PokaMyoshu

I am an avid teacher of Go to children in Canada. I organized and operate the Fern Hill Go Club ('Clubs') and Canadian Club Organizers ('Social') rooms on KGS. My handle is a conglomeration of the Japanese Go terms 'poka' (blunder) and 'myoshu' (brilliant move).

My father taught me to play Chess before I was 3 years old, and I beat him for the first time before I was 4. I then dashed my dad's hopes for me to become the next Bobby Fischer, by abandoning Chess altogether, as 'boring'.

I first learned of Go's existence while reading the AD&D Oriental Adventures campaign-setting by Gary Gygax in 1985. The reference was so vague that I was moved to search every library in my three-college-hometown until I found Edward Lasker's "Go and Go-moku" from which I taught myself to play at the age of 12.

I subsequently taught everyone who would listen how to play Go, and agreed not to play handicapped games at the insistence of my prospective students (who were principally die-hard Chess nuts) who therefore had no prospects to defeat me. No one wanted to play with me anymore.

Finally, I located a Go Club on the Queen's University campus in 1989, and had a very unwelcoming experience that caused me to abandon my dreams of moving to Japan to study Go, or to play Go at all for nearly a decade.

After marrying and siring children, I was determined to give my kids the opportunities that I so sorely lacked as a potential caucasian child Go prodigy. I opened a Go Club at my eldest child's elementary school, and the rest is history-in-the-making. :-)

P.S.: PokaMyoshu subsequently changed his handle on KGS to 'TinStar?' after becoming the Vice-President of the Canadian Go Association in 2009, and has coached several young people to surpass his skill (which remains < 1-Dan Amateur as of this writing), and break into the Dan-ranks. I continue to maintain the http://www.goforall.ca web-site, and foster new players and clubs throughout Canada.