CGBSpender

CGBSpender :

As I'm pretty much limited to tell what I want to in my KGS profile, I thought I might as well write it down here.

My real name is Matthieu. I'm from France. I started playing Go in 2001 and reached dan level a few years ago, and have on and off periods of playing. I may disappear from times to times, due to real life important matters, or just by lack of motivation. I remain nonetheless a dan player. And even though I don't play rated games so often anymore, at least with this account, I'll happily share my knowledge in teaching games in the KGS Teaching Ladder or Go events, such as the ASR League. Since I started playing Go and achieving the long time waited 1d rank, I started getting involved in teaching and spreading Go, on the Internet and real life.

I used to run the CGB's Teaching room a few years ago, which was basically the first room to offer group lectures, teaching games, reviews for all players, thanks to our excellent teachers (up to 6d) who could at this time, share their knowledge with even the dan players.

Then, as the cgb's teaching was growing bigger and bigger, we thought it would be convenient to have a more appropriate training ground, as opposed to the theory lectures we were giving in cgb's teaching room. So we revived the Advanced Study Room and its League, thanks to pasky. The partnership went fairly well with about 20 players as a start and in half a year, the League had reached 200 players. As I speak now, I'm no longer in charge of the ASR, but it is more successful than ever, with about 260 players, from 25k up to 6d, from all countries. All this considered, ASR has been the most important League you can find on the Internet for many years. And after the ASR got so successful, it gave ideas to more players who wanted to create their own leagues. Now you can find leagues everywhere, but do they compete with the ASR system, I'm pretty sure the answer is No. Last but not least, the ASR is still the only important League to be entirely free of charge, which makes quite a difference.

I'm often asked "how to improve", here are a few hints :

█ Play (a lot), practice openings again and again. You shouldn't expect to master it in 5, 50 or even 500 games.

█ Have your games reviewed. A few rooms are dedicated for reviewing. Especially the "Advanced Study Room" or the "KGS Teaching Ladder". You can ask there if you need a stronger player's help. They teach and review FOR FREE. You do not need to pay for a teacher. If you have money to spend, go for it though. But the rank achieved does not necessarily mean quality of teaching, unfortunately.

█ Attend other players teaching games, reviews, anything you can find. Be curious, participate in lectures, ask questions, suggest variations, and the teachers will show you if and why the variation is good or not.

█ TEACH in return. First, because I strongly believe sharing knowledge should never be one-sided. Second, because teaching does force you to think about the flow. It forces you to adapt your play accordingly to the other player, and to explain the pros and cons in a way that even a weaker player can understand.

Users : Battousai /Truestyle /Lloyd /Mefanol /Hirakawade /fanfan /Chemboy613

http://www.youtube.com/user/BobWhoosta1 http://www.youtube.com/user/dwyrin (Battousai) http://www.youtube.com/user/gocommentary http://www.youtube.com/user/nicksibicky

Some great teachers / links may be missing. Up to you to let me know and I'll add them.