Dieter Verhofstadt / Teaching experiences

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Here is a blog of my teaching activities, in pursuit of the "lecture of God". The experience has taught me that there is no single method that works, because the audience and the conditions can widely vary, but there are definitely methods that don't work.

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1. At the service club

The audience was a group of people belonging to a service club. They were not expecting to be able to play after the session. Their expectations were to learn about this oriental game that they knew to involve important strategic principles?. The session would take a whole evening after working hours. No second session was planned. We were two lecturers for an audience of about 20 people. Our intention was to spread the word of Go.

We took turns, using the magnetic supersize upright goban, me to talk about the history and culture, my colleague to explain the rules and some strategy. The choice for emphasis on culture and strategy was warranted by their expectations. Obviously their understanding of the strategy was restricted by their lack of playing ability. In the second half of the session we had them play against each other on 9x9 as we would usually do with newbies (see below). We also took a laptop with IgoWin and a few Oriental attributes such as fans, in order to appeal with variety.

2. At the games event

Here, the audience were passers-by at a games event. Some of them will take the whole day to learn just a few games. Some of them want to superficially learn about it. Our intention clearly was to have some people interested enough to stick with the game.

There were the three of us to a varying number of 0 to 10 trainees. We would use the atari-go method for newbies to get them play as quickly as possible. Cultural or strategic information was almost absent. We used small boards only and gave away cardboard gamesets to people who stayed about for a certain amount of time. Ko was introduced to those people who discovered it after a few short games.

3. Newcomers at the club

When newcomers arrive at the club, their interest is usually already raised. They will know something about the rules and probably intend to come back for more. In this one-to-one situation, one can spend more time teaching and rise to the tactical/strategic level somewhat sooner. We would have newcomers be instructed by the strongest player present, or by our "official instructors" who received lessons on teaching Go by our federation.

Ideally there were two of them so that they could play against each other, capture go or real go depending on their knowledge. If there was only one, we would team him/her up against our weaker players so as to keep the gap in strength to a minimum.

In my experience, newcomers come back much much more often if they have peers. This is actually true for many levels.

4. An introduction at work

First session

On 19/11/2004, I had a very satisfactory introduction session with 6 colleagues of mine. Well, I was satisfied, and they were at least very positive about it in speech.

I started with about 5 minutes telling the emperor tale, the spread to the rest of Asia and the popularity there (big) and here (moderate but rising!). Next, I explained the rules, with stone counting.

  • Empty grid of arbitrary size. We'll use 9x9.
  • You take turns and play on the vertices (points).
  • Who places more stones, wins.

Then I said "If this were to be the only rule, then it would be a very dull game and Black would always win, since there are an odd number of points.Then I explained the capture rule in my usual style, asking each particpant in turn for the number of liberties of this or that stone or chain.

One guy who had some notice of the game, asked about suicide. "Yes, I said, it is illegal". Another guy said "So that structure you have there after you captured a stone (he pointed to the ponnuki), none of these stones can be captured ever?" So I explained that capture goes first, then only the legality of a move is decided. They nodded. Another guy, who already played against the computer, said "So if you have two such surrounded spots ..." I cut him short and said "I know what you're about to say, but I deliberately avoided that issue, because it is not a rule, but a concept that follows from the rules. I'd rather have you discover that for yourself.

After which we started to play. It was interesting to see how all kept a balance between putting live stones on the board and trying to remove the opponent's. Halfway the game, they started realizing some stones were lost anyway and not worth saving nor capturing. Soon they understood there were areas controlled by either player, unworthy of investment. Within the course of one game they were developing strategies. One player made many diamond shapes, but he commented himself that he could have done better economically. Another player had a firm grasp on the concept of Take 'n Give and tried to control the larger share of the board, fencing in his opponent towards the side.

Two players resigned their first game ever, because they understood they were never to get more stones on the board than the opponent. All players had understood the concept of territory within one game. All players were enthusiastic and surprised by how much there is to the game of Go. They had an idea of what lied ahead of them.

This introduction session exceeded my wildest expectations, if only for the fact that all participants had discovered territory and two eyes all by themselves. No more atari-go for this guy and no more explanation of territory.

Second session

One other colleague attended the second session (25/2/2005). He had previously been explained the rules but admitted he didn't have any notion of steering the game. I explained the rules again with "more stones on the board" as game objective. As a prolific gamer he understood very fast and I put him up against the best player on the first session. They played a very decent 9x9 but demanded a correct compensation for White. I didn't really know so they decided it should be 3 points. The game ended in a draw.

In the meantime I played two games 4H 9x9 against another guy who had been there at the first meeting. He needed some more time to understand the concepts of territory and life. In the first game I made one big group cutting him into 4. In the second game he connected 3 corner stones but failed to play aggressively. So these were his two lessons: connect yours and attack the other.

The (White) winner of the other game played a 4x4 game against me and I abandoned early. At his third game he beat a 2 dan with 4 stones on 9x9. He admitted he used a lot of his overall gaming experience. Still, I found his style impressive and I can't help but thinking the teaching method contributed to that.

5. Children

Well, my girlfriend's daughters, actually. Encouraged by the succesful sessions at work, I used the same method to teach the girls how to play Go. They are 6 and 8 years old. I had them started on 7x7. On the upside, they did not hesitate to put down stones and they understood really well how to capture. On the downside, they kept playing until they put themselves into atari. I felt I had to explain the idea of two eyes by the third game. Curiously, the elder wanted to play on the larger boards as soon as possible, probably because of aestethic reasons: two newspapers look ugly as delimiters.

6. A very young kid

A friend of mine's kid is 5 years old. I showed him how to play the stones on intersections. I explained capture of one stone. And I said: who gets more stones on the board, wins. As his parents were on a visit, I did not care to explain much more. He played his sister of 2,5 whom I guided by taking her hand at the first few moves. While they played, he struggled to understand the idea of connection (which I didn't explain before) but he grasped it rather instinctively. He focused on capturing, whereas the girl, who didn't know about capturing, focused on building chains, inadvertently making her groups safe, much to the frustration of her brother.

But as the game progressed, the limitations of the "alive stones" approach became apparent. They slowed down, didn't really know where to put them and started filling their own last liberty. So I felt compelled to explain the idea of territory and eyes while that was exactly what I want to avoid with the "alive stones" approach, both to hasten the end of the game and to prevent them from killing their own groups.

7. The Korea Times featuring Nam Chi-Hyung

I was very enthusiastic when I learnt about the Korean Times article series about Baduk ([ext] link). In particular, I was thrilled by the idea of Nam Chi-Hyung, a professor at the Baduk University (yes, they have 20 freshmen at university studying Baduk in case you didn't know) explaining the game of Go. In her first three installments, she outlines the fundamentals of Go, i.e. the rules. To my surprise, the rule of capture has not been explained until the fourth installment, despite the appearance of the concepts life and territory in the first three. So, even in Korea, even at university, they deem not necessary to build up logically from the ground. So maybe it is a Western sort of idea after all, to build concepts from the bare definitions.

Also noteworthy is that large parts are devoted to the cultural references, stories and anecdotes, ... The rules do not take more than half of the allotted space. Perhaps this is due to the media: it is a newspaper. Still, it makes one think that, if you want to explain the game to newbies, or make them interested, you should talk much more about other things than only rules and concepts.

8. Beginners, gaining experience at our local club

In 2005, I have been mentoring about 5 relatively new players. When they started, I used the stone counting principle, to derive all basic concepts. I have been emphasizing to connect and cut (on a large scale), and to avoid being enclosed and enclose the other. It seems that for these players, the disease of defending territory does not cause such devastating damage as to us, who were bred with territory. Until late in the game, they focus on connection and cut, foregoing the enclosure of a few points. When reviewing their games - they have improved to about 9-12 kyu within a year - I must often recall my statements about some move being "small" or "neutral", because it effectively cuts or connects on a large scale and emphasizes longer term thickness. Of course, emphasizing connection has the drawback of playing slow, on neutral points, when large territory can be taken. I think it will be easier to shift from thick to territory, than the other way round.

9. Reviewing games

Lately (2005), I have changed the way I review games of weaker players. I tend to ask questions, rather than presenting my answers. Of course a review is also a source of new ideas, so I occasionally drop a technical suggestion, or a strategic principle. But the bulk of the review I hammer on strategic principles I have long explained and on known techniques. This way, I try to transmit attitude, rather than knowledge. I offer a few key moments to reflect upon and a few alternatives to calculate. I do not calculate for them, because that is useless. Instead I ask:

  • Who has influence to where? Who has territory? Whose groups are stable? Which groups still have defects? Which dead stones have lingering potential? And last but not least: who has the initiative? Given all these considerations, who has the advantage in the exchange?
  • Calculate possible continuations, starting with a, b or c. If you cannot handle branching, take what looks like the most natural answer each time. Evaluate the result.

Ideally, we go into Q&A mode, but that hasn't been the case very often. I don't know whether this method works out that well. It could be that people are more comfortable with presented answers. Maybe human learning goes more by imitation than reasoning anyway and I will have to get back to the old tutoring approach.

10. The "alive stones" approach combined with small boards

Since the Ghent club has moved to "Jazz-café Opatuur", there has been a striking increase in people interested in playing the game. Much has to do with the owner of the pub, who is very sympathetic to the game. Another factor may be the kind of people that come to a Jazz Cafe. It turns out that many are very curious but are somewhat apprehensive about asking us, who seem so plunged into thoughts that they rather don't disturb. All it takes is a bartender who has no problem disturbing us: he knows we are of the missionary kind.

The "alive stones" approach works perfectly combined with a small board. With 25 spots to share, it's not so bothersome to fill the whole board. Also, the all important liberties (the eyes) are more apparent. The idea of resigning also comes very naturally and early and it takes but a game or two to move on to 9x9. yesterday, the two couples we instructed last week, came back to play Go and Chess in their little corner, disconnected from the club. Five minutes and off they Go.

11. Teaching the elderly

On 16/1/2006 I have given a 2 hour session to a group of 20 retired teachers, who were preparing for a trip to Japan. They had been organizing a few activities related to their journey and an introduction to the game of Go would be the last before taking off. For this audience I decided to schedule as follows:

  • Welcome - 5 min
  • The history of Go (myth, rise and shine, pro scene, spread to the West) - 20 min
  • Teaching the rules, using the stone counting mechanism - 10 min
  • Guided 5x5 games against each other - 45 min
  • Some Go principles and their close relationship with oriental culture - 15 min
  • More play - 20 min
  • Closing word - 5 min

One of my club members took half of the group with him for the explanation part. He couldn't prevent a few of them from playing 9x9 (we needed some time to cover the boards with paper to delimit the 5x5) whereas "my" group obeyed the 5x5 paradigm. Both groups struggled with the "suicide or murder" unclarity, but the 5x5 group arrived at the end of their game way faster and played 3-4 games, changing partners as they went. As I know by now, zooming in on the 2 eyes of a group is much easier on a 5x5, because groups reach the end of their development much sooner.

The culturo-historic lecture went very well, but next time I will learn a few more details by heart - I forgot the name of one of the 4 houses. Teaching the elderly - some of the participants were well over 60, perhaps 70 plus - proved to be tough sometimes. They can have a reduced short term memory and I had to repeat the basic rule many times. In the end the schedule turned out to be just a little too ambitious and the closing word coincided with the "More go principles part". Many people were very enthusiastic. About five couples took a cardboard set with them "to play with their grandchildren". Three of them bought a 10€ introduction book by Frank Janssen. I take two lessons learnt from this lecture:

  1. Reducing the board to 5x5 is mandatory and having 5x5 instruction sets prepared would be very handy.
  2. One of the participants uncanningly suggested a term to solve the suicide/murder dilemma: a move that captures a group is allowed to stay on the board because it creates liberties by capturing. By using the word create, you indicate the order of capture first then only forbid suicide.

12. The endgame game

As I am writing these words (feb 06), the players that joined our club last year in April are improving rapidly. The merit is fully theirs, but I like to think that at least they haven't been too obstructed by bad advice from me. One of the better exercises we had was the endgame game. I took the sample game from Get strong at the endgame, the White pro manages to close an 8 point gap against the 3d amateur given that another White pro loses by that margin against a Black pro.

First, the players are paired and they auction on playing Black. The highest bidder receives the right to play Black and gives his bid as komi. Next they play out the game.

The exercise is interesting for a few reasons:

  1. Realize how early the endgame begins.
  2. Get into the habit of counting the score.
  3. Adapt the endgame strategy to the calculated score.

I'm going to repeat this exercise a few times. Our club members have gotten into the habit of analyzing their games, but somehow people are always very interested in the opening. Me too, I guess, tend to focus on techniques which have their maximum relevance in the opening and middle game. The endgame is still very much ignored, in actual play and in analysis, yet it makes such a big difference.

13. A Chinese professional

March 2006. On behalf of Filip Vanderstappen's Internet Go School?, the Ghent Go club receives Miss Du Yufeng, Chinese 5p. She has been visiting Europe to prepare her master degree thesis on "Teaching Go", for the department of baduk at the university of Seoul.

I gave an overview of how we have been explaining the game to beginners, from the classical, territory-based explanation, over Yasuda's atari-go, to the current way of using stone counting on small boards. She thought 5x5 was way too small and didn't see the problem with 19x19 because she learnt it that way as a kid. I argued that adults want to have clear purpose and have a short attention span, so you need to quickly teach the rules, start a game quickly and have it finished quickly. None of our newcomers is a child. Possibly children have less need for clear objectives.

She played some simultaneous games with my fellow club members and one 2 stone game with me. In general she gave very low handicaps: less than what I give my clubmates. One player commented that she played much more honestly than I did. That's true for many reasons. In our game, she commented on her mistakes and how I effectively took advantage of them in one case but failed to do so the second time. I have played a Japanese insei before and have been part of a simultaneous session by Miyazawa Goro. Neither of them had labeled any of their moves as a mistake, so it was new and surprising to see a pro make a mistake, one that would be forced by a move of mine ?! As always, you can only guess how much of that stuff is politeness.

She didn't teach anything thematic, but went on to suggest good moves. She took a long time thinking about the sequences she suggested. Nothing seemed to be trivial to her. The suggestion of insecurity made the gap with pro go suspiciously narrow. The face was very human but I'm still not quite sure what to think of it.

14. Teaching newcomers at our club - different approaches

Some members of our club prefer the Atari Go Teaching Method over the Stone counting teaching method on small boards that I advocate. They argue that they have been very successful with it, and more importantly feel comfortable using it. I think that's a very good point, on teaching Go in particular and in general for any process. Being used to do something in a certain way, however, is certainly not the overruling argument to continue current practice. You must be open to change. That's actually the root of improvement in Go too: being open for new understanding, new ways of moving. But you cannot convince anyone to confidently do something in another way, as long as they haven't built their confidence.

15. A conversation with Du Yufeng

Miss Du Yufeng, Chinese professional player and student at the department of Baduk in the university of Seoul, has asked me to elaborate more on the reasons why I have chosen to teach Go to beginners using the stone counting method, and why I abandoned the practice of capture go. Here is my reply to her:

First of all, I must state that my teaching methods are not based on any statistical evidence of large numbers of students. They are my preferences, based on aesthetics, logic and some experience with teaching Go. Secondly, this experience is mostly with adults in Europe, which is quite a different audience than children in Asia. I believe adults tend to ask for full clarification more than children and I believe (dangerous statement, this one) that "western attitude" relies on critical investigation whereas "eastern attitude" encourages the virtue of acquisition through careful observation (I'm not saying either person is incapable of any skill but I do think there is truth in the cultural cliché). This is why I have chosen for a method that fulfills best the needs of critical adults that want to have the full picture right away, yet cannot cope with long explanations.

I have been an advocate of capture go, because I liked the simplicity of it. You explain capture, lay down a cross-cut, set the objective (capture 1, capture 2, capture 5) and off you go! That was definitely a major improvement over the classical method, where you had to explain territory first and people were lost already before playing their first stone. I also liked very much the idea of territory forming naturally after a while, being "the place where your opponent's stones cannot live".

BUT, there were a few things nagging on my mind.

  • First, few of the students I instructed this way, seemed happy with the fact that they were not learning the real game, but that they started out with an educational device instead. There is some arrogance towards capture go: "we know the real stuff, we'll give it to you when you are ready for it".
  • Worse, it gives the false impression that Go is intrinsically difficult to play. Go is NOT difficult to play, it is however rich and difficult to master.
  • Thirdly, there are holes in the capture game. Let's say the beginners play "First to capture five". Now what if the first one passes? Then the game ends in a draw. You run into smart pupils doing such things.
  • Another small drawback is the initial setup of a crosscut. This is also unlike the real game.
  • Finally, the capture game does put an emphasis on capturing stones. While this has been the major argument of the opponents of capture go, I think it is the least of all, if you compare it at least to the classical method (using territory) because most westerners have a bigger problem than obsession with capture: they are obessed with "making territory" and forget about the strengths and weaknesses of the existing stones.

So, when I found out about the stone counting method, I realized that most of the drawbacks of the capture go method would disappear, while keeping its advantages of simplicity and quick initialization.

  • First, the game is as much "the real thing" as what the experienced players play. The same objective, the same initial position, the same strategy. The only thing that differs is the way we count (and assess) the game.
  • Secondly, the explanation of the game is (in my opinion) closest to the origins of the game. The transition to territory counting is how the game has historically evolved (again, my opinion, this is not proven). Having the beginner experience the same feeling of "beauty of omission" is natural and pleasing.
  • There are no holes in the game, not with passing and not with the many issues the beginners have when they are bred with the classical method. Moves are never "losing points because played in one's own territory". Positions are never to be decided on after the game. Stones either live on the board or they are absent.
  • Finally, the focus of players starting out this way is on "putting as much living stones on the board as possible". This is the correct focus. I cannot prove it, but my impression with the students I have taught this way, is that they play a very natural kind of game, from the beginning.

In addition to stone counting, I let them play on very small boards (even the computer solved 5x5!) This mitigates the fact that the stones are played out until the very last empty points available, as long as the concept of territory hasn't found its way to their minds. Now of course one can argue that small boards are not the real game either. That is true, but I think there is a difference between:

"I let you play on small boards, so that you can play many games and learn from these" and "I let you play capture go now and when you understand capture, we will play the real game"

Despite my strong opinions on stone counting as a teaching method, some other people at the club still prefer capture go. They feel more familiar with it, they know it from Yasuda sensei, who came to demonstrate it in Europe and they feel apprehensive about stone counting in general, because they either are not fully convinced of the equivalence or find it too difficult to explain and demonstrate the equivalence. Also, they argument that it encourages players to play inside their own territory (which I disagree with - often those players themselves omit moves "inside their territory" which actually strengthen their stones).

16. Girl power

15 May 2006 - Three students, two boys and a girl, are playing cards in our club. One of the guys is constantly looking over his shoulder. I hear mutterings "... must be something like checkers ...". When passing by I tell them "I can explain the game in 5 minutes. As soon as you become afraid, we'll release you." They are not afraid. All three attend the usual 5x5 stone counting explanation. Then I put them at another table, while I'm having a pro game discussion with the club members. More than one hour later they will have played 3 5x5, 4 7x7, and 3 9x9. They have acquired the concepts of eyes and territory all by themselves ("you can never capture me there" - "do I really have to fill all these empty points?" - "We're not going to count this, you win." - "Can I abandon?"). They gain notions of influence and overconcentration ("damn, I played too much on that side, even if I took all your stones"), they appreciated strong strategic connections and they acquired a sense of efficiency ("I don't have to take that stone right now, do I?")

I intervened three times: once to confirm that the connection was strategically important indeed, once to eplain ko when it arose ("question: when she takes, I can take back, and we would go on and on") and once to show how a stone is held and played (they thought it was funny).

Nice to see that the girl overtook the boys. She played strategically better, more defensively, while they concentrated on capture. It would be a mistake to think they'll become club members. They're regulars in the pub though and know now where the playing material is.

17. Fear

19 December 2006 - Somehow the wave of newcomers in our club has stopped. Interestingly, the overall atmosphere also seems to be in a bit of a slump. The young blood has improved to a level beyond which they cannot seem to reach without a serious increase of effort, but for the proverbial exception. It has been interesting to see the difference in growth of these people who started out almost at the same level.

Yesterday, while the wild bunch was out for interclubs, I played two clubmates simultaneously with 9 stones each. One game ended in resignation, for one group too many had died, the other in a 5 point upset during the late endgame. Although one game was definitely more aggressive than the other, I sensed the same fear for the stronger player in both. Fear is probably the main reason why people do not progress to a fundamental level of understanding. It stands in our way when we have to make judgments, making us flee towards comforting measures instead. It takes confidence to consciously apply fundamental principles in fearsome situations.

The main principle I keep hammering on, be it with myself, a 4 kyu or a 15 kyu, is to connect and cut. I've never told anyone to seek two eyes for their groups when the going gets tough. Only when you are completely surrounded (otherwise escape) and the surrounding positions cannot be cut, then you must seek life, but not after having evaluated if the group's worth saving AND if by seeking life you're not making matters worse (otherwise tenuki). Yet I often see players seek life for their stones, even if the surrounding position is either incomplete or weak, and even if the value of what's under attack is low, or if the position is lost anyhow.

It's been a distinguishing feature of improving players that they do not believe what you say with your handtalk and resist. Some players will never believe you and play outrageous attacking or developing moves. They are the opposite of afraid, they're reckless. Still, recklessness is easier to cure than fear, I think, and it leads more often to success, because it is easier to learn why your attacks fail than why your defense was superfluous or overcautious.

18. Belief

Timing is everything in Go. Not only the timing of your moves in a game, but also the timing of your attitude when learning. In this section I want to talk about the timing of belief.

It has been told by many a sensei that you cannot learn unless you open up your mind for new ideas. Since it is impossible to grasp a new idea at once, for some time you have to put faith in the idea, consciously applying it even if you are not comfortable with the proceedings. On the other hand, you have to distrust your own rusty concepts as well as misconceptions that other players try to inflict on you. This includes your sensei, whose strength is also limited. At some point you'll overtake him or her, and how could you do that unless you start disbelieving him?

Yesterday I had a particularly daunting session with a beginner player. She has apparently chosen not to take anything for granted and challenged nearly every comment I made. Now I wasn't trying to teach her anything, she had just given some criticism to my opponent's choices, which I tried to defend in the analysis stage. The main discussion went along the following lines. She claimed that Black cannot keep himself busy with attacking all white stones. Let White live where he wants to play and just play elsewhere. In the end your initial advantage will remain intact. While I agreed that it is too ambitious to attack all white stones, I disagreed that playing elsewhere is always best, if alone because often a white move weakens a black stone and defending the weakened stone is multi-purpose. Moreover, some of her choices were inefficient because she was investing more stones in an area where she already had the advantage.

Well, she really gave me a hard time making myself clear. The other players thought she was rather loud mouthed against an experienced player, but I thought it was interesting to be challenged to such an extent. You really have to think very hard as a teacher to find the clearest line of thought which uses the least assumptions of common understanding. Anyhow, she wasn't open for any new understanding at all, so there was no point in persevering, but I couldn' help wondering: how do you enable learning in a student who doesn't want to be taught.

Tamsin: Hi Dieter - brilliant, brilliant page! As to your closing question: you cannot teach somebody who does not want to be taught. The more you try to force somebody like that to change their mind, the more fixed they will become in their view. All you can do is be patient, and when they finally begin to perceive their error, encourage them to think that trying something different was their own idea all along.

Dieter: Hi! Obviously you cannot force somebody to change their mind, that was not what I was trying to do. I wondered if there is a way, for you as a teacher, to enable learning in such a person, if they show a desire to learn but not to be taught.

Tamsin: I would suggest acting as a "facilitator" rather than a "pedagogue". Many people, especially in the West I would think, like to learn under their own initiative ("student-centred learning"), so you have to provide them the means to find their own insights. As a practical measure, why not devise problems with an "obvious but wrong" solution attempt, and a true solution that illustrates the principle you wish to get across, e.g., a ladder-breaker or crane's nest.

As a footnote, I noticed from Hikaru no Go that when Hikaru is introduced to the game, the professional at the club catches his stone in a ladder and lets Hikaru play it out completely, without saying anything until the end. Similarly, in one of the Go Go Igo! lessons, Umezawa? Sensei watches Yuuki and Mai play out a ladder to the end, allowing them to understand it for themselves.

19. I know, but tsumego is so boring

6 April 2007 - Yesterday a club member may have experienced a breakthrough in his development. It had been some time since we played, since neither of us had come to the club. He had been playing on Go servers in the meantime. He showed a more aggressive attitude, not believing? me all the time. In the end he clinched the 9H game with 5 points.

In the analysis, I pointed out two things:

  • when attacking a group, enclose first, then steal the eyes away; even if I have time to make two eyes, being enclosed is already a defeat
  • the server play may have brutalized your style: beware of the diagonal play

He asked me if I had more advice. Well, ...

"Tsumego?" he sighed. He knew I wanted to say that but I hesitated because I knew he doesn't like it at all. Tsumego is hard work, so much different from the exhilarating theoretical insights.

I showed him an enclosed L+1-group. "Do you realize how comfortable it feels to know the status of this group instantly? That you can break off your analysis right here and not have to go through all the variations, because you simply know." Yes, he could imagine, but it felt so far out of reach. Then I gave him a pretty easy life and death problem. He was rather struggling with it.

Then I showed him the following problem:

[Diagram]

corner

He nodded, almost embarassed I had given him such a simple problem. "Of course, you play in the middle." - "So this is where your comfort level lies. Here you don't have to think at all: you simply know. Now this may be so obvious to you that it doesn't seem worth mentioning. Yet, for an absolute beginner, this problem is way out of reach:"

[Diagram]

corner

W5 at W1, B6 at W3, W7 at W1

For a novice the solution variation takes 7 moves to complete, some of which are under the stones. We don't talk about the other variations or the marked stones moving elsewhere.

"Do you realize how much you already know and they have to calculate? This is merely due to your seeing these structures regularly. So try tsumego of this complexity: things you are familiar with and only a little more complicated. Stuff you have to look at for a few seconds and then say: aah, of course, that's the solution!"

He liked the idea of thinking of tsumego as something fun and enjoyable instead of hard labour. You only have to find the right set of problems.


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This is a copy of the living page "Dieter Verhofstadt / Teaching experiences" at Sensei's Library.
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