Improve Your Go

Teaching - BGA Mentoring Scheme

Our Mentoring Scheme provides Go tuition to promising young players.

There are two levels of the mentoring scheme. The higher level consists of online teaching games from professionals. These are offered to junior players who have shown themselves to be very promising, usually by performing well in tournaments. The ordinary level of the scheme consists of online teaching games from amateur players (usually on the servers KGS or PlayGo) and this is open to all. If you are interested in receiving some online Go teaching, please contact the Youth Development Officer.

Another option is to take part in the Shodan Challenge [1].

Puzzles - BGA Certificate Scheme

This is a scheme where junior players can learn from a series of puzzle sheets, and they can be awarded certificates. There are 3 levels, with 11 puzzle sheets in each level. You can get a certificate for completing each level of the scheme.

The puzzle certificate [2] can be downloaded from here in Word format. This puzzles file [3] contains all 33 puzzle sheets. These are in Word format, contained in a zip file. If you would like to be sent hard copies of the puzzles or certificate, please contact the Youth Development Officer.

There is an answer book for the puzzles and we are planning to make this available in electronic format soon. We also plan to produce an introduction and explanation for each puzzle sheet.

Tips for Getting Stronger

You can find these excellent Tips [4] on the UK Go Challenge site.

Practice Makes Perfect

If you want to get strong at Go you have to practice the fundamentals. A good knowledge of Life and Death can make all the difference to your game. 9x9 Go and Life and Death problems are excellent ways to improve this. Two programs to practice with are IgoWin [5] (Basic) and Leela Lite [6] (Strong). There is also the life and death problem website to visit called GoProblems.Com [7].

Notes on Leela Lite

Leela is one of the new generation of Computer programs using Monte Carlo techniques. Leela Lite is a free version that will play on 9x9 and 13x13 boards, but it has some little bugs. At 9x9 its strength is around 1 dan.

The green plus button lets you start a new game on your own terms. The yellow plus button lets you start a ranked game. In ranked games you start at 30 kyu. Each time you win, you move up a grade, losing drops you a grade. The ranks will be tougher and more realistic than those you are given when playing against IgoWin

Leela Lite plays with Chinese Rules. Under Chinese Rules placing a stone inside your own territory will not cost you a point. You will see the program regularly playing stones inside its territory at the end of the game, and this is usually a sign that it has lost. Sometimes Leela Lite will incorrectly mark the life and death status of a group. It is a good idea to kill groups completely before passing to stop this. (Remember, you don't lose points for putting a stone inside your own territory.) If your groups are marked incorrectly you can undo by twice pressing CTRL and Z together. The other thing to watch out for is the Positional Superko [8] Rule.