Kenn Knowles
I'm a grad student at UC Santa Cruz who plays with the Santa Cruz Go Association when I can get away from my research.
KGS
I'm kknowles on KGS, without a steady rank since I play so little these days. Last I checked I was AGA 5k.
So my wishes don't vanish in the KGS wishlist, I'll mention them here:
- Removed self-paired rated games. Having done a small amount of reading, and witnessed the rank chaos on KGS, automatic pairing is clearly better. Free games can naturally be as they are now
- You will have to choose time settings before putting yourself in the automatic pairing "rotation", so it would require separate rank systems for blitz/non-blitz (wms has stated he has no interest in separate rating systems, which flies in the face of even bothering to have one at all, as far as statistical accuracy goes!)
- The above generalizes to having 9x9 and 13x13 ratings
- A game availability graph, which I encountered first in the jin FICS client. Strength on one axis, time settings on the other. (Applies only to self-paired, and thus unrated, games)
Teaching / Learning
I have the strange position of being a beginner who also has to show people the game for the first time a lot, since I advocate go at my university (UCSC). So I think atari go is the best way to get people into it right away, even if it develops bad habits. I think it greatly underestimates people to say they'd have trouble getting over the habits they form playing it, so I don't worry about that.