Something like this probably have been posted may times before. But ones I looked at were dated and I decided to make this my first post on this forum.
I am looking for a recommendation for a good GO teaching software. I did some research and found that Go Dojo may be good but it’s not available anywhere. I also don’t know if it will run on my PC. If anyone knows of one like Go Dojo, please let me know. I’d much appreciate it.
Bruce Wilcox’ Go Dojo does seem to be available: http://webpages.charter.net/suewilcox/
Some folks swear by it, therefore I purchased it (both “Contact Fights” and “Sector Fights”) a few years ago, but I find the format terrible and the design ugly. It does run in my Windows 7 virtual machine:
Aside of that I am not aware of any Go teaching software. I’d think you’d be far better off playing with stronger human players and >>> have your games reviewed <<< by them.
Alternatively, you could consider watching go lectures on youtube.
I found Nick Sibicky’s and later Dwyrin’s lectures always fun and enlightening. 
For starters Nick teaches double digit kyus classes and has hundreds of actuall lectures recorded. I find that better and much more fun than reading text from some software
I’ve been learning from books, and youtube lectures. I am wondering what I am missing from a good teaching Software. On youtube, I saw a program that shows the next potential moves. A feature like that seems beneficial.
Go Dojo info on “suewilcox” site seemed outdated according to previous forum post.
Rigtfully so… I think Leela can do that (to some extend), the program you saw could very well be crazy stone, which is surely great (I think) but paid (Leela is free). But even so, knowing where the potential moves are is quite useless without knowing why. And I don’t know about any SW that can tell you that.
How long have you been learning? All in all I agree with Trohde quite strongly… I think human players are the best option as well. We can play a game if you want (I am only about 10k, but better than nothing… 
)
It is very difficult to learn from a Go-playing program such as Leela or Crazy Stone.
The most accessible Go programs, like GNU Go and Fuego, do not use deep learning algorithms. Their chosen moves suffer from bad style and weaknesses in the algorithms, such as not being able to read out a difficult capture race with confidence.
Even if you use one of the more modern strong engines, the program cannot explain good and bad moves in human terms, because it uses its own very different methods of reasoning.
To extract insights from computer evaluations is a separate skill that you have to learn.
I am not saying that you cannot use a playing program to analyse a position or get a review.
But I want to encourage you to prefer pre-made problem collections and reviews from human teachers.
Maybe this list of Study Assistance Software can be a starting point for you to find a program for your needs. You’ll have it easier if you budget some money to spend on it.
Someone sent me Zen 5 and I think it will complement what I have been using so far. I have been learning GO about 4 months and I feel that I am stuck at 16k - 13k level with current methods (YouTubes, playing against the bots on-line, etc., learning from available GO books, solving GO puzzles).
I just installed Leela and played 4 ranked games. According to Leela, I am already at 7k and it wouldn’t take too much for me to beat 6k or 5k Leela. I don’t believe it. I think Leela’s rating is too soft.
If your past games on smaller sizes is any indication, you are certainly weaker than 7k. Leela at is strongest is a true mid/high dan amateur bot so either its evaluations of others are inflated or it’s own rank is false at the kyu level.
I think if you used handicaps to evaluate yourself then then it’s probably the reason. Handicaps have never been an accurate indicator of strength.
That’s what I did. There were whole lot of handicap stones and it wasn’t too hard to defeat leela and climb up to 7kyu. My true playing level is probably somewhere between 18k - 12k.
Back to the topic … I think playing SW like Leela or Zen 5 will help but I was looking for an instruction SW that “teaches.”
You mean a software that tells you why one move is good and why another is bad? You may be overestimating the abilities of current software, I fear … the best “explanations” we can currently get are probably just variations, showing how something can turn out good or bad in n moves.
I think a software that can explain the quality of moves in human terms, e.g. natural language, is probably still five or ten years away, if not even longer.
I have installed Zenith Go 6. It is certainly a better program than it’s previous version, Zenith Go 5. The newer version seems to have gotten rid of apparent bugs that I could exploit with… It also came with life and death puzzles by different level. “Hint” feature helps me think about my next move but without explanation as to why, it isn’t an effective teaching tool.
What is helping me improve (now I am up to 10 - 8 kyu level) is on-line lessons & live/taped game streaming available from tvbaduk.com. The lessons are divided by kyu/dan level, and areas of interest. I pay $5 per month but it’s worth every cent. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, everything is in Korean. It’d be hard for non-Korean speaking person to follow the lessons or streaming events.
