Dieter Verhofstadt / Teaching experiences

Sub-page of DieterVerhofstadt

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.

Table of contents
Table of diagrams
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Territory
Territory 2
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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. 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 explain 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.

Minue : Very interesting story. But I have a question. you can find such a beginner player easily (who doubt almost everything said by a stronger player) in western chess society also ? I doubt it.

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.


20. The player

I'm on a business trip with one of my colleagues mentioned above as the one who quickly understood the nature of the game from the ancient rules. He's a prolific gamer of Puerto Rico, Cailus and the likes. After about three games he beat me on 9x9 H4, it took him another five to beat me with H3 and now we're at our second game with H2. Not bad at all for a guy who played his first few games much more than a year ago and then didn't have the opportunity until now.

After each game we'd go into the analysis of the crucial part. He overcame H4 by connecting his stones. Then he focused on connection too much and he overcame H3 by playing more efficiently, i.e. away from strong stones. Being an aggressive player he will still lose at H2 by trying too hard to attack my stones hence neglecting his vital stones, but it invariably results in heavy fighting for which I may be better equipped but that doesn't make it easy!

More than ever I'm convinced of the pedagogic strength of the 9x9. Even though it becomes tactically complex, there is something to learn about each stage of the game. The various aspects of the small game can be understood and then transferred to the larger board, where a whole set of broader concepts is revealed. The "losing move" is quite apparent on 9x9 so you can immediately learn or unlearn moves. People who start on 19x19 too soon will have much less of a clue why moves are bad and which one actually led to the end result.

21. Being on the other side

Right, so I'm on the other side now, taking lessons with Minue?. I'm transferring a bit of the lessons to here and to my club members, mostly the parts about technique. In my last email to them I said "I hope some people answer, because that will encourage me to believe the effort is worthwhile". What a dirty comment that is! I'm actually telling them to make me happy by studying the material I provide! No teacher should ever force their students to become good students and certainly not for the sake of the teacher. BAH!

On SL, I come accross many homepages of people who started just a few years ago and became single digit kyus or even dan players in a year. In Belgium there are a few youngsters who improved very fast. In all cases, online play seems to be a driving factor. People who only play face to face have a much smaller chance to rapidly improve.

22. The territory brain damage

September 2007, teaching a beginner on KGS who asked me for a lesson. He said: "I have trouble understanding when territory belongs to me and when to the opponent". Ignorant of his level (15k? on KGS) I told him not to care too much about territory. Cutting and connecting was more important.

[Diagram]

Territory

But he insisted:"if Black occupies the second line, and White the third line, who then controls the territory to the left? And can we say the right is White?" I urged him not to view territory as any zone delimited by lines of the same colour, but instead as some area where the opponent cannot put down living stones any more. "But therefore, you first have to understand when stones live".

[Diagram]

Territory 2

As if I had been talking to the clouds, he asked his second burning question: does the zigzag line make territory too and if so, which of the two ways is better to make territory?

I started realizing that this person had a serious flaw in his thinking, hammered into his head by overexposure to some kind of explanation of territory. Perhaps he had just read a text about the rules, where the objective of the game was stated as "surrounding empty points".

With some trouble I managed to have him acknowledge (maybe understand) the above stated concept of territory: where the opponent cannot go without dying. Then we went into the analysis of the teaching game I had unfortunately started.

[Diagram]

corner

After some Q&A he agreed that one of the corners was least disputed, and a play there would maximize the investment of a stone. Then I asked where he would put it down. He suggested the a points. From this you could clearly see that the idea of marking territory by straight lines got stuck pretty nastily in his head. I pointed out that the end point at the border had only three liberties. "Three, I only see two."

So at the end of the teaching game, I was so embarrassed to find out that this newcomer had no understanding of liberties while I had been trying to explain about territory, cut, connect, efficiency ...

Well, to my defense, I had asked him about what he already knew. But he dived so readily into the territory questions, that it didn't occur to me at all that he might lack the knowledge even the most fundamentally basic concept.

I have seldom seen so good an example of what harm these awful introductories can do, when they start off with "surrounding empty points" as a game objective. If well explained, with diagrams and patience, or by a teacher, well, maybe ... Any introductory explaining "alive stones" as a game objective, at worst runs the risk of newcomers having to learn a different way of counting later.

23. The KGS Teaching Ladder

It was only a question of time before I would give my first lesson on the KGS Teaching Ladder. I jumped into a lesson by Ray Tomes and he motivated me to give one of my own. I came up with the subject of psyching yourself up, inspired by Bill. I took a relatively fast game between two 1d players and waited for the audience to reach some critical mass (10+). First I asked them for heuristics they use in Go. I collected and listed them. The we set about tackling the game with these heuristics in mind.

Those who know my teaching, will confirm that I've evolved to a method of asking questions to keep the audience active. I do not like lessons where the teacher pours his wisdom over the audience, not caring if they're following at all and more fulfilling his vanity than any pedagogic purpose.

But, there is a drawback which particularly comes to surface online. Some people do not need encouragement to talk. They will talk and interrupt and make all kinds of irrelevant remarks and it is very difficult to keep the lesson from drifting away to one big mess of chat. In real life, you can look at these disturbants, roll eyes, snap fingers, smile ... but all these non verbal powers are absent online. Moreover, in real life people simply behave more maturely and politely and don't seem to need to establish themselves so badly.

In this particular case I kept receiving disappointed remarks about Black's poor play, which was rather due to the blitz than his capabilities etc. It was difficult for me to convince the audience of the study method I proposed: study games of players a bit better than you (in rank) and find their mistakes: it will psyche you up to above their level.

I might try it again on KGS TL but with a little more preparation and a more technical subject.

24. The DGS experience

Lately I have fallen in love with turn based go and its splendid implementation at DGS. Despite a charade by our club mate Alex I had previously not such positive thoughts about tbg. It took a long time before I tried it out and now I'm very active, not to say a little addicted.

Now what does this have to do with teaching? It occurred to me that reviews of online games are somewhat degraded by blunders below the players' level, so that their actual conceptual thinking mistakes, or calculating abilities, or technique, do not correlate all that well with the end result. Such frustration is very common in online go, but rather exceptional in turn based go.

Hence it is much more productive to base a player review on a slow paced game, which displays the player in his full capacity. This is why I offered our club members, to play me on DGS so that I can review afterwards (I'm unfortunately still the strongest member).

Incidentally, what I like most about tbg is that it very naturally inspires you to watch the whole board at every move. It reestablished the full power of this beautiful game for me. The number of tenukis I've played has increased dramatically. You can abort unpromising local sequences much earlier, leaving aji or exploring sacrifice techniques. You sense the endgame much earlier. On the other hand, the opponent too will not fall into easy traps, so the overall level increases bigtime.

Now I know real go is played with time constraints, to prevent a player from using tools and encyclopaedia to extend their brain power. I don't think this happens very often and the impact on the game cannot be that big. Yes, the one who spends more time thinking has a bigger chance. But isn't this good for the player's development?

25. 1 dan in 1 year

I have proposed to our national council to start an experiment under the flag 1d in 1y. I will take a student under my wings, preferably one who has been playing since not more than one year. The objective is to help him reach 1 dan in a year. Some players are capable of this all by themselves, by merely playing a lot online. However, I am interested in the long term effects of a player who was well trained, if a 2d can provide proper training at all - hm, well, obviously I think I am a good teacher with a sound theoretical framework, which should balance my lack of Go skills and playing strength.

The programme is largely based on my ideas on improvement, a subpage I will rewrite for the occasion.

As a second objective, I want to refine these ideas and understand where the proper balance lies between guidance and self-motivation. Clearly, it would be better to have more students for this purpose.

The proposal has been submitted to the council, who will mainly debate the financial details. Not only won't I do it for free, I also believe a financial stimulus for both the board and the student, added to increased visibility, are vital for the project to succeed.

Herman Hiddema: Sounds like a very intersting idea! Many western players lack a sound basic fundamental theoretic understanding of the game, and are sometimes held back by this. Having players learn from a dan level teacher from the start may remedy this somewhat. An even nicer title would be 1d in 1d, for 1 dan in 1 day, but I think that would be aiming a bit too high ;-)

Bill: Much luck! It sounds like a great case study. :)

(later update): the Belgian federation did not swallow my proposal and came up with criteria for teaching activities instead. While I fully understand their position, I am also worried by the tendency - abundantly present in society - to "criteriarize" initiatives. Criteria aim to justify an activity or its sponsorship and often take fairness highly into account. Sadly, most initiatives which originate naturally or organically do not meet preposted criteria. Either the initiative is modified to meet the criteria (to bend), losing much of its original appeal or momentum, or it doesn't (to break) and drifts into oblivion. Even the process of deciding whether or not to comply, is often enough to break the initial motivation, which may also prove that the motivation is not strong enough. Anyhow, 1d in 1y is not going to materialize.

26. Parkour

I'm currently passionate about parkour or free running. I read a training program for parkour and I was struck with its applicability to other areas of development, such as playing the guitar, or Go. Those who have read my earlier essays will remember that my thoughts on teaching Go have been heavily influenced by Jamie Andreas, the guitar teacher. She focuses on muscle memory and the physical aspects of proper technique, among other things. She stresses vertical growth (studying hard on techniques you don't master) instead of horizontal growth (playing many songs with the same technique).

One could say in Go vertical growth is the study of techniques which may appear in your games, acquiring new knowledge, but also the eradication of bad habits in your play. Horizontal growth is playing another game, relying on the belief that more of the same will gradually lead to better (which Andreas defies).

When I was studying the guitar according to Andreas' teachings or studying go by doing many tsumego, I would sooner or later experience a drop in motivation. Andreas will answer that your motivation should come from inside. If you are not motivated, there is little that can be done except for deciding you are motivated, is what she says. But different people have different ways of being motivated. Some of us feed their motivation by response from the outside. We need taps on the shoulder, victories, applause. Our motivation does not come from the inside alone, we seek recognition.

In the essay on parkour training methods, the author distinguished (1) the method of specificity and (2) the method of decomposition. In (1) you will work on one specific move or combination of moves at the time. After acquisition, they are merely maintained. In (2) you will decompose the moves into general exercises, which are not executed at maximum charge. Once the body is sufficiently strengthened, moves can be learnt. The advantage of (2) is that the ligaments and other weak parts of the body are not overwraught and parkour can be maintained in the long term. The advantage of (1) is that the aspiring tracer will keep his short term motivation by doing the fancy stuff immediately.

The method of decomposition is very close to Andreas' way of teaching, making you perform a lot of seemingly uninteresting exercises, which in the long run will reassemble into a greatly improved skill at the real thing. The method of specificity reminds me however of the so called Japanese school, where you will follow the master's example (replaying pro games) and gradually, uncanningly move into the higher ground.

The analogy can be flawed here and there, but the main thing to remember here is that, yes, we must teach our insei so that they will progress in the best possible way and with the highest possible potential, but no, we cannot expect everybody to have the same kind of motivation or pretend our teaching method will necessarily suit all pupils because we know it is best.

27. Reviewing someone's game

We're halfway 2008 and I'm playing rarely these days. I did a fw GTL reviews and I've been very modestly coaching two enthusiastic Ghent players on their way to shodan. Doing a good game review is not easy. There are quite a few traps in it.

The first trap is to just browse through the game, add any comment that comes to mind, and add variations wherever the position looks interesting to you. This is what I would call the "How I would have played"-review. It's not very useful. At best it gives a few ideas to the reviewee, ideas which he'll get anyway by watching stronger players' games. At worst there are plain mistakes in the review because you're travelling on unfamiliar ground. Mostly it is so unstructured and confusing that the reviewee just gives up on it.

A second, related trap, is teaching the reviewee everything you think he should know to come close to your own level (never equal, of course). This I call the "isn't it just extraordinary how much I know and wouldn't it be great if you knew it too"-review. It does little but crush the ego of the reviewee and boast the reviewer's. Lately I've seen an example where the receiving end's reaction was: "now I understand that actually there is a big gap between us; I think I'm going to rest for a while". The reviewer was shocked, because he didn't want his new found cherished pupil to give up, but his comprehensive review was bound to have such effect on an already insecure 20 kyu.

A minor trap but very seductive, is the "let's unconsciously pretend I'm a mastermind"-review. You know: firing off variations, then inspecting the result in 10 branches, 20 moves deep, cleaning all but leaving the two branches with the most equilibrated result and then say in the main line that "something like variation 1 can be expected" or "variation 2 gives an acceptable continuation". What on earth is a reviewee expected to do with that advice? It's not only of little use, it is also highly unfair. One shouldn't add advice one is incapable of carrying out oneself.

Oh yes, and there's another trap. Spending two hours on a review for a game that took only half an hour on the Go server! It's simply ridiculous to give tactical well thought variations for a blitz game. If people send me a blitz to review I will only assess their intuition, for intuition is all they used. For any kind of review, spending an amount of time equal to the time used for playing, is a good rule of thumb.

Having fallen in all those traps and still not sure to avoid them, I now browse through the game first and think about what could be the theme for the review. Which mistakes is the reviewee consistently making? What are his strong and weak points? Where did the game reach a turning point or a decisive point? Based on these questions I try to limit the comments to this theme, or explicitly mention leaving the theme for this move. I also try not to include variants in more than 3-4 places. Instead I will often mark the first move with "A" and let them work it out for their own.

Depending on what I think the reader expects, I will include exercises. Clearly a review is most useful when it is a dialogue. Often I ask them to make a preview themselves. But even the exercises can be putting off and some people don't want to work on your carefully chosen problems, just have some advice and move on (and some just want to hear how well they're playing). And that is the final trap to avoid: taking your reviews too seriously. There's a reader, a place and a time which you do not control. So I shouldn't perhaps be so perfectionist about it.

28. Rank and potential

I often hear or read "I'm officialy x kyu but I am (probably) stronger". It is rare for someone to say "... but I am weaker in reality". Also recently heard: "I think book x is only a suitable read above rank y. When I am assessing a player and what may be a suitable read, I seldom think that way. Rather I will think:

  • This player will soon transcend his current level, because I sense a desire to improve, a critical attitude towards his and the opponent's moves, determination in carrying out a plan (even if the plan's wrong) and absence of fear. Or, ...
  • This player will not improve anymore, because I'm sensing the same spirit, seeing the same moves, the same plans as last time.
  • This player wants to improve and his game lacks some knowledge of life and death. So I'll advise him to read ...
  • This player doesn't really want to invest effort in improving his game, so he can read whatever he likes.

29. One year one dan in practice

The enthusiasm of a new member of the Ghent Go club, has succeeded in having me break my sabbatical already after three months and update this page to record his proceedings. I have agreed to teach him until he is strong enough for my teachings to become a limiting factor instead of a stimulus. I am using Tamsin's Compass as a teaching device, on top of the principles laid out at /Ideas on go theory.

The Compass consists of the four cardinal directions:

  • North: strongest attention point
  • East: secondary attention point
  • West: secondary attention point
  • South: main strength to keep

Week 1:

  • North: strategy, cut and connect on a large scale; Go is about putting as much alive stones on the board as possible. Play games with this in mind.
  • East: technique, explanation of the four basic haengma for development; replay games by Otake Hideo in Gobase to develop intuition.
  • West: tactics, report track record of tsumego; tsumego are also useful for developing intuition
  • South: mentality, keep open and independent attitude; do not let yourself limit by any thoughts, especially your teacher's

Play 4 serious games with the compass. Avoid blitz games. Apply self analysis.

Week 2:

Play 4 serious games with the compass. Avoid blitz games. Apply self analysis.

Week 3:

  • North: technique, apply basic instinct to find the first move.
  • East: strategy, continue to focus on cut & connect and let territory grow naturally.
  • West: tactics apply life & death knowledge to games, read out situations where one or more groups are enclosed (invest game time in that); study L-group
  • South: mentality self analysis goes well

Play 4 serious games, against new opponents

Week 4: rest, free play

After 4 weeks, it became apparent the young man had become stressed out with the idea he had to live up to my expectations and become 1d in 1 year. He didn't enjoy playing that much anymore. I've realized the all too obvious: joy is the true motor of progress. I do not want to suppress his joy at all, so I assured him there is no obligation at all to reach anything at any moment in time. I did not want to set a suffocating goal. Please, enjoy the game and let my teachings just be a stronghold for when in doubt.

We played two H9 games. Every few moves, I would comment and suggest an alternative that reset the focus on cutting and connecting on a large scale. In the first game, he confidently killed a cut off and surrounded group of mine. We left it there.

Week 5:

  • North: strategy, reset focus on cut & connect and let territory grow naturally. Have faith in large scale connections!
  • East: Mentality Enjoy the game!
  • West: Technique omit shoulder hit and peep for a while.
  • South: Mentality & Tactics Self analysis goes very well! Continue. Also application of L&D to the game, especially the killing, works out fine.

He suggested himself to play high handicap games to be able and focus on cut, connect and attack. By all means.

Week 6:

The virtue of cutting and connecting is slowly cristallizing. I should perhaps write a separate article about cutting and connecting. I think you can become quite good already if you focus only on c&c during opening and middle game.

This seems about the right time to play many blitz-games, to test how well the intuition about c&c has developed.

I see a tendency to resign even when the position is even or slightly advantageous. I didn't expect replaying Otake games would have that effect.

  • North: Strategy, keep focus on cut & connect and let territory grow naturally. Have faith in large scale connections!
  • East: Mentality Don't resign for a while.
  • West: Technique Keep looking for alternatives for shoulder hit and peep.
  • South: Tactics Application of L&D to the game goes very well.

Week 7:

Still the life and death skills are more rooted than the tendency to cut & connect. At this stage, more games are needed to speed up the crystallization of cutting & connecting into the game plan.

  • North: Strategy, keep focus on cut & connect and let territory grow naturally. Have faith in large scale connections!
  • East: Mentality Don't resign for a while. Play more games.
  • West: Technique Be aware of small gaps.
  • South: Tactics Application of L&D to the game goes very well. Good self analysis too.

This is a copy of the living page "Dieter Verhofstadt / Teaching experiences" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2009 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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