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Teaching Go to Newcomers Discussion
Difficulty: Beginner
Let's give each our opinion on how to teach go to newcomers. Hopefully we can assemble it into Teaching Go To Newcomers? Kris Rhodes: (How about a page on HowNotToTeachGo?) Dieter: Yesterday, I taught the basic aspects of the game to a newcomer. Then he played one of our clubmembers. I told him incidentally that he should put down the three stones so that White's lower right corner remained empty. Next, I played another clubmember. We wished each other good luck with the game, saying "Onegaishimasu" - or whatever it should be. It occurred that the newcomer was struck by both habits of politeness. He later asked "Should I know other things ?" I will most certainly include those GoodHabits in my next "first session" and include others like HowToProperlyHoldAndPlayAGoStone in second and third sessions. People usually get overwhelmed by too technical explanations. They just love it when those side aspects come into the picture. And I remember I did. Scartol: Things I usually include in my first lesson:
... and along the way I toss in the things I find most intriguing; the respect players show each other, the history of the game, how to hold a stone, Japanese terms, etc. I think it's important -- whatever is being taught -- to combine information with excitement. BenShoemaker: To create a useful TeachingGoToNewcomers? page I think we need to discuss:
I personally would find the organization and completeness of such lists to be very helpful. (As I think about it, it would be nice to have a list of concepts for the beginner to study further, not just during the first lesson. If the list could be in order of complexity, that would be great, but maybe at least ordered to allow certain concepts to build on others.) Dieter: I think we have that already at TeachingPaths and BeginnerStudySection Chris Hayashida: Having started playing go just over a year ago, and now teaching a beginner's class, I thought I'd share my thoughts, less on material, and more on style:
As for technique, I would say that these are the most important, after the basic rules:
Conversely, I think these can wait:
Scartol: The more I teach beginners, the less use I have for the 9x9 board. It feels analogous to teaching someone how to play chess using only pawns. The complexity of the board's regions and groups is what makes the game interesting for me, and beginners get none of that on a 9x9 -- it's all corner play. I moved to the 13x13 as soon as I was able, and I encourage my students to do the same. Stefan: I think I know where you're coming from. Most beginners in our club don't play on 9x9 very long, but do on 13x13 for a while. I'd say 9x9 is for getting a working knowledge of the rules, 13x13 for getting a working knowledge of the basic techniques and concepts, and 19x19 for finding out you'll never have a clue. Chris Hayashida: Sorry, I didn't mean that the beginners should stay on a 9x9 board for very long. I should have written "smaller boards" instead of "9x9 boards." Usually our beginners start playing on a 13x13 within two or three nights. (More than anything, I think it's a lack of boards that's causing this, but the AGA will soon fix that. :) However, I do think that simplifying the game does appeal to some people. My comments above apply to 13x13 board as well. Our club is a little different, since we meet weekly in a local coffeehouse. Many people come to the coffeehouse, see the game, and decide to start playing. I think the simple rules attract potential students. It also helps that you can get several games in the course of an hour. These people are a little more intimidated by the 19x19 boards. I think it's a different situation than a "real" go club, since people visiting there would only be coming by if they wanted to learn to play anyway. [Gabaux:]I was teaching a couple of newcommers to play go, and some of them became definitely stronger players then me :-)). My idea was to teach the minimal theory first, only the rules and the calculation of liberties. The first-hand experience is very important. I urged them to play a lot of games in a rather short interval of time to get as much practical 'feeling' as they could. Sometimes I let them win, but not too often, to learn how to exploit overplay, how to recognize bad shapes. I have found this approach very efficient. I get the sense that this site is a sister-site to SL, but just in case people don't know about it..
I accidentally typed in
And I can't find a list anywhere of web-based sites for leading folks through the basics. Should we start one? -- Scartol
Zarlan: The Shigeno-Yasuda method seems to demand that you get people to keep playing AtariGo for quite a few games. I thought that this method, although rather good sometimes, might be less good sometimes as it may prove to be difficult to keep a person interested enough to keep playing AtariGo.
Here's the idea:
First you explain liberties, atari and captures, the very core of Go. Ko and suicide should probably be explained if it occurs though. Well at least ko. After one or perhaps a few (I havn't tested it or anything) he/she/they might understand a few things (one should perhaps ask and discuss). This is why it has to be a 19x19. On the 19x19 there should be a lot of space for life & death and many possibilities for a ko to occur. Also I think it would probably turn into the resemblance of a game of Go according to StoneCountingScoring (a badly played one but still). After this you explain territory and show the score of the game (or last game) and tell them about the rest of the rules. Although I thought of this because of a possible flaw in the AtariGo teaching method, it is from there that I got my inspiration. Letting people discover important concepts by them selves, by putting them in to a sitiuation where they will inevitably encounter them sounds like a very good idea. As a beginner I think there should be a place for a few newcomer games to be posted and commented (not only pro games). I have commented one of my games against gnuGo 3.2 and want to post it and get some feedback. Maybe there is but I could not find such a place. Do you think it would be useful? I will make a new page and place a link here, BeginnerGameSamplesToComment. Thanks anyway. Orcun This is a copy of the living page "Teaching Go to Newcomers Discussion" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |