Greetings From Lake Tahoe!

[Chaosrider]

I am very happy to have found this site! I'm just entering my third "active period" with Go.

My first active period was when I was a kid (about 16, or in other words, about 1000 years ago), when my father taught me how to play. I didn't know anyone else who knew how to play, so I taught a few other people, but I just sort of poked at it without ever getting serious. I have no idea what my rating was, but it wasn't high.

My second active Go period was about 20 years ago, and it was MUCH more active. I played a lot, and even started a local Go club, which was quite well attended. I started reading some of the Ishi Press books, but never got very far (they were a little slow moving). There were enough officially ranked players who came to the Go club I started that I was able to estimate that I was about 12 kyu. But, that faded as well.

My third and current active Go period started just a couple of weeks ago, when I found and downloaded a very nice 9x9 Go program for Android. Suddenly, boring meetings became interesting. By playing regularly for a week or so, I was able to first get my rating (as determined by the program Igowin, which I have on my laptop) back up to 12 kyu, and then up to 10 kyu.

I wanted to learn more, so I bought The Many Faces of Go. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but the problem sets were great, and after another week or so, I got up to a fairly reliable 8 kyu, which is where I stand now.

What I'm really looking for, however, is a structured, curriculm based Go program, either on-line or as a download. I have been involved in a number of education projects, and I'm in training to be a flight instructor. I'm looking for a Go program with a clear, explicit curriculum, where each segment teaches some specific aspect of Go, followed by interactive exercises. When the student performs the exercises adequately well, the program moves on to the next logical segment in the curriculum. Ideally, the program would cover all of the important concepts in Go, in an organized instruction format.

As far as I know, no such program exists. MFOG is probably more valuable for people at a higher skill level than I am, who need a very strong AI to play against. I'll get there, but I'm not there yet. On the other end of the spectrum, "The Fun Way to Learn Go", http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/lesson/index2-e.htm, does a good job of providing structured instruction, but the exercises aren't integrated, and it stops at a skill level well below where I am.

So, there's a program for when I'm better, and one that would have been helpful when I was first learning, but no structured program with a clear lesson plan to get anyone from one to the other!

At least, not that I've been able to find. Does anyone know of such a program?

In any case, I'm glad to be here!

[jts]

Welcome! Stay awhile, and we'll get out the fatted calf for you.

The basic program for people who are no longer beginners but aren't yet dan-level is "lose a hundred games quickly". That is to say, beginners tend to get very wrapped up in the speed at which they are improving (or not improving) by, say, their third game. But when you are getting into the game for the first time you improve so much with every single game that worry about your rank is absurd; in the time you spend fretting about one obstacle, you could have played three games and gained another stone. For someone getting back into the game after a break, I'll bet even more comes back with each game you play.

Of course, twenty years ago you probably were only playing once a week at your local club. But now KGS (http://www.gokgs.com) has an incredibly active player base, especially around the 10k mark.

If you can't or won't play, there are other standard recommendations that basically constitute a flexible program.
1. Do tsumego - that is, life and death puzzles. You can buy a book, or download pdfs. After you've done a few hundred, you'll improve a lot. After a few thousand, you'll improve even more.
2. Studying the basic principles of opening theory - there are several books out there, each with their own adherents, but I like "Opening Theory Made Easy" by Otake Hideo.
3. Study tesuji - that is, tactics and clever moves. "Tesuji" by James Davies, in the Elementary Go Series, is a classic. (But then, this may be the exact Ishi Press book you didn't like!)
4. Look at a handbook that tries to help you see multiple perspectives on the game at once, like "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" or "The Second Book of Go". These include a lot of the folk wisdom of go that people tend to absorb from their game reviews. Alternatively, if you have attention deficient disorder you might enjoy spending a few dozen hours wandering around the Sensei's library wiki.

At this point different people move in different directions, depending on their personal inclinations.
5. Double down on the tsumego!
6. Read books on more difficult topics, like comprehensive approaches to life and death positions, to attack and defense, or to reduction and invasion.
7. Learn lots of joseki (the standard sequences that occur in the corners).
8. Memorize professional games.

But again, at any step playing more games is probably more helpful than anything else you could do to improve.

[EdLee]

Welcome.

[Phelan]

Welcome!

There isn't one specific program on that, but several people have compiled guides:

• Benjamin Teuber at Senseis
• Dieter Verhofstadt at Senseis
• Training Regimens here at L19

I think there were other threads/posts about it, but can't find them now.

[karaklis]

There is a kind of curriculum at 321go.org, but this is for beginners up to around 12k.

[Chaosrider]

Greetings to you all!

JTS:

Good advice, some of which I'll no doubt take, but it's not really what I'm looking for. In addition to developing my own skill, it would be good for the entire Go community if there was a structured, curriculum-based Go teaching program with specific lessons and lesson plans, associated exercises, and covering a wide range of topics...ideally designed to get someone to the 1 dan level. I'm clearly no expert in Go, but I know a lot about education and marketing, and this could be a huge benefit to the entire community. Of course, anything that says "read" in it is *WAY* too 20th century! It needs to be online or downloadable, and interactive. Among other things, I'm an author, and a project manager, so perhaps I'll adopt this as a project.

Ed:

You make me jealous. Santa Barbara (Goleta, actually) is where I learned to play Go as a kid. Lovely area. Of course, Lake Tahoe's not so bad...

Phelan:

I'll check these out. If nothing else, they may help in developing the curriculum for the full Go course that's building itself in my head!

Karaklis:

Yes, that's been my experience. Lots of stuff for early beginners, expert commented games for higher level players, but little or nothing for those of us in the middle!

Thanks to all for the warm welcome!

[oren]

Good advice, some of which I'll no doubt take, but it's not really what I'm looking for. In addition to developing my own skill, it would be good for the entire Go community if there was a structured, curriculum-based Go teaching program with specific lessons and lesson plans, associated exercises, and covering a wide range of topics...ideally designed to get someone to the 1 dan level. I'm clearly no expert in Go, but I know a lot about education and marketing, and this could be a huge benefit to the entire community. Of course, anything that says "read" in it is *WAY* too 20th century! It needs to be online or downloadable, and interactive. Among other things, I'm an author, and a project manager, so perhaps I'll adopt this as a project.

Try the Interactive Way to Go?

http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/

The only way to 1 dan is to play... lose... play... lose a lot.

[jts]

I don't think you're ever going to see something as formulaic as you seem to want! The problem is that there are many, many different ways up the mountain, and which way is fastest will depend a lot on what you enjoy. (For example, I always recommend people do a lot of tsumego. But that's because I tend to envision them replacing idle relaxation or staring out the side of the subway with hundreds of tsumego. If tsumego frustrate them, or they merely replace games with problems...)

There's also a lot of connectedness backwards and forwards... Knowing a certain joseki will help you understand a certain tesuji, for example, but also vice versa, such that each aspect of go prepares you for other aspects without any one being more fundamental than the other.

As for the modules themselves, it depends how large a module you want. The component chapters of the Elementary Go series are probably what you have in mind. Slate and Shell also puts out a series of "workshop" books which go into slightly more detail on each topic.

[Phelan]

Greetings to you all!

JTS:

Good advice, some of which I'll no doubt take, but it's not really what I'm looking for. In addition to developing my own skill, it would be good for the entire Go community if there was a structured, curriculum-based Go teaching program with specific lessons and lesson plans, associated exercises, and covering a wide range of topics...ideally designed to get someone to the 1 dan level. I'm clearly no expert in Go, but I know a lot about education and marketing, and this could be a huge benefit to the entire community. Of course, anything that says "read" in it is *WAY* too 20th century! It needs to be online or downloadable, and interactive. Among other things, I'm an author, and a project manager, so perhaps I'll adopt this as a project.

Ed:

You make me jealous. Santa Barbara (Goleta, actually) is where I learned to play Go as a kid. Lovely area. Of course, Lake Tahoe's not so bad...

Phelan:

I'll check these out. If nothing else, they may help in developing the curriculum for the full Go course that's building itself in my head!

Karaklis:

Yes, that's been my experience. Lots of stuff for early beginners, expert commented games for higher level players, but little or nothing for those of us in the middle!

Thanks to all for the warm welcome!

You might want to take a look at Myongji University's Baduk Studies, then.

Edit: Also, this thread might interest you as well, even if it isnt for the thing you are asking about: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6690

[Chaosrider]

I assume "Baduk" is "Go", or something similar? I'm really looking for something online or downloadable, not a physical course.

Thanks for the pointer to that other thread, I'll comment there as well!




=======================================
You might want to take a look at Myongji University's Baduk Studies, then.

Edit: Also, this thread might interest you as well, even if it isnt for the thing you are asking about: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6690

[Phelan]

Baduk is the Korean word/name for Go.