Steve Fawthrop

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I learnt to play in 1973 in the U.K., where I became shodan before emigrating to the U.S.A. I stopped studying almost 15 years ago and have been rated AGA 5d since 1989. My biggest regret about leaving the U.K. is that, because of the greater access to players and tournaments, I probably would have had a trip to the World Amateur Go Championship by now had I stayed. If you want to read the story of why I started playing Go look at the page Why Did You Start Go.

I can usually be found on KGS but I rarely play any more, being too busy building my own house when not working at my job as a mathematics professor. I have several accounts but I am usually logged on as DrStraw because that is an admin account. I also play as Vegetarian, straw and strawman.

I have given several formal lessons on KGS in the Wings Go Club room and these are archived on my web page at [ext] http://SteveFawthrop.GoPlayer.info. The most popular ones were a series of 5 lessons on Counting. I will probably do some more at some point in the future.

I originated the KGS Teaching Ladder room, but am rarely there any more. This is a very popular room which I set up to be a teaching ladder but have now passed on to others. There are usually over 75 people there and the rule is that if you receive a lesson there you must give a lesson to a weaker player in return. Several years ago I ran the first Online AGA Chapter Tournament, which has recently been revived as an official AGA sanctioned event. I replaced it by the KGS Team Tournament, which I set up and ran the first three versions before passing on to someone else due to time constraints.

I am also a regular reviewer for the Go Teaching Ladder, for which I have done over 50 reviews over the last 7 years.

As you can see from the above I have done a lot of teaching in my time, even thought I am usually too busy these days to spend a lot of time doing so any more. Hopefully this will change in the future. Even though I have been an AGA 5d since 1989 I am adamantly opposed to the idea of amateur players charging for lessons. I have received so much pleasure from this game of ours for more than 30 years now that I feel I owe it to the Go community to return that by teaching others and helping to spread the game. When there are as many people in the west know how to play as know how to play chess then maybe I will change this opinion. Until then I will never approve of amateurs who charge for lessons which they themselves almost certainly got for free due to the kindness of stronger players. I make only two exceptions: those who have been insei; and those who are strong enough to make insei and plan to do so but need money to be able to afford it. To all others I say "Don't be selfish: give back to this game what you have got out of it yourself." Obviously many people disagree with this point of view, but that is their privilege, as, of course, is mine. I'm not asking anyone to change: merely asking them to consider the matter.

I was on the AGA rating committee which, 15 years ago, set up the current rating system, and am currently on the (inactive) ranking committee.

A few years ago I mentioned to someone that I had once played a game against Iwamoto Kaoru. As far as I am aware I have not mentioned it since, but I notice that several references in SL are appearing which claim a Shusaku number based on games against me. Seems like someone spread the word. It is only fair to point out that I never claimed a 1-on-1 game against him. It was only a simultaneous game and I am not sure if this counts. Incidentally, I do know what my "true" Shusaku number is (and it is pretty low) but it is no big deal to me so I have no intention of revealing it.

Subpages

I wrote a few book reviews several years ago. I recently added them to a subpage here in SL.
Here is a page I wrote several years ago on how to study life and death.
A series of counting lessons I gave several years back.

This is a copy of the living page "Steve Fawthrop" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2007 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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