them...why not?

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The unoffical Corndog Of Lifein19x19.
Please,Do not microwave for more then 60 second's as screaming will acure.

16 months? Hmm, that sounds a bit obsessive. Maybe let him find out if he wants to play, rather than make it something that seems, well, like an obligation, as it can at that age.

I started teaching my son when he was around six. He understood and played fairly well, but he never took to it; it's not something that fits his way of thinking. I wasn't upset, because he is his own person, not a copy of me.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I don't see anywhere in his post where he made it an obligation for his infant to do anything. I don't even think you can make something an obligation for an infant/toddler.

His son seemed to show some interest in the game, so he started teaching him, that's all. I'm sure, if his son loses interest, POGO won't force the issue or anything.

Thats why those games were never finished, once he gets boried or something comes along we stop for the day, until he comes back. he quite enjoy's our time together due to the fact if he does well. he get candy. (giving a reward pushes them to move forward)

also ive attached a pdf document from mr,reynolds of the cga.
roughly how to teach kid go. these are more guidlines as each child is different.

On a update note i was playing this morning and adrian decided to point at my screen, at the 3-5 point as he has seen me go there quite often aganst an opponent. who knows. maybe this is the begining of a great go player? or just a phase.

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The unoffical Corndog Of Lifein19x19.
Please,Do not microwave for more then 60 second's as screaming will acure.

Wow, this is an interesting post. I'd like to try the same things with my nephews and nieces. Although, I admit, I'd be a bit afraid of teaching any baby/young person this game. We all know how addicting it can be, and I'm not sure if I want to be the one who introduces any of my nieces/nephews to such a thing. I guess there are quite a few positive aspects of learning such a game early, but I'd wonder if they are enough that it outweighs the negative aspect of the game.

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I know nothing.

With his mother's side being fillipino, and a very large familiy it is, i know of a few members in asia (korea/japan) and they are getting me information retaining to forener's becoming pro's there, so that is a possible path for the future if he keeps up. if the pro thing is not possible, he can at least represent north america in the future

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The unoffical Corndog Of Lifein19x19.
Please,Do not microwave for more then 60 second's as screaming will acure.

Thanks for posting this POGO. This was really interesting to here your path so far with your new son.

And I liked your comment a while ago (I think it was on GD) where you said your son's first word was go. So awesome.

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KGS: schultz [?].

I think, this is great. I'm hoping to be able to go the same way with my kid(s) someday.

As for the 'obsessive'-issue: I'm no fan of pushing children and overburden them with all your high hopes but at the same time I'm no fan of nowaday's 'let-the-child-decide'-policy. If I have a child, I won't wait for it to develop some sense of doing this and that because of whatsoever. It is going to learn an instrument at early age, it is going to do sports at a regulary basis and it's going to learn Go.

Of course I am going to take care that it will have fun in doing all this, but I'm not going to take it out the first moment, when there might be a rough streak or something.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Great post. If nothing else, he is spending some quality time with Dad--if he never plays go again after turning 5, so what? Totally worth it. Though a bit older, I bought my nephew a Level Up! book (he's 8), and he likes it. His interest goes up and down, but being interested enough to learn the basics at a young age is a huge start; one of the first biggest barriers to learning Go (at least for me) was just being able to "see" the board, even just to notice I had 2 liberties left. Kudos.

Is anyone a fan of the "force our children to learn X or play sport Y" mentality? Anyone? Didn't think so . But, hey, I would encourage (not force) him to play every now and then as he gets older so he doesn't forget.

- that's why I hate playing the trumpet

Seriously though - is being a Go professional that good a job? I love Go, I want to play it until I die, but I'm glad I got some proper qualifications and I wouldn't wish that on my little girl. I'm going to teach her 'cos it's a good game though (she knows it as "black stone eats the white stone" right now - she's 2 &1/2).

I also taught my daughters go at an early age. My older daughter, who had a weirdly long attention span as a young child, picked it right up. At 4 she could play a whole game through, and in fact beat an adult beginner at that age. But now she has lost interest. I think the problem is that she doesn't much like playing me because the difference in strength is too high. For a while there was a kids go club where she would have a great time when she played somebody else near her age and skill, but attendance dropped on that until it died away, so now she doesn't want to play any more.

My younger daughter who has a more normal attention span was harder to teach the rules to. She is 5 now, and we do problems on go child, but she isn't ready to play a full game yet. The problems on go child are great; they go so slowly, plus she likes doing things on the computer, so it has helped her a lot.

Wonderful thread, I have some trouble learning my 6 month old son play. Wonder why
It is quite interesting to se how children learn. Just to sit and watch a game being played would propably be good enough for my son at least for the nearest couple of months.

You can always let him play with the stones on the board, as soon as he reaches the age where he doesn't put them in his mouth.

Thanks for the wonderful report, POGO.

Also, here's a link for Go Child, that wms talked about.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I am terribly sorry for being off topic, but since basic education is at least tangentially the subject, and the mistake has been made too consistently here, please let me point out:

In english, the plural of words is never formed with an apostrophe.

It is "seeds", "months", "stones", "basics", "problems", "actions", "toys", "nitpickers".

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

And as English is no my primary language, i call haxs.

allthough i am getting my son on kgs tonight so anyone wishing to see the game look up Minipogo on kgs in five mins

Edit game is done.
sgf on first post and here



he did good for his first time. the last few days i have been teaching him more about watching his groups.
some moves were good some were to slow. but i think he did good.

I also don't think he knew(my son) the bottom black group was pretty much killed to.
as i just asked him and he said alive :/ so i showed him it was dead by all accounts

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The unoffical Corndog Of Lifein19x19.
Please,Do not microwave for more then 60 second's as screaming will acure.

He's playing pretty well!

But shouldn't he be playing mostly 9x9?

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

Hmm.. he's too young to use the mouse. He points, daddy clicks?

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