New articles for beginners - Learn Go The Easy Way

[gogameguru]

I've just published the first article in a series called Learn Go The Easy Way.

It's something I've been working on for quite awhile and fine tuning based on giving lessons in real life. If anyone is interested in giving it a go, please provide feedback here.

Especially if you are a beginner, I'd appreciate knowing if you get stuck or confused anywhere, so that I can adjust the lessons to make things clearer.

Thanks,

David

[dedroid]

although i already know how to play go, i read through it and think it's great! I really appreciate the website, and it's articles.

[gogameguru]

Thanks dedroid. It's always nice when people say nice things about our work. We're having trouble getting beginners to read this because most of our current readers already play Go. If you know anyone who wants to learn, it would be really great if you could show them this and see how they go with it.

[singular]

I've sent the link to a friend of mine who has experienced such great cognitive dissonance and loss of will when learning to play Go that he avoids the game studiously, narrow-eyed. If he looks at it he'll be a good tester.

[gogameguru]

Excellent . I hope he gives it a go. Thanks singular.

[Bill Spight]

Very nice, David!

Do you develop the idea of territory from the capture game?

[gogameguru]

Bill, yes.

I usually find that after people play capture go for awhile, they learn that they can just keep extending and 'beat' the game.

To me this is a logical point to introduce the concept of surrounding territory as well as stones. In my experience it has worked well because at that point people are starting to wonder whether there's more to the game or not. So they are curious.

Another interesting thing that comes up sometimes in first capture go (capture one stone to win) is that people discover that they can't kill a two point eye-space, but can kill a one point eye. This is because in first capture go you can't use any sacrifice techniques. Of course, once you start playing second or third capture go, these tactics become available.

I've found it's good to spend a bit more time on basic capturing tactics (edge capture, ladders, nets and 'tunnels') and then introduce territory.

How about you Bill? I'm open to ideas.

[Tryphon]

Thanks dedroid. It's always nice when people say nice things about our work.

That's right. And sorry to have not thanked you earlier for this great site.

[Mef]

I must admit, when I started through it I was afraid it was just going to be identical to "The Interactive Way to Go," but it looks like you're going a different direction with it (=

All in all, looks like a nice site, and it's always good to have another place to direct newcomers!

[gogameguru]

Thanks Mef. The interactive idea was inspired by The Interactive Way To Go. It's fun and engaging, but without any substance behind it, it would just be a gimmick.

What's really important is taking people who are curious about Go, and helping them become Go players. For that you need a solid teaching method that works. I'm trying to do that, the best way I know how to at the moment, but I will change the course as I learn more.

As a community of Go players, the most important thing we need is a steady stream of new players. If we can get this right, a lot of our current problems will evaporate and the new problems we have will be better ones. This is my observation based on being involved in the Australian Go Association for years.

We don't know exactly how many people become interested in Go somehow and look for a way to learn each year. Based on my research, I'd say 100,000 English speakers around the world per annum is a conservative estimate. But how many of these people actually go on to become Go players?

That depends on the strength of our teaching materials. Some people will never stay interested, but many will get lost along the way and forget about Go. If we'd taught them better, maybe that wouldn't have happened. I think that if we can increase the effectiveness of our teaching materials slightly, so that just one percent more continue with Go, that's another 1000 people around the world playing Go each year.

Once that starts happening, there's also the compounding effects of people teaching their friends. After that, perhaps we can increase it by another one percent, and so on.

That's why we immediately get people to sign up to a beginners course by email and give them a free Go set to print out. We want people to commit to learning Go while they're still interested and start having fun as soon as possible. It's to be expected that most people will get preoccupied or busy with other things. Each week though, there'll be a friendly email teaching them a little bit more.

Of course, lots of people will lose interest and delete the emails, or unsubscribe from the course. That's to be expected too, but again, the goal is only one percent at a time. If we can gradually find the teaching methods that work the best with the most people, we can use the internet to scale our promotion of Go in a cost effective way.

This idea was what led Younggil and I to start Go Game Guru. Teaching more people to play is the primary goal and everything else is secondary.

David

[Bill Spight]

How about you Bill? I'm open to ideas.

I suppose that you have seen my capture go problem topic? viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4003
At the end I show how territory is an emergent property of capture go.

[gogameguru]

Thanks Bill. I hadn't seen that yet and it's fascinating. It was the concept of two eyes as an emergent property that really got me interested in Go in the first place. It would be very interesting to structure a Go course this way and it would probably work well with people like us, who are already inclined to be interested in Go.

I use capture to teach just because it's the simplest and fastest way to get people started that I know of. Once people start having fun, they get interested.

I'm not really worried about fixation with capturing, because in my opinion that helps people learn basic tactics faster. I don't think there's any point teaching opening to people who can't see an atari yet.

I know some people disagree with this. Ultimately my conclusion is that learning is unlearning. A certain amount of rework is natural and even beneficial. That's my theory anyway...

[oren]

Just curious, do any of the Asian countries use capture go? What was Youngil's impression of it?

[Bill Spight]

Thanks Bill. I hadn't seen that yet and it's fascinating. It was the concept of too eyes as an emergent property that really got me interested in Go in the first place. It would be very interesting to structure a Go course this way and it would probably work well with people like us, who are already inclined to be interested in Go.

I use capture to teach just because it's the simplest and fastest way to get people started that I know of. Once people start having fun, they get interested.

I'm not really worried about fixation with capturing, because in my opinion that helps people learn basic tactics faster. I don't think there's any point teaching opening to people who can't see an atari yet.

I know some people disagree with this. Ultimately my conclusion is that learning is unlearning. A certain amount of rework is natural and even beneficial. That's my theory anyway...

As far as teaching territory goes, in one game after the dame had been filled I asked my student who was going to win the game.

The fact that it is so easy to make life simplifies the tactics of capture go and makes it fairly strategic, even on small boards. For instance, we were playing on a 7x7 and he had played solidly to wall off more than half the board. Unfortunately, I had enough room to invade and live with one eye.

A Japanese fellow, Iehiro, teaches the capture game. http://www.vimage.co.jp/~iehiro/cgi-bin/gocaffe/ He goes up to capture-5 before switching to what is basically stone counting.

[gogameguru]

Just curious, do any of the Asian countries use capture go? What was Youngil's impression of it?

Younggil and I haven't discussed capture go at length. In general though, Younggil is very open minded towards trying new things.

As I mentioned in the article, capture go was (as far as I know) popularized by Yasuda 9p. He has used this approach extensively in Japan (as well as other countries), even with young children and disabled people.

If you're interested, Slate and Shell published two of his books in English: 'Let's Play Go' and 'Go as Communication'. The first one is a book for beginners, the second is about his approach to teaching Go and the story behind it. Both are good if you want to learn more about teaching Go, as opposed to playing it - which is a different skill.

David