Hello from Bangkok (soon to be Boston)

[jgr314]

My family (5yo, 8yo, 10yo, wife) and I recently caught the go bug and have become a bit obsessed. We are currently living in Bangkok where it is the school summer holiday. My kids are playing every chance they can get and taking lessons from some great teachers at a local club: https://www.facebook.com/gofamilyclub/

I'm not sure how strong we are at this point. The teachers estimated my 8 and 10 year olds at about 8 kyu, but that just makes me think the ratings are a bit soft here. They will play in a rating test in July. I guess I'm firmly somewhere in the DDK range and my wife and youngest are just starting (learned about ko today!)

We are about to move to Boston. Three areas of guidance that would be really helpful:
(1) info about clubs, teachers, and friendly competitors in MS.
(2) We're likely to start a go club at the kids' new elementary school, so tips on that would also be great.
(3) one of my other hobbies is math education and I am working on a mini-curriculum using go to teach large chunks of elementary school math.

[dfan]

You're in luck, the Go scene in Boston is great. The Massachusetts Go Association is the relevant organization, but pretty much everything happens through their Meetup page. There's no centralized location but that just means that people meet throughout the week in various locations, for example Wednesday evenings in the Boston Public Library, Thursday evenings at a Somerville cafe, Saturday afternoons at the Cambridge Public Library, etc. Many (e.g., the Saturday afternoon ones) are particularly kid-friendly, though well-behaved children are welcome wherever.

There's also a quarterly AGA-rated handicap tournament, as well as a couple of bigger tournaments a year that are either no-handicap or reduced-handicap.

There are lots of friendly and enthusiastic players here, and we look forward to meeting you!

[pookpooi]

In Thailand inflate a lot of DDK to SDK (I don't know why do this, I think it's bad to encourage people to play go by overestimating them, but apparently look like Japan do this too), but we have firm solid dan that is about KGS calibration, after all we've the amount of go players as Taiwan (yet no professional body).

[jgr314]

In Thailand inflate a lot of DDK to SDK (I don't know why do this, I think it's bad to encourage people to play go by overestimating them, but apparently look like Japan do this too), but we have firm solid dan that is about KGS calibration, after all we've the amount of go players as Taiwan (yet no professional body).

Surprisingly, I don't think this will really matter for my kids, and I'm too old to be deeply fussed about ratings. I say "surprising" because I know they spend a lot of time thinking and talking about ratings ("that person is 12 kyu" or "that teacher is 2 dan") but a) they don't care what handicaps they play, b) they don't seem to break down when they lose and c) they are focusing most of their energy on learning the game itself. I think they are prepared for the possibility that their rating online or in the US won't be the same as here.

Overall, this seems to be a good environment for learning go and it feels like it could spread a lot more widely if pushed. Almost everyone has heard of it and has a positive bias, but most haven't played. We're getting their current school to start weekly lessons next term. A little late for my kids, but I guess they'll be able to meet their friends on kgs.

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[jgr314]

You're in luck, the Go scene in Boston is great. The Massachusetts Go Association is the relevant organization, but pretty much everything happens through their Meetup page. There's no centralized location but that just means that people meet throughout the week in various locations, for example Wednesday evenings in the Boston Public Library, Thursday evenings at a Somerville cafe, Saturday afternoons at the Cambridge Public Library, etc. Many (e.g., the Saturday afternoon ones) are particularly kid-friendly, though well-behaved children are welcome wherever.

There's also a quarterly AGA-rated handicap tournament, as well as a couple of bigger tournaments a year that are either no-handicap or reduced-handicap.

There are lots of friendly and enthusiastic players here, and we look forward to meeting you!

Fantastic! Really looking forward to it.

[Bonobo]

[..]
(3) one of my other hobbies is math education and I am working on a mini-curriculum using go to teach large chunks of elementary school math.

Check out Xinming Simon Guo’s “Go and Math Academy” on Facebook, “About” page