So, first some full disclosure - I have a 10yr old daughter, and I’ve tried a bunch of different things, and she flatly refuses to learn anything about Go. She’s not into board games much at all, but she picked up the nuances of Poker and Monopoly really fast (note: poker was just chips / no actual money).
Having said that, I’ve had some luck teaching adult beginners the broad outlines of Go using a method where we ONLY PLAY THE FIRST 50 MOVES. I’ve written about this before here:
And played a demonstration game with a curious forum member here:
RATIONALE:
So, when people talk about teaching Go to kids, they often talk about introducing handicapped 9x9 and focusing on capturing stones, because that’s something that kids can relate to. However, this approach ends up focusing on individual pieces. I was trying to figure out a way to introduce those aspects of the game that emphasize elements where you build networks across the board that become more powerful the more inter-connected they are (focus on interconnected networks rather than individual pieces, etc).
Also, I’ve used this method on a complete adult beginner, who was having drinks while learning this, and he was able to grasp the basics and have fun with it. Because two people can play through 50 moves fairly quickly, it also allows the beginner to try different things over several games, and learn from their mistakes, etc.
SOME PREPARATION FIRST
Besides knowing the overall rules of Go, it’s important to give the beginning player some sense of how difficult it is to make life in a tight space. So, to prepare for the 50 stone game, maybe start by playing a small demonstration where your kid starts with a 9 stone handicap on a 19x19 board, and you try to just make one group live on the side. The goal here is to demonstrate how hard white has to work to make life in a tight space when black is already established there.
The goal here is - once you have those 50 stones on the board - to help the beginner appreciate how tricky it would be to invade their opponent’s loose framework and make life there.
WALKING THE PLAYER THROUGH THE 50 STONE GAME
Personally, I find the Opening portion of the Go game to be a nice microcosm of the whole game. You can talk about Sente and Gote - you can discuss how the priorities for Corners > Sides > Middle play out. You can talk about trading a small loss in one place for a bigger advantage, somewhere else, etc.
I wrote up another article over here about playing a balanced opening, so hitting some of those points and metaphors may help as well:
“SCORING” THE 50 STONE GAME:
This is sort of tricky, because so much of the game is unfinished by move 50. However, it is made somewhat easier by the bad habits of most beginners. When most people first play the 50 move game, they focus on securing ONE CORNER at the expense of the other three. They don’t use their stones efficiently, and at the end of 50 moves, it’s pretty easy to show that focusing on just one thing gives the opponent a big advantage over the rest. If they think they can invade that loose framework and make life - give them 20 more stones and let them try. If they (somehow) succeed - show them that while they might have gotten 2-4 points of life, they helped their opponent build multiple secure walls and create a huge amount of influence, etc.
Eventually, after a few games, the light bulb goes off and they try to grab the entire board and - usually - stretch themselves too thin. Here you can demonstrate how stones can be cut, and how they can run to other stones or create potential eye space in tight spots, etc.
Eventually, they start to understand that there’s a Goldilocks Zone where there are times to focus on connecting stones, and times to focus on tenuki / big moves to claim the most potential over the board, and that Sente and Gote are the clues to making sense of that dance. The end goal is to either help them play a balanced opening (so that no one has an obvious advantage in the first 50 moves), or to get to the point where they end up with a potential advantage at the end (just always play local extensions rather than big moves when you have Sente, and eventually they’ll figure out how to take advantage of your timorous play).
Good luck!