Dragon Sensei

   

[ext] The Go Teacher (Sensei) at Dragon Go Server

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Table of contents

Mission

This is a team account whose sole purpose is to teach the game of Go. Thus all members (the teachers) have agreed to the following rules:

  • The teacher will only make a move if he is stronger than the pupil (by Dragon rating).
  • When playing a move the teacher will leave his/her name in the comment field.
  • The teacher will always comment on the pupils last move. This is done with <c></c> tags so that the pupil can read it before his/her next move, and so it is preserved in the downloadable SGF record.

Please note that we have no "one teacher per game" rule: different teachers can play moves in the same game.

How to...

  • get a teaching game -- just send a match request.
  • get a game review -- send a message with the game ID and your email-address.
  • become a teacher yourself -- send a message to our account.

Advice to students

  • We are currently able to teach players up to 12 kyu
  • We usually play un-rated games without handicap, sensei as White, you as Black, 0.5 komi
  • You are expected to know the basic rules of the game. See e.g. tutorial at [ext] http://www.playgo.to/
  • If you are really new to go, please ask for a 9x9 game first. * If you are below 25k, we would prefer a 13*13 (this allows us to play more games)
  • It is important that you comment/question the moves as much as possible, so that we can give better teaching
  • You can enclose your comments between <c> and </c> tags, and they will be saved in the SGF file

Founder

The Go Teacher was founded by [ext] Joachim Brod

Teachers (as of 2005-05-25)

  • Joachim Brod (jbrod): teaching games for players up to 25k
  • Christophe Bauvir (Legoland) asleep right now : teaching games for players up to 20k
  • Ron Obvious (RonObvious): inactive, semi-retired, teaching games for players up to 22k
  • Ben Bildstein (Bildstein) 4k
  • Alex Parsons (Arrylin): teaching players up to 16 kyu
  • Jay (hurkle): teaching beginners from 28kyu to 30kyu
  • Gaius : teaching players from <25k
  • John (hooj) : teaching players to 12k
  • Marc (trafalmadorian)
  • Mike (wegobad), 8k on Dragon; will try to make sense for players up to ~12k
  • Mystic Philosopher (Vose) : teaching players to 18k
  • chrise (hightrees) teaching players to 20kyu
  • NannyOgg

FAQ for the teachers

Who plays in what games?

Question: Does one simply play in a game (and comment) or is there an agreed protocol about who helps where? I can't see any way of knowing who is commenting on the running games.

Answer: John- As I understand it, you are free to play in any game where you are strong enough to make a good move, and strong enough to comment on the student's previous move. The format I have seen is to use the following convention:

<c> (TeacherName) Game commentary goes here. </c>

Does that answer your questions?

Question: Hi Ben! I guess we were logged into Sensei at the same time... I realized because I was about to send a welcome message to Jason, when I saw you'd just sent one. :-D What happens if two sensei are trying to make a move in the same game at the same time?

Is there some protocol for divvying up the games when two (or more) of us are active?

Answer: I'm often paranoid about the possibility. It would suck immensely if I wrote a 200 work comment on a move only to find someone else had written a really short comment and submitted a move in the same game while I was writing mine. But, well, I don't think there's anything we can do. But I'm certainly open to suggestions.

Bildstein.

Answer: It actually happened to me ... and I think it was with you Mike! I had thought a lot on a game to find a move, had written a comment, and when i clicked on submit, I got a message like "sorry, it's not your turn to play in this game". At least, it was comforting to see you had played in the area i intended to, though not exactly the same move (you were bolder). I assume it will happen more and more, and we can do nothing about it. That's live :o) Marc

How should we play?

Question: Are we playing teaching games, where we try not to win too convincingly, and try to create instructional problems in the game, or are we rather trying to win as convincingly as possible so that our students can see the strongest possible play, and then explain to them what was wrong with their play?

I don't have any problems with either, but I think there are some issues...

If we go with teaching games, I think it will be important to maintain communication about the games "behind-the-scenes" so that everyone who is playing moves know what fantastic sequences we're trying not to play.

If we go with slaughter-fest, I think it's very important to explain what's wrong with the student's moves. Some things take a very long time to learn by experience. Fuseki, joseki (in so far as it is correct for us to be teaching joseki) and life-and-death are some examples I can think of.

Thoughts?

Answer: Well Ben, what do you think is the best? Currently, we play without handicap (partly because teachers have different levels). So probably we shouldn't try to play the most severe moves. Personally, I often try to explain why I play a move. In many cases, that prevents the student from playing a bad response. We can also mention as <comment> stronger moves that we see but chose not to play. Do you think the teaching as we do it now is working well, or can it be improved?

Question: Hello fellow sensei. I'm in what might be called a conundrum. I'm finding it difficult between choosing a play that encourages the opponent to "have a go" (no pun intended), so he/she can learn the aspects of invasion or what have you; or playing by the book. For example, in the game against Guy Wade, I played so Guy could not invade at that point. Had I played elsewhere he may have played there and learned something from the invasion. There are many more examples I could give, but perhaps you have noticed them already. What are the guidelines?

Answer: Here is my opinion: I don't think we need to "artificially" ceate go problems in our games. There are anyway plenty of occasions to learn many things in each game. It is probably more instructive to play the move that you consider the right move at the time. But you can explain, e.g. "I play this move to prevent an invasion. Indeed I think the best move for you was to invade there for this and that reasons...". That way, the student will have learned something about invasion. Once again, this is just my feeling, I don't intend to write a rule :)

How to comment?

Explaining your moves is a good thing. There can be no doubt about that. And if you can't think of anything more to say about a student's move than "that seems odd, but I can't say why", so be it. You can always suggest what you would have done, and why, if nothing else. Of course we all endeavour to explain what's wrong with the bad moves that the students make, but there's still a lot to be learned without that sort of analysis. And most importantly, the more time you spend teaching, the easier you will find it to articulate yourself, and the more often you will be able to find specific things to say about the student's moves.

-- Bildstein.

What if I don't feel strong enough to make a move?

Question: There are currently two games going:

  1. [ext] 89607
  2. [ext] 90118

These players are NOT true beginners. I could probably beat them, but I don't feel that I can really give them a teaching game, because I am not strong enough myself. What is the suggestion for handling them? Just don't make moves in those games and leave them up to all you stronger players?

Answer: Jay, I personally know Francois (90118). He has been playing at my club for a few weeks. Had only played some games on KGS and with his wife before. That's true he makes quick progress (let's say it is thanks to my club teaching ;-), and has often good ideas. But he will make mistakes. You can see also he doesn't know basic Joseki. In my opinion, the trick is that you can play moves in those games, but if at some point, you do not find a satisfactory move, just wait for another teacher to play and see what he has done. That has happened to me too, and it was very interesting. And do not worry too much, we are not obliged to find THE best move. If the student manages to prove our move wrong, then both will have learned something. Marc.

What game settings?

Question: I think that when teaching some principles to 30-20k a 19 board is to large and cumbersome it makes faster simpler teaching to play 9,9 and 13,13. until basic principles are learned. Or different things can be taught using different sizes. A 30-25k can learn joseki and opening strategy but it makes more sense to start with 9,9 so that they get a feel for the game unless they are playing quite a few of them with other players. Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject

Vose

p.s. I think we should do 30-25k on 9,9 25-19 on 13,13 and 19-10k on 19,19

Answer: Vose, I think what you say makes sense : there is enough to be leaned by a beginner in a 9*9 game. Moreover, real beginners should start with 9*9 games (after they have learned the rules by themselves).

Also, there is another point : playing more small games would allow us to accept more invitations, and cope with the incoming rate of moves to play (though it seems that it is no real problem to date).

I have sometimes proposed to reduce the game size with players that were 30k, and they always agreed.

But I don't like the rule very much. After all, 19*19 is more thrilling, so if they want to play a big game... I wonder if you have played a lot of 9*9 and 13*13 yourself when you did begin go? I must say I did not ;-)

Marc

Etiquette

Question: I'm not sure what to do when a previously talkative student goes silent in response to a direct question. At least Ganesh (that's the one, right?) continues to play. My first guess is that the loss in the upper left corner was an emotional shock; and that he/she has no idea what ko Bildstein was asking about. An outgoing person might ask for clarification, but a somewhat shy person might not.

Our options are limited. We can ask more questions in the game comments; we can try to communicate by DGS message; we can continue as though nothing has changed; we can refuse to move until we hear back from them; we can resign the game; we can keep playing but refuse to comment. I can't think of other options right now.

Some of those sound silly to me. Useful perhaps are inquiring in the game comments and/or the DGS message system, and playing & commenting as though nothing is different. Silly are refusing to move, refusing to comment, and resigning.

What do the sensei think?

Answer: Well there might be a lot of reasons why a student does not talk back, e.g. he may not have a good grasp of english, may not have a sufficient grasp of Go to answer the question, or even to understand it, or may be dissatisfied with the way we do the teaching or play the game, ... At least, I hope they read our comments! I think the best should be to inquire to the student, so we can adapt one way or another. For the particular case of Ganesh, he/she has talked less and less during the game, though it was an interesting one; maybe he lost heart after losing several battles? Let's ask him next move. marc

Answer: Mike gave us pretty much all the options, and I agree with him about the ones that are simply unacceptable. But I can't keep making comments in these games when I'm being ignored.

I understand that the students might take it pretty hard when we have a local win, or end up ahead by the latter part of the game, but they shouldn't, because they have to acknowledge that we know the game better than them, and to stop talking to us is both rude and counter-productive.

But I don't know how to raise the subject with the students. I don't want to sound angry, because that will only make them less confident about talking to us. I want the students to feel free to make comments like "I wouldn't have played there. I think it's too small.", etc., not just be dutiful, respectful, quiet students.

Anyway, in summary, I don't know what to do, but I can't continue to write comments in games where my comments are being ignored.

Answer: I was just thinking: If I went to my local go club and started telling people what they were doing wrong, they might well become a lot less enclined to play. Imagine this: I play a teaching game against someone, and each time they make a bad move, I say something like "That's not the best move. Here would be better." Then, after a while they'd get disillusioned, because I was continually telling them that there moves were bad without explaining why the move I suggest was better. What I'm getting at is this: if our criticis isn't constructive (or isn't constructive or positive enough), then players will get disillusioned. Now I don't think I've been doing that, but we teach all kinds of people with a diversity that I'm sure I don't realise. So I might well have been inadvertantly turning people off with my comments, without even realising it.

So if anyone has noticed comments (from me) that seem to fall into this category, please point them out to me and suggest how I could have said the same thing but phrased it in a more friendly way.

Thanks,

Ben.

Comment: If a student like me asks for a teaching game then they should be prepared to be told a move is bad. However, the student should also be told why the move was bad, what move would have been better and perhaps how best continue from the bad move.

PatG

How to use the message folders?

Do not message from sensei to sensei!

the message system gets confused about it so that we cannot delete such messages. all we can do about it is ask for support and i do not want to do this all the time. as a workaround you can send messages from sensei to your private account or vice versa. this has the additional advantage that the message gets marked with your name automatically.

joachim

The folders

  • to be processed : folder for messages just opened (not "new" anymore) and requiring some action, but no action taken yet;
  • being processed : action is on-going, but interesting info should be kept for a little while;
  • sensei talk : "notice board" for internal communication among sensei members, should remain on status page for a few days.
  • FAQ : should not be used anymore since this whole section intends to replace it! Most interesting messages from "sensei talk" could be stored here for reference.

Note: Attention, the received messages won't remain "new" once they have been opened once, so they will disappear from the satus page. If you would like other sensei members to read them, you should move them manually into the "to be procesed!" or "sensei talk" folders, and they will remain visible on the status page. Marc

Who can teach?

Question: The question was something like "How comes kyu players dare to propose teaching?" and "it's much harder to teach a 30k when you are 18 than teaching a 20k when you are 8k for many reasons ..."

Answer: I understand your remark about teaching at different levels, and I'm ready to believe you. But there is also the practical aspect of "relatively better" players teaching "relatively weaker" ones in a kind of teaching pyramid. As I said before, you cannot let all the teaching to the few dan players (although it would be nice if they did agree to spend nights and days teaching all the kyus). Moreover, at our level, maybe we have not the ambition of teaching the "real spirit" of go, I see it rather like an open discussion like "I would have played differently" where the "student" is invited to challenge the "teacher"'s advise, and where nothing guarantees the teacher will always be right.


This is a copy of the living page "Dragon Sensei" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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