Shygost

I have been teaching Go professionally for about 15 years. I am not so strong a player, but I have had much Professional training and enjoy passing the basics along. My students range from beginner to 3 dan. I charge $25 per hour, with lessons usually lasting 2 hours.

Here is a list of the professionals I have studied with. The higher on the list, the more time I have studied with them. I play at the 6d level.

Yi Lun Yang 7p
Feng Yun 9p
Hu Shi? 5p
Ju Jo Jiang 9p
Janice Kim 1p
James Kerwin 1p

Starting January 10, 2006, free public lessons will be starting in the LGD room on the KGS server.

Update Feb 9th: Tuesday lesson moved to Saturday.

Update Mar 23rd: Only 12 lessons left, so we will only do one lesson a week, the Friday one.

Schedule: (Pacific Standard Time)

 Friday   7-8pm PST (02-03:00 UTC) next day

To convert these times to your own Timezone, follow these links. and change the second Location to your own.

Friday Lesson

xela: I think shygost actually uses his local time, which is PST during the northern hemisphere winter, and PDT (one hour later) during summer. Also, I think 7 pm PST is 03:00 UTC, not 02:00. And the link above will give the right answers in northern hemisphere summer, but not winter; I'm not sure how to fix it so it gives the right answer always. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points!

cliftut: Actually, it sounds like it's working fine. The problem you're encountering is that all it does is convert time zones, it doesn't account for daylight savings. As a result, it is going to be off by an hour for half of the year. The only way to help with this would be to put up a note telling people to subtract(? correct me if I'm wrong) an hour from the time it gives you during the winter (daylight savingstime to be exact)

xela: No, it does correct for daylight savings. The site lets you enter a date: you can check that different dates give different results. The link above is for a specific date.

Publicly funded, hopefully funding will continue to allow the lessons to continue! Shygost is an excellent teacher. These lectures are aimed at the kyu levels and are designed to show how to think rather than where to move. Do try to make them.

An archive of shygost's lessons is available at http://tengen.bur.st . The archive includes a copy of the original SGF of the lesson, an audio file of shygost's lesson, as well as a transcribed SGF file. If you find problems with any of the transcribed files, please drop sduff a note at Shygost/Lessons. This page also contains links to any transcriptions which haven't made it to the tengen page yet.

I record my lessons with Shygost here - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=shygost&sort=-publicdate --- 'metaperl' on KGS.

If you are interested in donating for those lectures, you can paypal to lance@kemperpainting.com or you can contact NannyOgg at plomp@together.net if you'd rather send a check.

If you would like to see a topic covered, please add it to the topics page, or add your support for the topics already listed.

Talk about shygost lectures on the Shygost forum.

Something I wanted to do is to organise people who record lessons so that a near as comlete collection of shygost's public lectures can be created, the first few steps are on this page Shygost Lesson Exchange.

(Edited by DavidB January 2, 2006, NannyOgg January 11, 2006, xela 6th May 2006.)

WayneC: Students of shygost, and those who have listened to his Friday lectures over the years will have been exposed to "The List". The original list was a concise summary of the basics of go, in the form of a list of three questions. Shygost produced an updated version of the list in September, 2011.

Table of contents The List The Three Questions Priorities in the Opening General Rules

The List

The Three Questions

What has come to be known as "the list", is a list of three questions.

1. Am I ok? (How many weak groups or important stones do I have? Count them and defend the weakest one.)
   
   When defending:
   • Don't get surrounded in sente (you get surrounded and it's still his turn).
   • Don't run with the knight's move (or any other easily cut move).
   • Do contact strong stones. Touching a stone helps both to settle. It helps him, wasting his time -- he's already strong.
     
     
2. Is he ok? (How many weak groups or important stones does the opponent have? Count them and attack the weakest one.)
   
   When attacking:
   • Attacking usually means to remove one of his running directions -- the one that gives you most profit or that makes it hardest on him.
   • Chase with the knight's move. (You don't care if you're cut. He's the weak one).
   • Don't contact weak stones (touching a stone helps both to settle).
     
     
3. What's big? (How many big areas are there? Count them, compare them to find the biggest, then play in the biggest area.)
   
   
   • A big area is an open area, which is not yet solid territory for either player, but which has the potential to become territory for one player or the other.

These three questions are recursive, meaning that when a question is answered, go back to the top of the list, and continue going through the list again. Try to find moves that accomplish more than one purpose.

Priorities in the Opening

Here is a list of priorities, in order of importance, for what is big in the opening:

1. Anything "urgent" (stands out above the rest).
2. When your 3-3 or 4-4 is approached, respond unless something else is urgent.
3. Empty corners.
4. Unfinished corners (a single stone not on 3-3 or 4-4 is unfinished).
5. Choosing a joseki, in a corner where there is already one stone of each color.
   • 4 and 5 are about equal.
6. Approach a 3-3 or 4-4 stone (same size as a side move).
7. Sides.
   • 6 and 7 are about equal.
8. Center.

General Rules

• When living, running or getting points: Corner first, side second, center last.
• In the early opening, the big territory moves are bigger than vague attacks.
• A group is finished when the ends are down to the 3rd line.
• A group is not finished if an end is on the 4th line leaving an "open skirt".

Of course all these rules will be broken at the right time.