My favorite new players are two women I taught at our university.
The first was a fellow student. She had never even heard of go before but was curious because she saw me playing the game. I taught her how to play and she then played a game with one of my friends on a 9x9 board. Later, she wanted to play a game with me on the full sized board - already unusual as most newcomers are intimidated by the big board. She started off slowly, playing odd moves that you would expect from a beginner. Perhaps 30 moves in she made a move that struck me as interesting. I asked her "Why did you play this move?" Her response was "Well, I wanted to keep my stones together and keep yours apart." I was dumbfounded, as was my friend who had played the earlier game with her. Neither of us had told her that was an object of the game, nor did it come up in any discussions of strategy. Even though it was only her first time on the 19x19 board and her second game ever, she somehow already understood this fundamental. I've talked to 15 kyus who didn't understand this. Her move wasn't quite the right move, but it was close. I was very sad that this occurred at the end of the semester before she graduated, otherwise our club might have had a fantastic new player.
The second was a math professor. She attended an event at our university called Global Games and, while she had heard of go, she had never played it. I taught her the rules. She asked a bit about the strategy. I explained the basics of corner-sides-center using the territory illustration, but not much else. We then began a 13x13 game. During that game, she took an appropriate amount of time on each move - thinking harder in more complicated situations unlike most beginners who think equally on every move. She actually kept up fairly well, playing a reasonable strategy unlike the over-concentrated or overly-thin games most newbies play. I asked her twice if she had ever played before, and once asked if she had ever seen the game played, but she told me she hadn't - her play seemed too good for a true beginner. As the middle-game ended I was able to pull ahead convincingly. Finally, as we approached endgame, she noted aloud that I controlled more of the board. I agreed with her assessment (I was probably about 30 points ahead). She said, "Well, I don't think there's anything else I can do" and resigned. This makes her the only new player I've ever seen or played with to reasonably resign without a large kill being involved. Truly a unique case.
(really messes with the math for rating algorithms)
