sefo
I'm a 30+ years old WeiQi player. I'm French and have been living in China for 5 years.
After having played for a few months, I finally decided to take a Chinese professional teacher. The name is 王耀祖 5p. He teaches young Chinese in Shanghai.
After 7 lessons of 3 hours each (1 lesson/week) I improved from a very unstable KGS 15K to a solid KGS 10K and improving.
Though for some reason I perform relatively better on a real board than on a computer.
I have lost all my H9 games so far (by about 30 points) but I can at least keep my corners safe (need to work on my middle game)
About computer GO:
-I can win Many Faces of Go on 12K level with slow timer (MFoG blitz on KGS is easier even at SDK level)
-Aya 6.34: easy win most of the time
-AmigoGTP 1.5: easy win
-GNUGO: I can win at level1 from time to time
Now that I am at an intermediate level, I don't play against bots anymore.
Notes on Go servers:
-KGS: It's a good server with occidental players. My only problem is extreme lag and deconnection problems
-IGS: Mostly Japanese players. Good and fast program (not connection problems so far), good level.
-Tygem: Strong opponents, mostly Chinese and Koreans.
-wBaduk: Same as Tygem. More Koreans, Chinese and Japanese.
IGS + Tygem + wBaduk: If you choose a rank below 10k you will often face sandbaggers. It can be extremely annoying if you try to improve your ranking, but the huge advantage is that you can can play against very strong players. (that won't happen on KGS)
-Flyordie.com: Weaker players, annoying graphics but working. Perfect for a quick dirty game.
-DGS: I tried but I can't commit months to a single game.
-littlegolem.net: Same as above. I don't enjoy correspondence games.
-goshrine.com: Looks promising and a potential replacement for KGS. I can play it on my android tablet which is a huge asset.