Crazy Sensei: online tutorial for beginners

[xed_over]

The computer passes first when there are no other possible moves to play, as far as I can tell.

nope. if it does, there's no obvious indication that it does.

Remi's method

Dieter Verhofstadt's method
Stone counting method

yes, its quite successful in teaching beginners -- one of the reasons being that there is no need to explain how to end the game.

[xed_over]

Technically, I believe a "pass" as an ending move (or a move in general) is a modern/western rule invention, and as such, has to be explained.

Traditional/eastern rules do not need to be explained?

I've had many, many first time beginners respond to my saying "I pass," with great puzzlement and amazement -- "Oh, you can pass?"

Now I either just say that the game is over, and why I think so -- or use the stone counting method (like Bill's "no pass atari go").

[Kirby]

The computer passes first when there are no other possible moves to play, as far as I can tell.

nope. if it does, there's no obvious indication that it does.

Dunno, it passes first when I try it.

yes, its quite successful in teaching beginners -- one of the reasons being that there is no need to explain how to end the game.

Well, end of game still needs definition, but maybe this way is easier to understand for new players. It wasn't clear to me.

[Bill Spight]

I remember when I was first learning the game, I never knew how to end a game, and always hoped my opponent would pass first. Technically, I believe a "pass" as an ending move (or a move in general) is a modern/western rule invention, and as such, has to be explained.

Well, Yasunaga's proposed rules in 1932 end the game with 3 consecutive passes.

Rule 8: 終局、交互着手の権利を連続３回放棄せる場合。

The word "pass" is not used, although it has now caught on in Japan. Rather it refers to relinquishing the right to make a play. Much later, the Ing rules made a pass a kind of play.

IMX, in social, offline play we end the game by agreement, not by passing. One aspect of the 1928 rules dispute between Segoe and Takahashi was the question of whether making a play was a right or an obligation. AFAIK, Yasunaga's rules were the first to make ending the game depend upon consecutive passes. Why 3 passes instead of 2? My guess is that passing lifted the ban on taking ko, so that a player could pass without giving up the right to take a ko back. (Yasunaga does not explain why.)

[Bill Spight]

Now I either just say that the game is over, and why I think so -- or use the stone counting method (like Bill's "no pass atari go").

Oh, that's not my game. Ponnuki go (the Japanese name) has been around for a long time.

[Rémi]

This is a great tool to help beginners learn how to play. I wonder whether you might want to say something about the scoring part being slightly different from what would usually be used online or at a go club. I agree that knowing when the game is over and how to decide which player wins are big difficulties for many beginners and I like that this stone counting scoring (old Chinese) method solves two big problems for beginners. For me a possible difficulty with this scoring method would be when the beginner learning this way goes to a go club. Here in the USA probably most go club members use casual Japanese territory scoring. Especially weaker players, would not know how this stone scoring method works and I can imagine an experienced (say 10k) player playing our beginner correcting her when she starts playing inside her own territory towards the end of the game. I wouldn't want to start people out with the most used rules but maybe have a version of your player software that could score by territory as an option for when the learner is ready to play online or at a club.

My impression is that counting stones is better for the very first games on 5x5. Filling the board is very fast there, anyway. When a beginner understands the game enough to figure out life and death properly, and start to find it tedious to fill-up the board at the end on 9x9, then it might be better to use more traditional rules.

I feel that someone who learned the game with this scoring method will have no difficulty to adjust to usual methods, anyway.

I wanted to design the web site in such a way that the visitor can start playing as soon as possible. In my original plan, I wanted to introduce Chinese scoring for 9x9. But I was maybe a bit lazy, so I left stone-count scoring for all board sizes. I will probably add Chinese scoring in the future as an option.

[Bill Spight]

My impression is that counting stones is better for the very first games on 5x5. Filling the board is very fast there, anyway. When a beginner understands the game enough to figure out life and death properly, and start to find it tedious to fill-up the board at the end on 9x9, then it might be better to use more traditional rules.

Hmmm. I might be a good idea to have the beginners play on the 7x7 after the 5x5.

[xed_over]

The computer passes first when there are no other possible moves to play, as far as I can tell.

nope. if it does, there's no obvious indication that it does.

Dunno, it passes first when I try it.

ok, I finally got it to pass first -- I think. I can't really tell. Its not obvious at all. There's absolutely no indication of what just happened. Maybe its my browser/os

[xed_over]

here's a one time display bug... I'll see if I can get it to happen again. might just my my problem, as my browser frequently runs low on memory with so many tabs open.

screenshot

CrazySensei-bug.jpg (69.09 KiB) Viewed 9474 times

here's what the position should look like at :W44:

$$m43
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . O O X . . X . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . X |
$$ | . . O X X X X X O |
$$ | . . . O O O . O O |
$$ | . O O X X . O O . |
$$ | . X X . X O W X . |
$$ | . . X . X O X . . |
$$ | . X X X O O . 1 . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$m43
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . O O X . . X . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . X |
$$ | . . O X X X X X O |
$$ | . . . O O O . O O |
$$ | . O O X X . O O . |
$$ | . X X . X O W X . |
$$ | . . X . X O X . . |
$$ | . X X X O O . 1 . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------[/go]

It happened just after playing the 2-2 stone in the lower right

[Rémi]

here's a one time display bug... I'll see if I can get it to happen again. might just my my problem, as my browser frequently runs low on memory with so many tabs open.

Thanks for the bug report. What is your OS & browser?

[xed_over]

here's a one time display bug... I'll see if I can get it to happen again. might just my my problem, as my browser frequently runs low on memory with so many tabs open.

Thanks for the bug report. What is your OS & browser?

Firefox (47.0.1) on Mac (10.11.5)

[jgr314]

Some thoughts from some total beginners (me and my kids, ages 4, 7, 9):
(1) the tutorial is visually appealing and easy to understand
(2) the AI is really convenient and "friendly" for them to play lots of games quickly
(3) scoring/end of game in the full game is confusing and it helps my little ones get into the game by leaving that complexity out. As an aside: the stone counting system works nicely as a natural source of math problems for v young kids to practice counting/estimating/multiplication. I guess proper scoring systems also have this feature, but it adds an extra level of abstraction as counting stones is a little more natural than counting empty spaces.

As a second aside, the first game I watched was Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo and I was quite bewildered when Lee Sedol resigned and I had no idea who was ahead, let alone that the end of the game was so clear.

(4)

I like the idea of using computer go for teaching, and I think that the page you put together looks nice. One thing I might consider would be to do something about the computer's continued play after it's obviously lost the game.

Our problem is the opposite: shortening the game when we've clearly lost! I suggested adding a button for the player to resign to let them jump back to the game replay and get next-move hints.

For my kids when they have won, they actually enjoy the last phase of the game sealing the victory as each stone they place is like a little reward for defeating the AI.

(5) Any thoughts on how strong the AI is on the 9x9 board? My kids asked me if anyone could post a game where they defeated the AI on a 9 stone handicap. The best we've managed is to play white and win without any handicap stones.

(6) Finally, in addition to Crazy Sensei, our introduction to Go has been:
- Interactive Way to Go (http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/). Also a very nice tutorial that goes several steps beyond the Crazy Sensei tutorial. Sorry to say, but clunkier interface loses points for a first introduction if the audience is at all skeptical. I think it will work well to go back to this tutorial after starting with Remi's tutorial.
- Yukari Sensei videos that were shown with Hikaru no Go
- Playing lots of small boards (1x1 to 5x5, 9x9) on a makeshift board at home: http://3jlearneng.blogspot.com/search/label/go
- tsumego from iPhone Go Problems app.