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/
