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Teaching go to newcomers - discussion
  Difficulty: Beginner  

Let's give each our opinion on how to teach go to newcomers. Hopefully we can assemble it into Teaching Go To Newcomers?

Sebastian: By "newcomer", this page understands someone who asks a better player for an initial lesson or comes to a go club or with the intention to learn go. This situation is different from teaching go to a curious cat.

Kris Rhodes: (How about a page on HowNotToTeachGo?)

Dieter: Yesterday, I taught the basic aspects of the game to a newcomer. Then he played one of our clubmembers. I told him incidentally that he should put down the three stones so that White's lower right corner remained empty. Next, I played another clubmember. We wished each other good luck with the game, saying "Onegaishimasu" - or whatever it should be. It occurred that the newcomer was struck by both habits of politeness. He later asked "Should I know other things ?"

I will most certainly include those GoodHabits in my next "first session" and include others like how to hold and play a go stone in second and third sessions. People usually get overwhelmed by too technical explanations. They just love it when those side aspects come into the picture. And I remember I did.


Scartol: Things I usually include in my first lesson:

  • Basic rules (alternating moves, stones don't move, territory)
  • Atari
  • Ko
  • Connections
  • Corners vs. sides vs. center
  • Life and death -- why two eyes live

... and along the way I toss in the things I find most intriguing; the respect players show each other, the history of the game, how to hold a stone, Japanese terms, etc. I think it's important -- whatever is being taught -- to combine information with excitement.


BenShoemaker: To create a useful TeachingGoToNewcomers? page I think we need to discuss:

  • What should be covered when teaching a first lesson
    1. What concepts are absolutely neccesary to start playing go?
      • Alternate plays
      • Liberties
      • Atari
      • Territory
    2. What concepts are advanced / semi-optional?
      • Ko
      • Two Eyes
      • Corner vs Sides vs Center
      • Joseki
    3. What concepts are completely optional?
      • Culture / History
  • What are good ways to teach?
    1. What order should concepts be introduced?
    2. How to adjust teaching to the student?
    3. Should the "capture game" be used?
    4. How to keep things fun and interesting?

I personally would find the organization and completeness of such lists to be very helpful. (As I think about it, it would be nice to have a list of concepts for the beginner to study further, not just during the first lesson. If the list could be in order of complexity, that would be great, but maybe at least ordered to allow certain concepts to build on others.)

Dieter: I think we have that already at TeachingPaths and BeginnerStudySection


Chris Hayashida: Having started playing go just over a year ago, and now teaching a beginner's class, I thought I'd share my thoughts, less on material, and more on style:

  1. If you are watching your students play, try not to comment on every move. They are usually having a tough time trying to play as it is, and often saying too much will only lead to more confusion. If they have a question, they will ask. I have found that commenting too much may also undermine a student's confidence. I was once asked by a student, "What's the best move?" after four moves on a 19x19!
  2. I like capture go, and I like normal go. Make it the student's choice. Some people want to play "real go" as soon as possible. Others just have fun reading and trying to take stones. However, I have noticed that capture go leads to aggressive play and some bad habits, like BeginnersPlayAtari.
  3. Don't start by playing a handicap game against them. (moved to HowNotToTeachGo)
  4. Class needs to be fun. I think just some of the cultural notes, HikaruNoGo, and just being friendly in general goes a long way to retaining students. Letting them play (and make their own mistakes) is also important. It is also much more fun to play others at your level.

As for technique, I would say that these are the most important, after the basic rules:

  1. Cutting and connecting
  2. Miai (even if only showing how a kosumi is still connected)
  3. Extensions in the opening
  4. Tesuji - Ladders, nets, chase down, throw-ins, and snapback can all be discussed as they come up. The students usually think "Wow, that's neat!" and begin to look for tesuji in their games.

Conversely, I think these can wait:

  1. Life and death - It doesn't come up on a 9x9 as much, and it sort of sticks more when they happen about it by themselves. It probably should be introduced early, but it can quickly get dry (and boring) with formal study. If they ask, teach, if not, let them play a bit and figure it out. I was so impressed when, after one day of play, a student came up with "Four (spaces) in a row is alive" on his own. He then extrapolated that it didn't matter if the four was not in a straight line. Theory is often more meaningful and memorable if the logic is behind it. They should start studying it when they play on a 19x19, and can also learn post-mortem when a group is killed. This will also help develop a feeling of the amount of space that a group will need to live.
  2. Ko - Meaningful ko just doesn't doesn't happen on a 9x9 board. Explain the rule if it comes up, but leave out the theory until they play on a bigger board. There's just not enough room to make a threat. (Often even if there is a threat, it's too difficult explaining how to value the ko and the threat, let alone trying to have beginners try to calculate it themselves in their own games.)
  3. Joseki - Obviously, they don't work on a 9x9. I think without understanding all of the concepts behind the joseki, studying them is all but useless for beginners.

Scartol: The more I teach beginners, the less use I have for the 9x9 board. It feels analogous to teaching someone how to play chess using only pawns. The complexity of the board's regions and groups is what makes the game interesting for me, and beginners get none of that on a 9x9 -- it's all corner play. I moved to the 13x13 as soon as I was able, and I encourage my students to do the same.

Stefan: I think I know where you're coming from. Most beginners in our club don't play on 9x9 very long, but do on 13x13 for a while. I'd say 9x9 is for getting a working knowledge of the rules, 13x13 for getting a working knowledge of the basic techniques and concepts, and 19x19 for finding out you'll never have a clue.

Chris Hayashida: Sorry, I didn't mean that the beginners should stay on a 9x9 board for very long. I should have written "smaller boards" instead of "9x9 boards." Usually our beginners start playing on a 13x13 within two or three nights. (More than anything, I think it's a lack of boards that's causing this, but the AGA will soon fix that. :) However, I do think that simplifying the game does appeal to some people. My comments above apply to 13x13 board as well.

Our club is a little different, since we meet weekly in a local coffeehouse. Many people come to the coffeehouse, see the game, and decide to start playing. I think the simple rules attract potential students. It also helps that you can get several games in the course of an hour. These people are a little more intimidated by the 19x19 boards. I think it's a different situation than a "real" go club, since people visiting there would only be coming by if they wanted to learn to play anyway.

Gabaux?: I was teaching a couple of newcommers to play go, and some of them became definitely stronger players then me :-)). My idea was to teach the minimal theory first, only the rules and the calculation of liberties. The first-hand experience is very important. I urged them to play a lot of games in a rather short interval of time to get as much practical 'feeling' as they could. Sometimes I let them win, but not too often, to learn how to exploit overplay, how to recognize bad shapes. I have found this approach very efficient.

mgoetze: And what's wrong with giving beginners a large handicap? I always give first-timers 5 stones on 9x9 and it works just fine. Also, I can give them some immediate and easy-to-follow advice (just try to keep your stones connected), while for an even game I suppose they would just be totally lost as to how to start out. I recently watched a 25k teach someone go on KGS and she was going on about "Corners, Sides, Center" before even explaining the ko rule, let alone playing a game...


I get the sense that this site is a sister-site to SL, but just in case people don't know about it..

I accidentally typed in [ext] http://www.senseis.xmp.net/ instead of leaving off the www part. I fell in love! This page contains the cutest and most entertaining introduction to Go I've ever seen! If you're showing people how to play and they speak some French, send them here!

SAS: The usual URL is [ext] http://jeudego.org . [ext] http://put-some-nonsense-here.senseis.xmp.net works only because it's undefined and gets redirected to the main page.
Nico: This redirection does not seem to be working anymore.

And I can't find a list anywhere of web-based sites for leading folks through the basics. Should we start one?

-- Scartol

Scatterbrain?: The Go Institute @ [ext] http://thegoinstitute.animeworld.ca/lobby.htm has a pretty good list of sites. Their links are under 'crashcourse' in the menu.


Zarlan: The Shigeno-Yasuda method seems to demand that you get people to keep playing AtariGo for quite a few games. I thought that this method, although rather good sometimes, might be less good sometimes as it may prove to be difficult to keep a person interested enough to keep playing AtariGo.
I'm not that good at Go and I can hardly say that I'm experienced in teaching Go, so I might be wrong. In any case I thought of a alternative way that might be good.

Here's the idea: First you explain liberties, atari and captures, the very core of Go.
Then you start to play without any further explanation. Not explaining how you win or anything. The only additional information being "no thinking" (maybe treating too much thinking as a pass if it doesn't work).
On a 19x19.

Ko and suicide should probably be explained if it occurs though. Well at least ko. After one or perhaps a few (I havn't tested it or anything) he/she/they might understand a few things (one should perhaps ask and discuss). This is why it has to be a 19x19. On the 19x19 there should be a lot of space for life & death and many possibilities for a ko to occur. Also I think it would probably turn into the resemblance of a game of Go according to StoneCountingScoring (a badly played one but still). After this you explain territory and show the score of the game (or last game) and tell them about the rest of the rules.

Although I thought of this because of a possible flaw in the AtariGo teaching method, it is from there that I got my inspiration. Letting people discover important concepts by them selves, by putting them in to a sitiuation where they will inevitably encounter them sounds like a very good idea.


As a beginner I think there should be a place for a few newcomer games to be posted and commented (not only pro games). I have commented one of my games against gnuGo 3.2 and want to post it and get some feedback. Maybe there is but I could not find such a place. Do you think it would be useful? I will make a new page and place a link here, BeginnerGameSamplesToComment. Thanks anyway.

                                            Orcun

mgoetze: I believe that it is important not to explain too much at once. I see many beginners struggling with concepts such as "eyes" and "territory" before they have even played their second game. Why the complications? Just explain the rule of alternation and the rule of capture, then say that (for now) the objective is to have more stones on the board at the end than your opponent. (The group tax won't really matter.) Then give them a handicap and just play. One of the wonderful things about go is that concepts such as life & death are nothing but a consequence of some very simple rules... why make the game seem more complicated than it is? After 2 games or so, explain the ko rule... and go right on to playing another. Also, I try to discourage beginners (as nicely as possible) from thinking too long... the fact of the matter is, they're going to be thinking about all the wrong things, on time that would be much better spent actually playing.


Zook: Here's a table

 Feature                 Interest               Risk
 Explain capture rule    Basic rule             None
 Liberties, chains       Basic concept          None
 Explain territory       Game purpose           Vague
                                                "make" territory
 Forbid suicide          Most rules forbid      What's the point
                         Prequel to eyes        Conflict rule 1
 Explain ko              The last rule          Confusion
 Postpone/forbid ko      Clarity                Not the game
 Atari-Go                Simple                 Dull
                         Exercise rule 1        Atari disease
                                                Not the game
 Explain eyes            Basic concept          Too much
 Explain life and death  Intellectual challenge Way too much
 One-eyed Go             Simple                 Not the game
                         Exercise eye concept   Eye obsession
 9x9                     Simple                 Dull
 13x13                   Best of both worlds    Still dull
 19x19 immediately       The real game          Completely lost
 Cultural features       Distraction            Distraction
                         Origins of the game    Some don't care
 Teacher plays pupil     Sometimes only option  Gap in level
                         Knowledge transfer     No goal
 Pupils play each other  Mutual stimuli         Loss of pride
                         No gap in level        Slow progress


This is a copy of the living page "Teaching go to newcomers - discussion" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.