i've read suggestions along the lines of teaching "capture go" first. this should get a lot of the life-and-death intuition under the belt (plus should help learn counting liberties).
s. On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:15 PM, Jeff Nowakowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 11:12 -0700, Peter Drake wrote: >> Eventually, sure -- but I'd like them to have a few games under their >> belts before I bring up the issue of different versions of the rules. > > Ok, then play some 9x9 games with area scoring rules as Dave Devos > suggested. I was making the same suggestion. Don't hit them with both > rules at the same time, but make sure to choose the right set to start > with! > >> I may just follow Kim and Jeong's pedagogical lead and let the >> students experiment with pieces of the rules before trying to play a >> complete game. > > It's ok to teach "unconditional life" or simple life and death first, > but once you get beyond that you need to be able to end and score the > game, and beginners just can't do that easily with territory scoring and > an agreement phase. > > I tried to learn with Kim's "Learn to Play Go", and I was absolutely > confused and frustrated when it came to end game scoring. > >> The computer scientist's instinct is to lay down a >> terse and elegant set of rules and then deal with the consequences of >> those rules, but perhaps that is a bad thing when teaching. > > You need foundations to build on. One foundation is life and death; > however, life and death is just a simple consequence of the capturing > rule. The other foundation is the score at the end of the game. Having > an easy way to score let's the beginner experiment with what is alive > and what is dead, what is true territory that cannot be invaded. An > informal agreement phase with rules that punish a player for trying to > "play it out" is a detriment. > > Nobody is advocating that you give noobs Tromp-Taylor and letting them > figure it out. Just don't give them territory rules with dead-stone > agreement as a first ruleset. > > -Jeff > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
