Buddy system for absolute beginners?

General Go Discussion
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Well, pretty much what the title says.

Lately when I use the Play Human option I encounter quite a lot unranked players. More often than not they are absolute beginners, without much of a clue about how to play go. Opening on the first line, endlessly atarying themselves, playing in spaces that have just been captured, continuing to play on after repeated passes, filling my territory or their own, etc.

Been there, done that and no hard feelings.
But it is tiring and my patience does have its limits.

Sometimes I manage to manipulate their play so that they do make a living group (but despite trying this not always managing to do so).

I wonder if these absolute beginners enjoy playing go on OGS, while they are annihilated time and time again. Or do they drop out after a few games?
Sorry to say, but OGS is not a very helpful site for absolute beginners.

So, could a buddy system maybe soften the landing of absolute beginners in the digital world of OGS? I think it would help. I am willing to invest time in it.

How to do this?
Providing an option in the registration phase where a newbie can ask for a buddy during the first few weeks when playing on OGS.
Nothing obligatory of course, but purely on a voluntary bases.

Okay, that’s all for now.

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The reason these beginners were paired against you is that they registered as “intermediate” players instead of “new to go”. Before asking for a buddy, they should be honest about their level.

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I don’t know how true jlt’s statement is. I just can say that I tried to learn Go a few years ago and stopped because I got destroyed and thought Im just too stupid for this game before coming back years later.

Since I learned that many have/had this experience, some kind of beginner focused feature could be very nice. Not sure if it should be a buddy system or something else. A notification maybe that in the forums is a game review area since beginners are very valuable.

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I didn’t define the buddy system on purpose. I didn’t want to push the discussion in a certain direction. Don’t know what absolute beginners need or are interested in.

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That’s really nice from you to have interest in these beginners.

I wonder if streaming aimed directly to them could help.

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Maybe the current options names should be improved:

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“New to Go” is pretty clear.

“Basic” I guess is clear enough, because if you’re a step above new, you kind of know what that is.

“Intermediate” I think is very problematic, because I think you would have to be very experienced with Go to know if you qualify as intermediate over basic. Not only do you need experience with Go, you need to have played a bunch of other people, either in person or on another server.

If you just played a 25k bot on your phone for several months and you’re consistently winning, how can one evaluate if you’re still basic or now intermediate?

Probably if you should be the basic category but pick intermediate, it’s not that problematic, except maybe the very low ends of basic, where you might not be 100% on rules or etiquette (things that an experienced player might report you for say).

If we had some data, one could review if the problem is just a small subset of people that encounter misranked users frequently or if it’s a bigger issue confusing new accounts.

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If you just played a 25k bot on your phone for several months and you’re consistently winning, how can one evaluate if you’re still basic or now intermediate?

Presumably your phone has different AI settings and you’re using the very lowest.

In any case I doubt this is a common situation where people would pick « intermediate ».

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Maybe a more realistic scenario would be a player whose strength is around 25k, but because they always destroy friends and family, they think they’re intermediate. Then again, such a player, one who has been teaching people how to play, is likely invested enough in the game to let the ranking system do its thing

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Same situation, we’ve just swapped out a bot opponent for real people. I’m not even saying the player knows what 25kyu means, just they might’ve been playing an “easy” bot which could be like a 25kyu rank if it was on OGS.

Anyway.

I can’t really judge which I’d think is more common in

since this was the original scenario. I imagine Atorrante falls decently into the intermediate category and is discussing having to play players which play like beginners.

Is it more common that a new player to the game wouldn’t pick “new to the Go”? Maybe they’re worried about being forced to play a bot or do a tutorial?

Is it more common that some people think they know what’s what, but actually they haven’t a good concept of how deep the game is? It’s not tic-tac-toe or connect 4, knowing the rules and a rough strategy doesn’t really get you to intermediate unless you’re just generally quite good at it, played a lot, or whichever the usual skill indicators are.

I would expect it to be more frequent than actual new players picking it, but maybe in general the whole thing isn’t that frequent, but @Atorrante is just hitting more of these users than others.

For example I think the start ratings look like

category rating rank
New to Go 710 ± 250 23.1k±7
Basic 921 ± 250 17.1k±5.6
Intermediate 1500 ± 250 5.7k ± 3.6
Advanced 1837 ± 250 1.1k±3

So if we imagine @Atorrante is matching as a 7kyu in an even or 1 stone game with a new intermediate player, that seems more likely than most other ranks to encounter them.

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It’s very nice of you to think about beginners’ experience.

I agree with this - I sometimes run into absolute beginners and I don’t think getting destroyed by me is the best motivation for them to keep playing.

If they chose the “new to go” as their level, I might suggest giving them some basic tutorials or 25k bot first so they learn the rules and basic ideas, and then avoid matching them with anyone above 23k in the first few games (as that’d probably be very demotivating to keep playing).

Also to avoid them choosing “basic” or “intermediate” by mistake, OGS can monitor their first few games, and if they are losing by 200+ points to a 15k, they’re probably a complete beginner instead of basic/intermediate. Then OGS can give them the option to choose their level again, and start from “new to go” instead of basic.

I’d imagine an option like this “Sorry for the bad experience! Maybe we should start by teaching you the basics of Go?” is more likely to get them to stay and learn a bit, versus thinking they’re too “stupid” for the game because they got destroyed, like what @Tschej felt

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On this I think a lot of damage is done by bots. Human at least can take their responsibility and give some words between them.

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I agree that OGS is not ideal, and not even adequate, for beginning players. It has a bias toward the highest ranked players, which, if you think about it, does make sense. The higher the rank, the more important is the reliability and flexibility of the Go server.

I think OGS should introduce a new board option, a simulated real Go board. It would support two players, allowing them to make any moves including illegal ones (perhaps color could be used to show illegal situations). It would support setting up initial patterns of stones, then letting the players learn from each other through text and voice communication between them. It would optionally give feedback on errors like placing a stone into atari or into its own territory, explaining why better moves are indeed better.

It should support teaching and learning on one’s own.

It should teach, or support teaching, the basic definitions, such as strings, groups, links, sector lines, and, yes, dead shapes, by drawing outlines or by using colors.

I don’t have the time to offer a full description of what is needed, but that would be a start. OGS is arguably the best server; there is no really good reason why it could not also be best for beginners.

If the response is that there is only one developer, and he is overworked already, then perhaps it is time for a rewrite to make the software more easy to change, or perhaps it is time to create a companion server specifically aimed at beginners. IMO, there is currently a big vacuum in that area on the Web, that could be filled by someone with the dedication and passion to help beginners.

I would definitely offer to start such a project, except that I am already working on two websites that have to be completed as soon as possible.

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You mean like

Or

Or

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Yes! That first one is wonderful. The second requires registration. The third has great ideas.

But they are all learn-it-yourself tutorials or games.

None appears to address the role of a student and teacher, simulating a real Go board on the Web, as I described.

I would love to help newcomers to Go. But I have yet to discover a website that brings newcomers and those who wish to help them together, with really good teaching tools.

I used to create my own lessons, using Yahoo! Go (which, I think, was a Flash-based game that no longer exists). When I started a new game with a newcomer, I would start cutting and pasting in text from a file, asking them if they would like a tutorial on how to play, then giving them basic statements about stones and intersections, and finally playing teaching games. Yahoo! Go let us take turns playing, but it was a bit more flexible than OGS for teaching.

Whenever I see a post here on OGS about frustration with newcomers who make obviously bad moves, I try to post one or two of my ideas about how OGS could help.