Hi all, I’m a dedicated beginner - played for a few weeks now, mostly on 9x9 and feel i’m getting relatively solid on the basic basics. However when moving up to 13x13 or 19x19 board i’m at a loss after the first 25-45 moves. If anybody would like to share their wisdom over a teaching game I’d be very excited! Have been studying and reading up a fair bit but feel theres some fundamental concept I’m missing still.
Thanks for reading!
Your best bet is to go to learn-go.net first, and get a teaching game when you get to around 19k. Mostly so you avoid bad advice from ddks trying to teach, and don’t go into the higher ranks with training scars.
Is this common on OGS? I’ve heard a lot of horror stories outside of OGS, but haven’t seen any bad reports yet about bad teaching experiences here. I teach regularly and am a DD Kyu 
I’ve seen it a few times.
It’s highly dependent on the capability of the teacher to teach rather than the rank of the teacher, but I wouldn’t advise getting a teaching game from anyone less than 5 ranks above you as ddk.
But the reverse is also an issue. I’ve s even Dan players teach 18ks really poorly and tell them things like “you need to learn these joseki and study these invasions”, and also “learn to count”.
Edit: but if always recommend learning the fundamentals and basics first so that you can ask the appropriate questions, not waste time on things like liberties and territory, and call out the teacher if they make a mistake.
I haven’t had a chance to check out the website yet, but I’ve been following it here on the forum and have skimmed and scanned its content.
Question 1
So, you personally feel that the website will do a better job at preparing a person for “asking the appropriate questions” better, than a live teacher who can answer specific questions the student has during their first games?
There is also another aspect to consider: that many people are more comfortable learning from another person; versus self-led or automated exercises based learning styles.
Question 2
I agree with you that the rank has far less to do with the capability and knowledge of the teacher. I admit that I am not trained as a professional Go player or Go teacher. But who is? Perhaps you don’t feel that is necessary in order to teach someone. If not, what do you feel makes someone worthy and competent as a Go teacher?
I’ve seen a lot of sites and never found a single site that did a rock solid job of teaching the basics of Go to a beginner. Humans have always been better at it, since the student can ask targeted questions.
Question 3
Do you feel that if I mimic this website, that I be better than other teachers who are operating off of experience alone?
I’m asking all of this because I don’t feel that teaching others should ever be discouraged. A big part of Go is the social component and people often learn from one another. It is a beautiful part of the game experience and something I treasure greatly.
Please note, that I sincerely mean no disrespect to AdamR or Kosh or anyone else involved in this endeavor. That said, after glancing at the sites front page only, I can see that the language still needs some work; and this is a problem that was present when AdamR first started asking for feedback. Right off the bat that has me seriously questioning your recommendation for this as a one stop resource. Language should be clear and concise, in order to avoid confusion wherever possible.
Yes. I’ve taught a lot of absolute beginners, and it has always been the same. They dont know anything about :liberties, capturing, points, territory, where to play first, when the game is over, etc. 1-2 hours of my time is not really worth it when they can learn more on a website tutorial.
A good teacher can understand the needs and level of the student. Does this person really need to do more tsumego and play more games, or are they simply not defending before they attack? A good teacher would make appropriate recommendations to the student, that the student can actually achieve and will be able to see progress from so that they keep playing and can see their own progress and feel good about it. Being trained or not doesn’t really matter, but in order to be able to make good recommendations and see where the issues are, you need to know significantly more about the game than your student.
I’m not discouraging teaching, I’m saying that for someone who is absolutely brand new to the game, a teacher can do more harm than good if there is a good tutorial available. From all of the teaching I’ve done, I wish I had Adam and Kosh’s tutorial instead of “interactive way to go”, which I despise because it reinforces killing and capturing instead of territory. Suppose you have a lot of people asking you daily for hours of your time? What do you do? There aren’t enough teachers on OGS and I’ve never been paid for my time, so if you’re getting 4-5 requests from >20ks for teaching games, what do you do?
You bring up several extremely good points. I have stopped teaching for a little bit, as I don’t have the time to devote anymore. In fact, each time I teach a student I end up creating another Demo board to showcase another concept; ultimately saving me time. I hadn’t even considered this when I responded before. I was only thinking about this from the vantage point of whether a tutorial was better than an interactive human.
Well said, good sir. I thank you for your thoughts and the educational value contained within. You have done me a kindness 
I guess all I’m trying to say, is…
a human teacher is required once you get past the stuff on that site, but a human teacher is not required to teach the basics you find on that site. Using the site saves the human teacher a lot of time.
Hopefully that conveys what I spent so long trying to say.
Well, we got rather off topic here, but first things first,
@chombo if you are still looking for a game and a correspondence match would suit you (sadly I do not usually have time to schedule live), feel free to hit me up with a challenge and your preffered settings.
As I already stated in another thread I am happy for any edit suggestions, I shared the code and the repository, the lessons are easy to edit markdown files, or just use any text editor… If you think you can do a better job of writing it, then just do it, helps me, helps beginners, helps everyone 
I’ll politely ignore the conversation above and offer my services if you’re interested. I’ve sent you a friend request, so feel free to send me a message whenever.
I remember that clearly 
. I feel like a reel heel mentioning it, on account that I haven’t gotten involved, but am criticizing the site for it. I would like to help, but cannot at this time. Please know that I have nothing but the utmost respect for what you are doing to help others find this hobby.
I believe you must be a kindhearted and giving individual, to have invested so much time creating such an invaluable resource for the benefit of others. I tip my hat to you, and apologize if I have hurt your feelings in any manner. Please know that doing so was never my intent 
Thank you for the resource! Just completed it, very useful. I think where I’m weakest right now is continuing the transition between opening and middle game, a topic where I find it a little bit diffcult to find study material, hence my request.
Thank you so much, accepted - looking forward to it! 