Go Reviews

Online Lessons
Reviewer Gordon Fraser
June 28, 2004

Taking lessons from a professional or stronger player is a good way to get better understanding and appreciation of go, to get insight into your own game, and to see ways you can improve. But time and location issues can make lessons problematic for many of us. Fortunately, there are a number of go players, both professional and strong amateurs, who offer go lessons on the Internet.

I take lessons with Yilun Yang, 7 dan on KGS (http://www.kiseidocom); I find KGS to be a good place to take lessons because it has a number of features that facilitate both delivery of the lesson and the saving of the contents of the lesson for later review. The format of a lesson is student- and teacher-specific. My lessons are two hours long with each hour split between playing the beginning of a game and discussion of the game. KGS facilitates this format because Mr. Yang is able to replay the game for the discussion. Our dialog, comments, and the variations all become part of the game record that can be saved using the Options>Save feature of the KGS client. I can then replay the lesson complete with comments and variations for later study and review.

For those interested in taking lessons on-line, the AGA provides a partial list of professionals who give lessons at http://www.usgo.org/usa/pros.asp, some of whom are on the Internet. This list does not list all of the pros, nor is this list complete, but it's a good place to start.