Old teaching methods in which students are ...

By Rob Van Zeijst

Old teaching methods in which students are told what to do and how to do it are generally ineffective. Go teachers should therefore aim to provide an environment that stimulates active thinking on the part of the student. For example, once a beginner understands the concepts of territory and capturing stones, the teacher should move ahead and ask them how many moves it would take to capture different groups. Rather than teaching them what an eye is, let them discover it for themselves.

Diagram 1: You could offer situations like those at A through D. Ask how many liberties each white group has and how many moves it would take to capture each group. The student might say, "It's suicide if Black plays at the X spots." You can then place a finger on those spots, and explain that if a black stone is placed there, the white stones around A (or B) have no liberties left. Give the student time to understand this and then place black stones on the X spots. Now you should ask whether those black stones are without liberties and should be removed from the board. After that, ask what moves Black should make in regard to the C and D groups.

Diagram 2: In situations A, B and D, black 1 removes White's last liberty. But in situation C, White may counter with 2. What will happen next?

Diagram 3: Since stones without liberties cannot exist, they must be removed from the board, as in situations A, B and D. What about the marked stones? After the removal of the white stones, are they in suicide positions? In situation C, a black stone was captured, but White only has one liberty left--at the X spot. As it is Black's move, you know where he should move. White's capture of one stone therefore was pointless.

Diagram 4: In this situation with a black stone at A, White obviously cannot play on either side of the stone because he would put himself in atari, meaning that his stones would have only one liberty left and could be captured on the next move. If it is Black's move, where should he play?

Diagram 5: Black can play at 1, putting White in atari. However, he also is in atari. Therefore, White can capture with 2. You may ask yourself what the point of Black's move was.

Diagram 6: This is the situation after white 2 in Diagram 5.

Diagram 7: What if Black plays at 3 and White captures that stone with 4?

Diagram 8: This is the situation after White captures black 3.

Diagram 9: However, black 5 seals White's fate. This move takes away White's last liberty and captures all seven stones. This shows that White's stones in Diagram 4 were already lost.

Solution to last week's problem

Solution: In the situations A through C, black 1 captures two or three stones. In the final situation, white D captures a stone that was where black 1 is now. But black 1 captures 3 stones.

Problem for this week

Problem: If you are teaching go, you could set up the situations A, B and C before asking such questions as "How many moves does Black need to capture the white stones in each case?" "How should Black proceed?" "Where should Black play next?"

Want to find out more? Come to Ben's Cafe in Takadanobaba, Tokyo, (03) 3202-2445, where the English-speaking go community congregates every Sunday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Ben's Cafe can be accessed at www.benscafe.com.

Van Zeijst is a four-time European go champion and European representative at the Fujitsu World Championship.