Saijo-sensei's Seattle Lectures

Mike LePore reports that the Aug. 12 lecture was great, and he brought back the delightful life & death problem shown to the right. I was able to attend the first part of the Aug. 13 lecture for go teachers, and the rest of this is my notes.

Saijo-sensei sees a difference between teaching go to non-players for the first time, and teaching beginning players. I saw the first hour, in which he talked about introducing non-players to the game; but I was unable to stay for the second part, when he talked about teaching beginners. Some of what Saijo-sensei emphasized is stuff we already try to do, like letting the neophyte discover things for herself. He also demonstrated ways to explain abstract things in more concrete terms, which I'm sure will be valuable in my own teaching.

What we have called "first capture", he calls "the chasing game", which I rather like. He says that in general, the longer people play the chasing game before they move to real go, the better are the results (so I don't feel quite so bad now about kids I've taught playing first capture for months).

He says that in Tokyo, non-players are regarded as "60 kyu". When they understand that libertyless stones come off the board, they are "55 kyu". When they learn how to extend from a stone in atari so that it is not in atari anymore, they are "50 kyu". Once they have mastered the shicho and the geta, they are "stronger than 40 kyu".

Saijo-sensei strongly encouraged us to make a big show of congratulating them at the "50 k" level (learning to extend out of atari), and presumably at some of the other milestones as well.

Students often are confused by a common capture scenario: one side gets out of atari by capturing some of the stones surrounding it (so both sides are momentarily without liberties until some prisoners are removed from the board). Often they will think "both sides are captured". Rather than use the cumbersome metaphor "whoever is moving gets to hold his breath", he says "whoever moved last captures the other player's stones." So when he is asked, "Who captures whom?" he answers with his own question: "Who moved last?" Of course, he asks the students "please remember to finish your move by removing the stones as soon as they are captured."

He said that while they're playing the chasing game, he explains 4 things:

1. Atari and double atari. He will set up a crosscut position, and have the students start "the chasing game". One of the common continuations gives a chance for double atari. He will use it when it comes up naturally, or else set it up at the demo board and instruct the students to follow along on their own boards exactly as he does. He will say "there is a way you can win", and let them struggle until they get it, if time allows.
2. He will show them how you can win "the chasing game" if you can chase the opponent to the edge of the board. But he emphasized that you have to show the whole thing, including removing the stones, to avoid confusion.
3. He shows the shicho ("ladder") on the demo board, and has the kids in pairs follow along on their own boards, playing it all the way out, including the removal of the stones.
4. He shows students the geta ("net"), and tells them "there's a way you can win," and lets them struggle to find it. If time runs short, he offers a clue: "Atari won't work".

How do you explain the concept of territory to someone who has just learned how to capture? He let us struggle with that, then told us his way. He says territory is where the board is surrounded by only one color. If there are stones of more than one color on part of the board, then you find out whose territory it is by continuing to play, and the territory belongs to the player who captures the other. (I forsee issues with seki, but that's ok.) Eventually, the students accept that territory is surrounded by only one color, and if opposing stones enter the territory then they can be captured.

He recommends asking "how many stones can you place inside this territory" with various configurations of stones. He then moves to various more and less efficient shapes -- Black uses 5 stones to make a 4-pt territory, and White uses 5 stones to make a 5-pt territory -- he says "Who wins, and by how much?" Let the students count. He changes the stones around a little, and asks the same question; let them count the new territories.

Then he shows multi-eye territories with prisoners still on the board in some of the large eyes. By now the kids should recognize that the prisoners can easily be captured. He explains that captures do not end the game in go, unlike the chasing game. He explains that even though they are on the board, at the end of the game they are taken off the board and filled into their own territory. He demonstrates. He changes the shapes slightly, still with a prisoner or two on the board, and asks "who wins by how much?" He goes through this lots more times until it starts to sink in.

I had to leave here, so I missed his lecture on how to teach beginners (which he distinguishes from how to teach non-players). I assume he covers ko and maybe seki, as well as more counting the score. Hopefully, I can crib from the notes of those who were able to stay longer.

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Begun 2003-08-26