Planet Go

Ubuntu+R

2010-09-01T14:58:06Z

Ubuntu wins by resignation… I give up. Finally, after a few years as an Ubuntu fanboy, I resign. Having convinced my girlfriend and a few foes to try Ubuntu, I’m now realising the benefits of another operative system: Windows. Though this may struck some of you, my devoteness to Ubuntu isn’t enough as to sacrifice more hours trying to adapt it. For some reason, it seems like Ubuntu is designed for two types of users:
-computer-gurus: users who know exactly how to do whatever they want. Modifying the code is as easy as pie for these users, they can customize everything to match exactly their high-demanding needs. A go-equivalent for these users would be like high dan players.
-basic user: they only need some basic software like the office suite, internet browser, music player and some instant messaging applications. These would be low double-digit kyu players.

Inbetween you’ll find a huge amount of users who, just like me, try to modify the system to suit their needs. As a sample we could talk about Compiz, a basic user won’t go any further from the “none-basic-extra” menu while a computer-guru may actually modify the code of the program or write code directly embedded into the compiz-manager. The intermediate user will try to use the compiz-manager without writing code… with success rate varying from one attempt to the next one until it’s satisfactory – a couple of hours later. If we keep on with the go-equivalents, these users would represent single-digit kyu players facing tsumegos of increasing level of difficulty.

During the last month, I’ve realised there are some thing that just didn’t fit my needs. Openoffice is way worse than Microsoft Office, the same happens with Gimp and Photoshop and some other applications. In the end, windows had to be virtualized inside ubuntu so that I could get some stuff done.

This week, I received a new monitor. Trying to get two monitors working at the same time was a mess. Options:
-Twinview: cloning output, only available in nvidia, shows the same image on both monitors… with different resolutions. Useless
-Xinerama: extends the desktop to both monitors… Weird and useless with different resolutions.
-One monitor, one workspace: requires a new Xserver to be launched at the same time and would be troublesome, since I only have one keyboard and mouse.

Meanwhile, I decided to install Windows on a partition. Though I had already fiddled with grub in order to create a Ubuntu+Windows dual boot, I wasn’t aware of the terrible world of shadows I was about to enter… Ubuntu developers had “upgraded” grub to grub2. Oh my god!!!! If microsoft updating Windows Xp to Vista was bad, updating Grub to Grub2 was even worse. It makes everything much more complicated and hardly impossible to deal with if you don’t know how to write code and, moreover, understand it. A 4 pages long thread in a forum with computer gurus couldn’t solve it either. Is this tsumego solvable??

Hours went by, so many I can’t count them with my fingers and toes, trying to make Grub2 work with Windows 7 modification of Master Boot Record, till Proximo came into my mind saying: ”I use Windows just because everything works right from the beginning”. I resign, you win.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

So Finland Is really Expensive...

2010-09-01T13:48:28Z

Yeah. I was warned several times about this before I went there, but seriously it was more expensive than New York. The alchohol, the milk products and the real estate costs were the only things cheaper.

My friends and I decided to open a communal kitchen of sorts to fight the strain on our wallets. Most meals consisited of cold cuts, bread, mustard and juice. It wasn't too bad, a bit repetitive though. Somehow, even though I thought I was being frugal, my wallet seemed to get very light towards the end of the week. I needed to figure out a way to make some money.

I implemented two courses of action. The first was being a recycler. It was a pretty highly paid job in finland. Of course you receive no hourly wage, just commision. The hours are great, basically whenever you want, and you are self employed, no boss barking at you to do or not to do something. For ever 2 liter plastic bottle you recieve .40 euro, for the half liter bottles you get .20 euro, and for cans you only get .15.

I made about 100 euros from this job. My other job was more interesting. With the help of chidori's donation of a sign board (emptytriangle.com), I set up a massage booth at congress to help players relieve the stress of playing 5 hour long games. I charged 5 euros for 15 minutes back rub or hand massage. I had 3 customers doing this at a booth.

I was not too succesful until I took my business to the bar that all of congress attendees went to and started offering short massages. Three minutes for 1 euro. I am not sure exactly how many customers I had at the bar. Some paid in drinks. Overall I was pretty happy with the results.

Somehow I made it out of Finland without losing all my money...I must say though Helkinki is amazing.

European Go Congress

2010-09-01T12:27:11Z

Its a bit late, but here is my European go congress report.

European Go Congress Main Tournament/and results.
A lot of people have been asking me why I went to the EGC instead of the AGC, my main reason was because I wanted to see my friends from Korea. Also I wanted an excuse to travel in europe this summer.

I got off the airplane, and got to the bus. I had somehow not counted on needing money and had nothing in my pocket. Luckily I was able to trade a 3/4 empty bottle of Grappa for a bus ticket.

I found the congress site pretty easily, it was the source of all the elderly japanese people wandering about. Actually this was quite amusing, I imagine, for the locals. Suddenly the City of Tampere had a drastic increase of Japanese. I wonder what sort of ideas they had...

The congress was held at the Aleksantari school. I arrived and registered without a problem. I could not really find what to do so I just started talking to some german people. I was lucky to find a very interesting person. He had just biked from germany through Scandinavia and then taken a ferry to finland and biked the rest of the way to congress. He was also a 2d go player, and a geo-cacher, in fact for teh past 2 years i believe he finds at least one cache a day.

I spent the day hanging out with him, I found my first cache, and went swimming in a nice big Finnish lake. Also I was very surprised to eat one of the best donuts I have ever tasted.

Here are the "results"

I played as a 1 kyu in the tournament. I had an ok result of 5 wins 5 losses. But I was not satisfied since i won 4 games the first week and only one the second.

In the weekend tournament I did very poorly, I only won 1 game out of 5.

My pair go partner, Kim Chaelim, and I got to the top 8, but we lost a very close game in the quarter finals.

The team I played on in the football tournament got 4th place.

In general I was surprised after the first week that I was able to get 4 wins. I expected to not be able to hold my 1kyu level so well. The weekend tournament dissapointed me, but i blamed that on too much partying and poor sleeping conditions. I thought that my winning streak would start again after my win on the first day of the second week, but I ended up losing the last 4 games. To be honest, I was pretty disapointed with myself in losing the last game. I had a really good opening, yet somehow in the endgame my level suddenly dropped back down to 30kyu. I played Ko's I didn't need, missed ataris and didn't defend after blocking on the first line.

Overall I am satisfied with my 5-5 result, but I think I could have done better.

(Photo by EuroGoTv)

Tom Obenchain

2010-08-31T22:26:03Z

I’ll get this started by revealing my own go habits. Currently, I’m slammed with lots of good things in life and so, my go fights to get nearer to the top of my priority list. But, my go is not greedy either. For now, this means that I play on DGS the most with an occasional game against a computer and occasional game online or against a friend. I haven’t been active in my local club for a long while now. :(

Where do you play?

View This Poll
customer surveys
Filed under: Go Journal

ss_joonam_zoom

2010-08-30T16:36:03Z

The iPhone DGS client looks good and has enough features to keep mobile go players happy--for now.

Every once in a while I search the iTunes app store for go related items. I typically find a variety gnugo-playing apps and study guides. I already use many of these. The one thing missing is a dedicated client for DGS or the Dragon Go Server–until recently, that is!

I’m busier than ever before and my go playing is suffering because of it. And while I don’t second guess my priorities in life, I would love to play more. For me that means DGS. I rarely have an hour for a good online game, but I can always squeeze in a few turns here and there on DGS. In the past this meant turns made on a computer or through the iPhone using the mobile Safari browser. I’ll admit I’ve made DGS moves on Safari before, but it’s too much of a hassle to do all the time.

With Justin Weiss’s new DGS app, I can now make moves from my iPhone with ease.

With Justin Weiss’s new DGS app, I can now make moves from my iPhone with ease. I’ve been using Justin’s app DGS for about a week now. I’ve made 750+ moves in that time and frankly, it’s got me excited about turn-based go again.

So, here’s what this modest but long-awaited DGS client offers. It has a zoom-to-move interface, which I prefer to the magnifying-glass style interfaces found on David Fotland’s Igowin series of apps. The app allows you to see the games where it is your turn to move, but not all you running games, nor your finished games. Finally, it also allows you to place games in the DGS waiting room, but only allows for board size, komi type, main time, byo-yomi settings and comments. An that’s it! And I’m okay with that. It’s enough to do the job. If this is all that is ever released, I’d be grateful, especially as this is a free app!

One important thing to note is that you need the 4.0 iPhone OS. I know this is slowing down folks with 3G and 3GS units that are hesitating to make the jump to the the new OS. Hopefully, the issues will be worked through soon.

The app’s creator’s web site (http://dgs.uberweiss.net) lists the features like this:

See the games that are waiting for your move
Tap-to-zoom makes it simple to play the right move, every time
Supports the entire game flow, from placing handicap stones to scoring
Post new games that Dragon Go Server users can join

Here’s what is noticeably missing:

In-game comments
The ability to view the DGS waiting room and join games
The ability view all running games and finished games
The ability to send messages/invites to other users
The ability to view user profiles
A number of options normally available when setting up a new waiting room game
And a few other things

Let me be clear that I’m not complaining about what isn’t there. I’m just stating the facts so that those interested in the app will set accurate expectations. I’ll admit that I am hoping that Justin is working on more features. But there is definitely enough there to make DGS players smile. I see no need to wait for an update to begin enjoying this app.

However, if I had to ask for only one thing, it would be the ability to see messages and send messages during games. If I were so greedy as to ask for a second upgrade, I would request the ability to join waiting room games (just in case you’re reading this Justin . . .).

The list of games waiting for moves refreshes every time to pull up the app.

The DGS iPhone app is a must-have for mobile go players

I’m happy to say that I’ve gone from mostly inactive on DGS to happily making 50+ moves a day, all thanks to this new app! I’m making moves all the time:

At the gym–no more wasted time on the stationary bike, eh?
Waiting for my children after school, after work, etc.
At the airport and even in the plane right up until the stewardess threatens to vaporize me for using my phone.
In the car (of course, only if I’m a passenger–duh!)
And just about anywhere else that I can thumb my phone on and make a quick move or two.

I’ve even checked for waiting moves while drafting this blog post (since I do some of my writing via the WordPress iPhone app). I’m also playing more short time limit games, ones that I used to avoid because I was unsure if I’d move often enough to stay out of trouble with the clock. So, if you’re and iPhone owner and you’re up for a game, download this app and then leave me your DGS name as a comment and I’ll send an invite.

A nice looking game screen gives you what you need to quickly and easily make moves on your DGS games

The tap-to-zoom interface offers the easiest way to may quick and accurate moves

Filed under: Go Technology, iPhone Tagged: DGS, iPhone

Overplay? II : Whole Board Position

2010-08-29T19:08:01Z

Thanks all for the feedback. Here is the whole board position. I did 'punish' by playing b3, he answered b4, and I cut at e4. Little did I know. You are right David, the hane is playable in this position which was news to both of us. I will post more tomorrow.

Welcome back David and I am looking forward to visiting Go Game Guru.

New Go blog - Go Game Guru

2010-08-29T12:42:00Z

I started this blog a couple of years ago with big plans, but quickly became too busy with work and gave up on it. Now I finally have some time and have started a new site called Go Game Guru with professional Go player An Younggil (8p). Younggil is my teacher and friend, and we have started this site together to try to promote Go and teach it to many new players around the world. We hope

Overplay?

2010-08-29T01:39:00Z

My second game of the summer supplied an interesting situation. Look at the following diagram. White 7 usually is an overplay so I was all ready to punish it.

But there is this extra white stone. Does that change White 7 from an overplay into a good move? Or does it not?

During the game I looked at it and said 'Nah, that stone is too far away, I will just punish.' Was that the right decision? Let me know what y'all think.

KGS Android Client

2010-08-25T16:10:00Z

Last week I decided to buy the KGS android client or, at least, give it a try. This fabulous idea was the result of the previous 4 long hours on the train which separates me from Barcelona. Now, I was on my way back home and I’d already seen the film twice, when I decided that KGS would bring me back from boredom.

Everything went fine -successful Google checkout, KGS client only weights 470 kb- so I was logging into KGS within two minutes. Unfortunately, my Only-Go-Anxiety (aka OGA) made my mind focus on watching games, so I’m still lacking the playing experience with this client.

I’ve got a HTC Magic, one of the first devices, with a low resolution, but the board, avatars and bowls still showed up nicely, so I guess the results on better devices should be somewhat nicer. After having watched 3 games on a row, it was time to actually analyse the app instead of just KGS games.

The lowest part of the screen includes the navigation buttons which, if pressed long enough, bring up some extra options, and the chat window.

While this app is the only -and, therefore, the best- KGS client, it disappointed me somehow. In fact, what worried me the most, was that games with lots of tenukis were hard to follow. While marking the stone on a normal PC with a circle is enough, it seems to fall short as a notification in such a small screen. Maybe some sort of double stone-blinking would be helpful.

One of the games I saw included a nice amount of peeping tesujis so I thought of sharing it. Unfortunately, there isn’t any “Save game to disk” option. The tactile function is weird while watching a game, as you can point on the board and make a square appear, but its utility remains unknown for me. The trackpad moves this square around the board instead of navigating through the game.

Though my hopes may have been to high, I’d say that, to sum it up and taking into account its 15$ price, I’m a little disappointed with the final result. Obviously, since these 15$ include two months of the KGS plus service, it may be useful for users who would like to give KGS+ a try, but I don’t think it is fair for users who wouldn’t use it. On the other hand, I must admit that I haven’t tried to play with it, since I got some deficiencies in my internet signal while I was on the train and I suffered my monthly OGA crisis.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Leipzig secret Museum of Graffiti

2010-08-22T11:57:23Z

In the City of Leipzig in eastern Germany there used to be a large publishing/printing company. It has long since been abandoned, and the locals have turned it into a wonderful secret Museum of Graffiti/street art.

I found it entirely by accident, a large empty building caught my eye while riding a around on a bike.

The building itself is Is easy to miss, there are lots of trees and blocking it from the front and the back is connected to a construction site. If you look carefully though you can actually see some of the graffiti from the outside. If you want to visit it, it is located in Liepzig, Germany on the corner of Dresdener Strase and Salmonstrase.

Ill show some of my favourite pieces here,

From graffiti museum

You can find the rest on my picassa.

Also, if you want to see pictures of what it used to look like, you can find them here.
http://www.frankvoi.de/frank/historisches_interdruck.htm

Aug 18

2010-08-21T10:34:37Z

Go tournament - September

2010-08-20T11:08:12Z

I'm organising a fun tournament on KGS for DDK players (10kyu and below, including complete beginners).

The signup thread is here: September Tournament: 19x19 DDK. There's no need to sign up in advance - just play a game and post the result to the thread - but if you want to express interest and get challenges, post and say "I AM IN".

The tournament will run from the 1st to the 30th of September. You can play as many games as you like, and play whoever you like. There is no limit on the number of times you can play someone, but it's probably more fun for you if you try to play as many different opponents as you can.

Current standings

I will keep the latest standings updated here.

Name        Played  Won   Lost  Win%  Points
keithlard        0    0      0     0       0
kukula           0    0      0     0       0
noodley          0    0      0     0       0
Rafa             0    0      0     0       0
Monadology       0    0      0     0       0
SinK             0    0      0     0       0
psk31            0    0      0     0       0
docgnome         0    0      0     0       0
threeve          0    0      0     0       0

Rules

Matches will consist of a single 19x19 game on KGS (ranked if possible), 20 minutes per side with 5 x 30 seconds byo-yomi. Games will be even, with nigiri for Black. Scoring by Japanese (territory) rules, 6.5 komi for White. The winner receives 1 point, with 0 points for the loser.

You can join the tournament at any time and there is no registration process - just post your game result to the L19 thread. At the close of September 30th, the winner will be the person with the most points. If necessary a tie-break match will be played for first place.

Arrange your own games, either by contacting the person you want to challenge, or by posting a game request in the GoDiscussions room on KGS, marked "L19 DDK tournament". After the game, post the result to the L19 thread (or comment here if you'd rather) in a format similar to this:

keithlard 1-0 jsmith

Disaster!

2010-08-19T20:47:17Z

keithlard-saeclum.sgf

I felt just sick about this game. I don't think I really made any major blunders, but almost every move was bad from beginning to end, and the result was complete demolition. I post it here to prevent myself getting too cocky in the future.

Back to Baduk and Studying

2010-08-17T05:17:34Z

This summer vacation has been totally insane, no time for baduk at all. I spent 48 % of my time driving my children around town, 29 % of my time from preventing my house to become too much of a disaster zone and 31 % of my time feeding the hungry hordes, which leaves me not much time for baduk.

I decided to give up on sleeping, freeing up 2 % of my time for baduk studies, yay!

For the last two weeks I have been studying life and death, haengma and even a recent pro game. Not only that but I managed to visit go club and hope to get there again this week. And I am looking forward to September when the children will be back into school and I will be able to PLAY!

The worst Go player

2010-08-14T11:55:47Z

I live with a guy who is just the worst Go player. He's terrible! As much as I try and teach him, he seems to keep making the same dumb mistakes. I got so annoyed that I made a list of his faults:

He misses obvious ataris and gets his groups killed
He misses obvious threats such as double ataris and snapbacks
He continually misreads simple life and death situations
His groups get killed when they should live because he missed a vital point
He fails to kill his opponents' groups because he lets them get a vital point
He cannot judge territory and frequently lets his opponent get more territory
He has no knowledge of basic joseki and usually ends up at a disadvantage
He plays gote moves and lets his opponent take sente
He fails to block monkey jumps, or fails to play them when available
He doesn't see the significance of ladder breakers
He doesn't count and cannot judge the relative size of territories
When he does count, he miscounts by several points
He makes small moves in yose and gives away sente
He has no understanding of 9x9 games and often gets beaten by beginners
He cannot manage his time and is always behind on the clock
His reading is poor and gets worse under time pressure, leading to stupid mistakes
He never thinks beyond the first move that comes to mind
He plays reactively, letting his opponent dictate the tempo
He is too impatient to study tsumego properly and just makes wild guesses
He does not review his own lost games properly, preferring to forget them
He loses heart when behind and fails to take risks or show fight
He becomes complacent when ahead and stops trying
He is over-concerned with rank and plays safe instead of experimenting
When his rank goes up, he credits it to pure skill and strength
When his rank goes down, he says he was "having an off day" and berates the flawed ranking system
He is contemptuous of anyone weaker than himself and jealous of anyone stronger
He continually believes himself to be stronger than he actually is

I gave my friend this list and told him he will never be a good Go player unless he fixes all of these problems. He read it carefully, looking a little downcast. Then he went away.

After a while he came back with a book - The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chödrön - and read me this passage:

In one of the Buddha's discourses, he talks about the four kinds of horses: the excellent horse, the good horse, the poor horse, and the really bad horse. The excellent horse, according to the sutra, moves before the whip even touches its back; just the shadow of the whip or the slightest sound from the driver is enough to make the horse move. The good horse runs at the lightest touch of the whip on its back. The poor horse doesn't go until it feels pain, and the very bad horse doesn't budge until the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones.

When Shunryu Suzuki tells the story in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he says that when people hear this sutra, they always want to be the best horse, but actually, when we sit, it doesn't matter whether we're the best horse or the worst horse. He goes on to say that in fact, the really terrible horse is the best practitioner. […]

Once I had an opportunity to talk with Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, about the fact that I was not able to do my practice properly. I had just started the vajrayana practices and I was supposed to be visualizing. I couldn't visualize anything. I tried and tried but there was just nothing at all; I felt like a fraud doing the practice because it didn't feel natural to me. I was quite miserable because everybody else seems to be having all kinds of visualizations and doing very well. he said, "I'm always suspicious of the ones who say everything's going well. If you think that things are going well, then it's usually some kind of arrogance. If it's too easy for you, you just relax. You don't make a real effort, and therefore you never find out what it is to be fully human." So he encouraged me saying that as long as you have these kinds of doubts, your practice will be good. When you begin to think that everything is just perfect and feel complacent and superior to the others, watch out!

These words made a big impression on me, and after that I stopped being quite so hard on my friend (who is, of course, myself).

Aug 11

2010-08-12T23:08:22Z

GTL gold and silver reviews

2010-08-10T14:45:54Z

During the last month I’ve started working on a full 24-hours shift but, as I’m only necessary from time to time, this situation leaves me with some lonely long hours. While studying takes most of my time, studying go seems to be more enjoyable.

Unfortunatellyl, I cannot connect to KGS from my job, so I had to look somewhere else if I wanted to learn Go -playing was discarded after checking the firewall-. Then I remember a site I used to visit when I was double-digit kyu.: The Go Teaching Ladder.

In fact, I found a couple of details I’d missed before, but I’ll only mention the Gold-and-silver awards given to certain reviews. Certainly, gold reviews are an extraordinaily good source of Go knowledge, even if the game is high above my understanding of the game.

In this case, I’d like to share one specific review with you but due to copyright infringements, I’m only allowed to share the link so that you can download it from their site: LINK

6723

Hourousha

7 dan

StefanW

SebastianH

6.0

B+R

2008-05-24

Enjoy

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Game Reviews

Won by a seki

2010-08-09T23:05:09Z

I was convinced I'd lost this until I remembered to count the point A1. I really can't count!

Games from the ancient era

2010-08-08T22:42:54Z

When I first learned how to play Go I used to play with my deskmate at work. We had the board set up between us and would make a move or two a day, depending how busy we were and how tricky the position was. Very often the night cleaner would dust around and disturb the board, sometimes even taking all the stones off and giving them a polish, and replacing them in random arrangements.

After this happened once or twice, I started 'saving' the game with my mobile phone camera. This had the double benefit of protecting against over-zealous cleaners, and preserving at least a snapshot of the game for future interest. The matches themselves were not particularly historic, of course, as neither of us was stronger than 25 kyu. But it is at least amusing for me to look at.

Go teaches many things, including subtlety, balance, cunning, and humility. Looking at old games of mine also reminds me that I have made some progress, but I'm still a beginner. I've learned a lot, but mysteriously, I am still as terrible a Go player as I ever was. I'm still confused, to coin an phrase, but now I'm confused on a higher level, about more important things.

Boardgame randomizer for android

2010-08-05T19:45:45Z

-Which game should we play today?
-… dunno… you choose…
-… choose whatever you want.

Tired of having too many of these dialogues with my play-pals, I decided to fix it last month. There are a few boardgame randomizers available over the net, but I failed to find one suitable for my android phone. Though it would be awesome to have this feature included in the “BGG mobile” app, it seems we’re not going to enjoy it in a short term.

So here is my tricky solution… with some pros and cons.

To begin with you have to install the bbg2nanDECK application on your windows machine (or virtualize it). Once you’ve installed it, you’ll have to set it up properly so that it connects to your BGG profile.
Choose your preferred card style with all the information you’d like to have. If you know something about programming, you may want to create your own style or modify one of the availables. In fact, I modified Solamar’s style, but forgot to move the “Weight” on the upper right corner…
Run nanDECK. It’ll create a card for every single game you own on BGG.
Install PictureViewer on you Android.
Copy the nanDECK cards to your phone and make PictureViewer point into their folder.
While in PictureViewer, select random mode, just once.

Now, every single time you open PictureViewer, you’ll have a random game displayed from your collection; you can randomize again by sliding to the right side. As no doubt you have already guessed, this method is only possible for a BGG user, with a previously known collection (since it requires some work at home before actually using it) and some patience in order to understand how nanDECK works for the first time.

As you can see from the image above, this unknown game called Go is recommended for 2 players, takes 90 minutes on average, I’ve rated it 10/10 though BGG average is 7.7 and is ranked the 36th. It was created around -2200 and has a weight average -as game complexity- of 4.0/5. There is a short description, a list of categories where you can find it and its mechanics. Both BGG rating and weight are extracted from BGG users average

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

July playing stats

Aug 4

2010-08-05T17:37:40Z

I Am Moderating All Future Posts

2010-08-03T13:22:00Z

It came to my attention that someone was spamming my blog. I had seen a number of foreign language posts in the past and left them because I assumed that someone actually had something worthwhile to say even though I could not understand it myself.

Today I found over 20 comments on my most recent post, which is months old. Many of them have links to obscene web sites.

It is a sorry thing when one has to moderate her blog to avoid such things. Please do not comment to this blog simply to agree with me on this point.

Thank you in advance for your patience when you make a comment to a future blog post and must wait for it to be approved.

July playing stats

2010-08-01T13:10:32Z

It’s been a couple of months since I retook boardgame playing and, most important, logging it. Though the process of logging all my plays had been a laborious task till recently, I found “BGG Mobile” for Android phones made it ridiculously easy.

At first glance, it shows 40 plays from 24 different games, 10 of them being logged for first time. If we take into account the average time for each play logged on KGS, it sums up to 31 hours of boardgaming (plus KGS games).

-Go: 9 games on KGS and a few more of them on a real board. Since it’s difficult to actually tear each stats apart, I’ve decided to only log my real board games. On KGS I’ve finally surpassed the 7k barrier where I was stuck at, reaching the 5k rank and beating a couple of players more, but I shouldn’t be overconfident on this levelling, as I’ve been given 2 stones in my last two games. Being my fuseki as awful as always, it’s just a matter of time handicap is reduced to komi and my rank decreased.

-New games in collection: Hansa Teutonica for myself and China, Thebes and TtR: the Card game for my flatmate. Furthermore, there were a few games left unopened from our last order from Germany, so we decided to open Maharaja: Place building in India.

-Gaming day: during July 7th, I played Go twice, Schotten-totten 3 times, Tantrix once, Stratego once and Maharaja: Place Building in India also once.

Well, it’s been a productive month when it comes to boardgames… August will most probably be focused on Go.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

Maryland Open

2010-08-01T12:49:02Z

I played in the Maryland Open last weekend. I played four games, winning two, and losing two.

I wasn't too unhappy with my results, since my losses were both less than ten points, and my wins were close to 20 points. I was pleased that my victories were more decisive than my losses.

Upon checking the KGS ratings of the two opponents that beat me, I found that they are 5K and 6K on KGS compared to my own 8K, so I feel as if I performed well against them. I did feel rather pushed around by both of them.

An interesting reunion occurred during the third round with an opponent who remembered me from the San Francisco congress eleven years ago in 1999. We had played that year. He must have been a mere child at the time since he is in graduate school now. That was eleven years ago. I was quite frankly surprised that we had progressed at the same pace given the difference in our ages. He recalls that we were both about 15K at the time of our previous game. Now he is 10K and I am 9K. Our game at this tournament was interesting in that he was way ahead, but I managed to isolate and kill a number of stones leading to my victory. He tells me that something similar occurred eleven years ago, and even pointed to the area of the board involved. I was impressed that our game had been that memorable for him.

I had my iPad with me and I recorded my games with it. But even more interestingly I played a 9x9 game with another iPad owner over the internet on KGS while we sat across from each other at a table at the Maryland Open. We accomplished this through the use of remote desktop software. I was using LogMeIn Ignition. We both have 3G iPads so we could log in to our home desktops (both 24" iMacs) even though we did not have wi-fi access at the playing site. I won that 9x9 by 1.5 points even though my first move was an obvious miss click.

Jul 28

2010-07-29T23:59:28Z

11 year's old professional player's debut

2010-07-27T17:47:48Z

Dear Friends... sharing an article that was published in a Japanese news paper Rafu Shimpo (June 30, 2010 Page 5). Enjoy

Youngest Professional Debut at the Age of 11

One-dan Rina Fujisawa debuting professionally (caption for photo)

Go: One-dan Rina Fujisawa 藤沢里菜

The youngest age ever for a professional go player, Rina Fujisawa One-dan (11 years old, from Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo) who is in the sixth grade of elementary school had her first official game on the 24th, competing in the 20th Annual Ryusei Tournament 第20期竜星戦Preliminary Group B. She debuted with a loss against Michinari Horimoto 2 dan (堀本満成 20 years old), resigning with the black stones after 140 moves. With fighting spirit, she said, “I am a bit disappointed. I would like to win the next game.”

In her aggressive style, the game was even after developing into the middle game. But a costly oversight became the reason she lost. She said with regret, “It turned into a worse position about half-way through”, but she gave Horimoto Two-dan the cold sweats, who said, “She is very strong.”

Her father is Kazunari (藤沢一就八段)Eight-dan, and her grandfather is the late “Meiyo Kisei (名誉棋聖)” (holder of six back to back top go titles in Japan) Hideyuki Fujisawa (藤沢秀行)making her a super thoroughbred. She passed the test to be a professional in February, and while living the double life of a grade school student and go professional, she is honing her skills at the go dojo. Talking about her dream she said “I would like to do my best to win a (championship) title”.

Article and photo by Moriei Kanazawa

Translated by Show Kitagami, Reiyukai America

The “IT Crowd” plays boardgames

2010-07-26T15:56:25Z

A few weeks ago a friend of mine sent me a 360º panorama from the IT Crowd basement as he was aware of my enthusiasm towards this sitcom. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out images and objects… till I focused my eyes on the upper shelf behind Moss.

As you can see from the image above, they’ve placed 5 boardgames, in the following order: Memoir ’44 (is it the main game or an add-on?), Shadows over camelot, Mystery of the Abbey, Ticket to Ride and War onTerror. After checking the characteristics of every game I didn’t know, actually just 2 of them, it seems like the games were randomly bought and placed there. Obviously, these games would fit in a single collection but, taking into account the huge differences between them, it should be quite big. Mystery of the Abbey and Ticket to ride made me suspect about games driven by Hand Management but my theory failed against War on Terror, so that’s where I got my conclusion from.

I’m quite certain some of you wonder about the reason for posting. Easy: most Go players are somewhat nerds, who may enjoy watching this comedy and playing the same games I do. For the ones who didn’t know these games, I would recommend starting with Ticket to Ride, an easy family game with certain luck factor and lots of fun if played with 4-5 players.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

Cotsen Go Tournament 2010 Info!

2010-07-24T00:38:19Z

FYI, here's the announcement for the Cotsen Go Tournament coming up inSeptember.
If you've never been to a Go tournament before, here's anexcerpt from the announcement that you might find encouraging:
"Beginners and children are especially welcome, so don’t be afraidto come and play.
Bring your kids, friends, relatives and acquaintances!!!"
The tournament is completely free (except for the $5/day parking). The way it works is, you pay a $20 deposit when you register, and as longas you play through the tournament, you'll get your money back at theend. You don't even have to pay to be an AGA member. It's a lot of fun, a great event that the Los Angeles Go community(and some of our neighboring communities) look forward to every year. You literally see all ages here. It's really not unusual to see an 8-year-old playing a tournament against a 60-year old at this event. I hope you can make it! Please feel free to e-mail me any questions. -Alf

Post of a Happy Go Player

2010-07-23T19:10:01Z

Yesterday, I received my first "real" Go set. I had bought a small one around Christmas from a little kiosk in the mall. It was ok but I'm a man on the large-ish side and my hands were just too big for the board and stones. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the set I bought then to a beginner, especially to a youngster.
I knew, however, that I wouldn't use it and that I wouldn't be happy until I could get a more traditional set. I would love to have a big 6 inch thick masame kaya board from Japan but, considering the $14,000 or so price tag, that won't be happening. I'd love to have a set of "snow grade" shell and slate stones but, they too are on the pricey side at around $1000. So, I set out on a journey to find something I could afford.

After Googling for things, I came across a place called Yellow Mountain Imports. They had a great selection and some pretty good prices so I decided to give them a try. I ordered a smaller floor goban (go board) of shin-kaya or Tibetan spruce. I also ordered a set of Yunzi stones to go with it. I placed the order on Wednesday of last week and opted for UPS Ground (slow but cheaper). I figured at least as week and a half, considering how most folks are with shipping. WRONG! The folks at YMI had my items shipped the next day and I received them yesterday. That's right, six days from the time of order until it arrived - and that's shipping UPS Ground from California to Alabama!

Anyway, when the doorbell rang, I was literally running to the front porch to get my package. I wondered how well protected the items were, etc. I looked at the box and my heart sank. The corners were dented and it looked a little rough. So much for the UPS guys handling it gingerly. When I opened that box, however, I got a nice surprise. The stones and the board were boxed well and arranged so that they didn't move, no matter how much jostling they'd endured. Now my dread turned into sheer excitement as I began tearing into those boxes.

I opened the board first. When I pulled back the flaps, I couldn't believe how well it was packed. The board itself was wrapped in foam then placed in a styrofoam liner. Next, I opened the stones and they were the same way. They weren't wrapped in foam (no use really) but they were in a fully lined box to prevent impact. I was greatly impressed!

I had to open the carrying case for the stones (a great bonus for traveling)! I opened them to find absolutely beautiful jujube wood bowls containing the stones. I had seen pictures of this set on the YMI website but those pictures couldn't do them justice. Then again, I was stuck taking flash photos at night so mine don't either. I was really impressed with the fact that the carrying case is sized for these particular bowls and that there are silk/satin liners to keep the stones from impacting the lids, as well as the lids and lips of the bowls from grating together during transportation.

I opened the bowls and found a set of beautiful stones. They looked really dull at first, but that's characteristic of Yunzi stones. They're covered in dust from the manufacturing process. I'd have to say that's the only bad part about the whole experience - the tedium of cleaning the stones and oiling the black ones. Why clean and oil? Just watch.

As you can see here, both sets appear somewhat dusty and dull. That's about to change.

First, I washed the black stones in warm water. I was surprised by the amount of residue that was on them. Interestingly enough, I think the white stones had even more. When the stones had dried, I felt them. They have a silky feel to them, nice weight, but neither too heavy nor too slick. The problem is that the black stones just look dull.

This is where the oiling comes in. It doesn't take much at all, only 6-8 drops of oil (NOT cooking oil) in a ziploc bag with the stones. Gently roll them around in the bag, then wipe off the excess. That's the bad part! It took what seemed forever to wipe the excess oil from 180+ stones, but the result was well worth it!

As you can see, they have a warm luster, not shiny, just a depth and a little glow. I finished wiping them and got all of the stones into their respective bowls. This entire time, my three children were constantly in and out of the kitchen screaming "Can we play now, Daddy?" When I walked into the family room with the stones and placed the bowls on the board, they just about flattened each other to get to it. I must say, it was a beautiful sight to look down and see my kids scrambling for me to play with them on a "real" board with "real" stones. I think I got a wonderful set.

I spent the next hour or so teaching my oldest son (8) to play the "capture game" and helping my two youngest (4 & 3) to play the game against each other. It was funny to watch the youngest play while building a "snowman" on the board. I think this will be well worth the money for the whole family.

As for the folks at Yellow Mountain, I can't say enough good things about them. They're super nice folks with quality products and great attention to detail. They have supplied me with great tools to begin my journey in stones along the map of the goban.

July 21

2010-07-23T19:07:07Z

Beginners Friendly Club!
Anyone Welcome!

I'm Still Breathing

2010-07-22T21:14:21Z

I'm still alive, though I haven't played Go in ages. Life is so hectic, it seems I can't catch a breath most days. That being said, I've determined that I will be changing things!

I can tell the more hectic life has been, the more clouded my thinking, the shorter my temper, and generally the less I like myself. I have promised myself that I will actively work to keep myself grounded, let the small stuff roll off my back, and focus on renewing the health of mind, body and spirit. One of the things I plan to do to help with this is getting back to Go. I've already started working on the mental aspects in other ways, done some housecleaning and soul searching on the spiritual side as well. Bodywise, I will have to force myself to push away from the table and be more active. I've been doing a good deal of the latter but the former is SO HARD! :)

Anyway, here's hoping that my journey will begin anew, with success and fewer flat tires along the way.

Düsseldorf and the Flight

2010-07-21T11:35:33Z

After a two hour delay due to bad weather, I boarded the plane. I was lucky enough to sit next to the girl I had been talking to for 2 hours already; I didn't have to go through all the pleasentrie and introductions again. Talking and laughing and eating and very unclear maps made 6 hours go by pretty fast. I arrived in Dusseldorf around 10 in the morning, and after some coffee I bid farwell to Marcelline, and set out to explore the city. She had to catch another train to take cross country to her home.

I headed to city central. I wanted to go see the Rein river. When I got off the train I found myself quite tired and a bit lost, so I decided to have some snack before I continued. A nice looking greek cafe did the trick. I had Turkish Coffee and some large cheesy flaky pastry. They seemed to make a big deal out of the fact that they gave me water with my coffee, later i found out that they generally serve bottled water in germany, so you have to pay for it. Actually you have to pay for the bottle when you bu water or cola, and then sell it back. In the states basicly we do the same thing, but in Germany its a seperate charge, and sometimes bottles are rather expensive, as much as 50 cents.

Düsseldorf was a very impressive city, it was full of old style buildings, alleyways, parks, musuems and also a lot of rich people. There was a very sudden and noticeable class difference. If you weren´t dressed in designer clothing you were begging for money, or a german "punk" more on punks later.

Later I went to explore a bit around the Rein river. Mostly I just saw people enjoying cold drink looking out on the water trying to survive the heat. It was a good 100 degrees that day. I wandered around until I found an art musuem. It was a rather large and diverse collection of art. They had a room with some of Napolean's belongings and portriats as well as a photo project of different ethnicities and some art satirizing the Nazi party as well. I was the only person in the museum, so I was able to enjoy it all my own.

Then I spent the next hour or two trying to get to Köln.

P.S. Ice Cream and mean homeless man and Accordians on the street

2010-07-21T11:17:53Z

I was walking around Düsseldorf feeling hot, sweaty a bit lonely when I see a sign that reads "Bier Ice cream 1€. I ordered, and to my surprise its really really good. It tastes like Kvass more then beer,but its quite good none the less. Its rather bitter sweet, and its carbonized so you get a little sparkly feeling. Its very refreshing and suprisingly good stuff. I definetly reccomend it if you find yourself in Düsseldorf in the summer.

I was looking for either the Central station in Dusseldorf, or a net cafe. I asked a man if he spoke english, and he gave me an accentless "Yes, I do". I asked him for directions, and he answered me again in accentless english

"I am very sorry, but I will not help you. Whenever I ask people they never help me out, so sorry for your poor luck, but I refuse to help you"

He proceeded to cross the street and dig for empty bottles in the trash.

Also there are lots of really good accordian musicians scattered around germany, here is one.

A close game against Frank Janssen 6d

2010-07-19T18:15:39Z

Frank Janssen is a well-known strong amateur and Go educator, 4 times Dutch national champion, and he plays many 9x9 teaching games on DGS with players of all strengths. I was pleased with this 3-handicap game in which I thought I didn't entirely disgrace myself. I lost by 1.5 points.

I think I lost it quite early on, allowing cuts at C5 and F5 - but I feel like I showed good fighting spirit in working for every point.

Fighting spirit

2010-07-16T16:17:59Z

Go is a subtle game, but it is also a fighting game. "Fighting spirit" (kiai in Japanese) is key. This doesn't simply mean naked aggression, which usually leads to downfall. It is about mental toughness, the will to win, and refusing to play passively or to capitulate to a stronger player.

I was thinking about fighting spirit during a game the other day. I was 20-30 points ahead and there was no realistic way for my opponent to close the gap. I expected him to resign, but instead he continued to play: invading, threatening, forcing everywhere he could.

Even though none of the invasions really worked with best play, I was forced to read very carefully. The smallest mistake could have cost me many points, or even the game. He was playing fast, with no need to think too much or read deeply - he had nothing to lose. I had everything to lose and at each move had to take my time and make sure that I was making the correct reply to his threats.

Thankfully, I made no serious mistakes, and he ended up losing the game by almost a hundred points instead of 10 or 20. But what a fighter! If I was distracted or in time trouble, his tactics could definitely have paid off. There is a saying in chess that the hardest game to win is a won game. Once you feel well ahead, there is a strong tendency to relax and stop trying so hard. This can be fatal in Go as well as chess. A position that seems very solid can have small but important flaws, and pressure on these flaws combined with mistakes in reading can swing the game.

It made me realise that my own fighting spirit could be a lot better. Usually, if I'm behind in a game with little chance of catching up, I either play straightforward moves until the game is over, or resign out of politeness. This is not good fighting spirit. It does not matter how many points you lose by. A close loss is just as much of a loss as a deficit of 100 points.

I wouldn't quite say "never resign" - it is irritating to a much stronger opponent if they have to play out an obviously won game - but anyone who enjoys Go enjoys fighting, and if you play hard and aggressively, searching out the smallest weaknesses in the position and exploiting them, using the clock to your advantage, you may still lose, but you should impress your opponent with your fighting spirit!

"Fall down seven times, get up eight."

-- Japanese proverb

July 14

2010-07-15T16:46:59Z

Three new Go players in the house!

June 30

2010-07-14T18:15:19Z

A New Adventure

2010-07-13T15:01:40Z

I haven't been writing anything itneresting for quite some time now, but Its that time again!! I am packing my bag and heading off; first to Germany, then Finland for the European Go Congress and then...I am not sure.

I will be updating frequently, so please come by and read from time to time.

Shodan

2010-07-13T14:56:19Z

Hey..

So last week I decide to check my AGA rating and I am very pleasantly surprised find out I am 1.48 dan. I didn't notice at what point it happened, but apparently I am now officially a Dan player. It must have been from the last tournament I played/directed, though I thought that I had registered as 1kyu.

Though I am still but a mere 2kyu on kgs, its nice to know that I don't have to go to japan to call myself a dan player anymore woot woot.

Jokes aside though, In case all the kyu players are wondering, when I look at the board, I still have no clue whats going on...I can just sort of read out naturally occurring life and death problems now that's all.

The day I discovered Go

2010-07-12T16:00:37Z

I think it was in the autumn of 2008, though it might have been earlier. I was working in a web company which had a very nice office with a coffee table area and some sofas. One day when I was looking through some cupboards and found a chess set. I thought it might be fun to have some games of chess in the office and put the set out.

We did play a few games of chess, but it wasn't long before someone suggested bringing in a Go set. I had heard of the game but had no idea how to play, so I asked him to show me the basics. I thought it was very interesting: different to chess, but deep and fascinating. I stared at the little plastic stones so much they would float before my eyes as I was going to sleep.

I downloaded GnuGO to get a bit of practice, and was soon looking for online opponents. Dragon Go Server was great for this as I didn't need hours of uninterrupted time to play; I could just make as many moves in a day as I had time for. Also, I had a long-running over-the-board game going with my desk mate in the office. Each of us would probably make two or three moves a day, and I would copy the moves into an SGF file so that we could reconstruct the board if necessary if it was upset by the cleaner (which happened a couple of times). Sometimes there were long lulls where neither of us would play for a while. Over two years we probably only played 6 or 7 games!

I did not improve very fast at first. Playing only correspondence-style games is not a great way to get stronger as it is often difficult to remember what happened in the earlier stages of the game, and what was going through your mind when you made certain moves. However, it is very useful for keeping the Go muscles exercised daily, as I mentioned in the post on motivation.

I think my first real attempt to improve and do some serious study came about a year after I first started playing. I got the SmartGo Pro app for the iPhone and used it to do lots of tsumego problems, and also the Tetsuki app to watch live games online.

The books I found most helpful were Charles Matthews' invaluable Teach Yourself Go and Life and Death by James Davies.

Probably the biggest asset to me as a beginner was Sensei's Library, an amazing Wikipedia of Go which explains all sorts of technical terms and allowed me to look up certain openings or corner patterns in my games and understand why some moves are better in certain situations.

I also watched all of the excellent 123Go videos on YouTube by Catalin Taranu, which while many of them were (and still are) over my head in terms of the level of play, they were nonetheless really helpful for understanding how strong players think - and what they think about.

So how did you discover Go, and what got you interested in the game? Let me know in the comments.

Motivation and slumps

2010-07-09T16:16:10Z

I've noticed that I go through definite phases of great enthusiasm for Go, marked by intensive study and lots of play, and then regularly pass into a slump where I have no interest in the game at all. I'm not sure why this is, but I can't be the only one to experience it.

Most recently I was hit by a severe flu which made any sustained brain activity impossible for a couple of weeks, and after that I found my enthusiasm was sadly lacking. The slump lasted for a couple of months, and I have only recently started to enjoy playing again and thinking about Go.

It makes it hard to set targets for improvement - having reached KGS 15k, I set a new goal of 12k by 1st July, but didn't play a single game! Amusingly, I'm now 10k, but purely due to rank inflation. This presents a problem as any game I play is bound to drag my rank down to a more realistic level - and who wants that?

Playing correspondence games on DGS helps, as even in a slump you need to make a move every few days (Fischer time is much more suitable for me as you can gain back time lost during a long slump). I tend to feel a strong resistance to playing, but an even stronger resistance to losing on time usually wins out! The moves I make are poor, not well-thought-out, and I just don't have a good fighting spirit at all.

I think watching videos such as CountSheep's wonderful game commentaries are a good way to help break a slump. It doesn't need the same mental effort as actually playing, yet stimulates the Go synapses. I'm off to watch some now...

ZIGGYS NO LONGER MEETS AT ZIGGYS

2010-07-09T04:37:47Z

Sorry we didn't update the website. The Ziggy's on Alabama permanently shut down. We are now meeting at the same time, same place, at the Starbucks at the Galleria.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=galleria,+houston,+tx&sll=29.762884,-95.383062&sspn=1.39954,2.469177&ie=UTF8&hq=Houston+Galleria&hnear=Houston+Galleria,+Westheimer+Road,+Houston,+Texas&ll=29.741799,-95.463209&spn=0.043746,0.077162&t=h&z=14&iwloc=A

Alejo returns to KGS

2010-07-08T08:26:05Z

Since I moved from home, changed job and modified my lifestyle, I’ve started playing go more often. In fact, I’ve been checking my stats on KGS and needed to fall back to the first half of 2008 to find a month with this playing rate.

Actually, it’s only been 12 games on KGS plus a few more on real life with my flat-mate, which places me around the 20 games per month. You may say:”that’s not too much, in fact, it’s too few”… but you’d do better to remember that I haven’t played a single game on KGS for the last 15 months and that 2007 wasn’t a very productive year either.

Well, let’s see if I can surpass the 6k barrier where I’m stuck at…

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

KGS and its rank

Jigo

2010-07-03T22:22:55Z

I don't often get a jigo. I was pleased to draw this 4-handicap game on DGS as my opponent (pablopicollo) is a fair bit stronger. However, I missed the winning move. I also thought I had won, but miscounted.

Some interesting lessons from this game. I definitely feel that I'm happiest playing opponents 2-3 stones stronger, who can attack well, defend hard, and punish my mistakes. If I win, it's a sweet win, and if I lose then playing over the game can be very instructive.

However, I am bad at counting, or just lazy - the one implies the other. I didn't count this at all before passing - I felt pretty confident that I was just ahead, and CGoban's score estimator showed me +1, so I relaxed.

Unfortunately, the score is jigo (equal). As if that wasn't bad enough, Pablo pointed out rightly that I had missed the winning move: A6.

It is annoying to miss out on a win by one point in a game that must have lasted several months. I think there are at least two important things I'll take away from this:

I need to count more, count better, and count often. Even if I don't count at any other point in the game, I should count carefully just before passing to make sure I know what result I'm accepting!
I need to put more effort into the endgame. Because I thought I'd already won, I didn't search very hard for the last 1-point moves. Even if I think I've won, I should still fight for every point.

June 23

2010-06-29T18:47:12Z

See what you want to see

2010-06-22T19:05:59Z

For some reason I’m missing, I only happen to see what I want to see or, more specifically, what I think I should see. During a game, if I think I don’t have any possible escape or way to survive, I’ll miss it and give up reading. And viceversa, were I to think there is a solution, I’d read till I find it.

As you may have already guessed, this brings me some hard times while playing go. It feels like if I had a reading-switcher in my mind, which would unconsciously block me from reading certain sequences, thus leading me to unexpected fights or, in this case, death and defeat.

The situation above is extracted from a game I played this week… and I’m black. Though I could have resigned by now, I still thought I had a remote chance of winning thanks to killing the C15 stones and the survival of the E6 group. However, during the middle game, I didn’t expect the huge dragon on the bottom right to be severely threatened and, therefore, I didn’t bother about its future till it was did bad. As you can see above, black is about to be cut and die.

No. Wait a second, this is a 20-25 kyu tsumego. Black lives. It took 10 seconds on my post-game review, I’m quite certain you can find it too, don’t you?

Unfortunately, I missed the right sequence during the game. All my reading was focused on sacrificing the L13 stones and connecting. In the end, I managed to kill my L13 stones and the huge dragon on the bottom right (I’m not uploading the sequence… or I’ll have nightmares for an entire month). The only excuse for this error is the first sentence of this post: I only happen to see what I want to see or, more specifically, what I think I should see. I remember being convinced that white would get what he wanted and I would lose the game. Though my mood constantly modifies my style from an all-offensive game to a big moyo strategy, it’s the first time I realise how much my game is influenced by the positivity (or lack) embedded in my thoughts.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Tsumegos and my reading (in)ability

2010-06-14T18:04:44Z

This week I’ve decided to start playing go, again. After some teaching during the weekend, I needed to play some serious games over the net. As a result I ended up badly beaten by a 11k in KGS, due to some huge careless reading – assuming that not reading at all could be considered careless reading.

Playing another game with a friend on a real board forced me to improve my reading if I wanted to win after another awful fuseki. After some pincering and counter-pincering we were both engaged on a huge fight for a side of the board. And there was another fight on the opposite corner. These two situations made me wonder about the power of a good reading ability.

In order to fix this weakness of mine, I’ve been trying to solve some problems on SmartGo. And there it was, this unexpectedly cool tsumego with black trying to live on the corner or connecting through D1. If I was confronted this situation during a real game as white, my first move would have been to play D1, just to tear black appart, but it would have allowed him to live on the corner withougt any benefit on my side. So my thoughts would have led me to play B4 and assume there was nothing to do about it.

First glance conclusion at this tsumego was nothing but a huge surprise: Black can be killed!! This could be incredibly useful for my games! After having spent a few minutes on this tsumego, I gave up. A2, B1, C1, D1 and E1 were the first moves from my unsucessful attempts. And there it was, the solution. Painfully simple and effective.

Since there are lots of branches in the sgf, I’ll upload a limited version on the image by the end of the post, as well as the sgf files loaded in Eidogo.

It all started with the position above: white failed to kill black during the real game. In fact, after having spent some long minutes thinking of it and trying to read sequences, I gave up and replayed the situation at the PC. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to get a successful result for white but I still wonder about the real chances I had of killing black. Can you kill black?

Well, here I leave the sequence to the first tsumego, as you can see it’s so painfully obvious and simple, it hurts.

And the full sgf loaded on Eidogo, so that you can explore as much branches as you wish:

[Embedded SGF File]

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Jun 9

2010-06-10T20:32:14Z

Free Moyo Go Studio, once again

2010-06-07T18:38:17Z

Three years ago Frank de Groot decided to release Moyo Go Studio for free during a brief period of time. That unexpected decision, altogether with Frank announcing its retirement from the Go scene, was already commented on this blog back then, closely followed by the opposite post. As years passed by, we could see Frank working on its piece of software, with improvements going slightly unnoticed due to censorship in certain sites.

So, going back to the purpose of this post, it seems like Frank has decided to release Moyo Go Studio for free, once again. You can download this powerful tool from his site though it would be better to have other download sources, since the server is somewhat busy right now and speeds aren’t that high. The whole program itself weights about 300 MB and it includes an initial database of 57086 professional games but other downloads are available summing up hundreds of thousands of new games from amateur games extracted from KGS, CyberKiwon, IGS, NNGS and Tygem.

The more the download percentage increases, the more I wonder about the real purpose behind releasing Moyo Go Studio for free. Did Frank actually have a selling spree back in 2007? Releasing this software for free would certainly allow him to get into the news, which would make MGS more popular. However, a current free release of a program may not be the best way to fulfil his hopes, since it would be a whole lot more difficult to erase the free version of MGS from the net than it was last time.

In the end, Frank may just be tired of selling his product and just wishes everyone could use his program.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Teaching Go in Pamplona

2010-06-06T17:03:52Z

Three weeks ago I moved to Pamplona (Navarra), worldwide famous for its bull races in San Fermin, and it seems that the city remains unaware of the existence of Go. Till this weekend.

Due to some unexpected facts, I was asked to teach Go during Saturday. So, with just around 10 days, a friend of mine (who was asked in first place to teach go) and I happened to get a few boards and some hundreds of stones for each colour.

Expected amount of visitors? Unknown. Expected duration of the session? Unknown. Expected media available (computer…)? Unknown. Expected number of tables and chairs available? Unknown. F**k…

Now I think you’ll already start figuring out my feelings as the day approached. Finally we were given over 25 small boards printed out on paper, so that we could teach the basics on 9×9 and 7×7 boards, though the smallest board were only used to teach atari-go. Stones, borrowed from a club in Barcelona, were placed on plastic glasses.

Saturday, 5:00 pm, the show gets started. Luckily, we’ve managed to arrange several tables on a row, placed the boards and chairs before anyone happens to ask us for a game. Actually, they were waiting for us to finish the preparation since I could only take a single deep breath before someone came to take a peek.
This man, in his middle 30s, with a nicely-shaved beard, a polite shirt and a -unnoticed by me- huge camera by his feet. Ten minutes later, we’re playing a normal game on a 9×9 board and, from my point of view, it seems like he’s enjoying the game, but he refuses to play more since there are other people waiting. A few seconds later his camera depicts the whole situation: most chairs are occupied with people ready to attend to the explanation.

Players range from 6 years to slightly over 50, but there is a pack of 3 guys who happen to be board game players or good strategists, they pick the game within a few minutes and spend 3 hours playing. Yes, they learnt to play Go somewhere close to 5:30 pm and left after 8 pm. Since they’ve already made a few matches on a 9×9 board, I lend them the 13×13 board. As I wasn’t able to check their game, the consequences were predictable: it’s a chaotically-offensive game. But since they are 3 of them, I’m left with one of them and start a 9×9 game with 5 handicap stones.
To sum it up: he’s able to count up to 5 moves and manages to create a seki situation without being aware of its existence. Scary.

So, after three hours of intensive teaching, over 25 people have learnt to play go in Pamplona. They’ve asked for shops, history, taken photos and everyone has been given a board. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from some of these.

Edit: As far as today, 27th July, I haven’t heard from anyone playing go in Pamplona. They are either too scared or I was too optimistic. Either way, I created a forum just in case someone wants to join Play-In-Plona

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

June 2

2010-06-04T18:47:52Z

May 26

2010-06-04T18:46:15Z

NAIMT Qualifiers

2010-05-30T07:56:00Z

There are four NAIM qualifying tournaments scheduled for June. One each Weekend

First
June starts out with the KGS NAIM Qualifier on June 5-6th. There will be two rounds each day, preregistration is a must and should be done no later than June 4th.

(badukboris@gmail.com to preregister)

The Second on June 12th, Organized by Andrew Okun

"The 4th Annual Santa Monica Coffee Cup will be held this coming Saturday June 12 at the Unurban Coffeehouse, 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica. The event will be a one-day, three-round, AGA-rated tournament, Japanese rules. Pre-registration is essential, although we are expanding the maximum number of players to 48. (It could be cramped … a couple of you may be playing outside, sitting on bar stools or standing up!) The format will be the same as previous years, the coffee will still be strong and the food will still be good." contact : abc@okun.name

The third is July 13th all the way on the other side of the country in New York

There are four rounds of AGA rated games starting at 10 am. Pre-register please. email badukboris@gmail.com

The month ends with:

The second KGS NAIM qualifier, on june 26th-27th. Again preregistration is a must, and will be accepted no later than June 23rd.
Contact is badukboris@gmail.com

Flattr invitations available

2010-05-27T21:38:24Z

We already talked about Flattr a couple of weeks ago and I finally got some invitations. So if anyone wants to join, just drop me a line on the comments.
As you’ll realise, this is mainly focused on bloggers and website owners, but also for visitor who would like to show some appreciation for good content.

By the way, there is no way I’m getting any percentage or tax by inviting people.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

Dead a little

2010-05-27T00:17:57Z

I have been rather unproductive since last posting here. School is almost over for the semester, so you can probably expect to see more posts soon. You know, its been almost a year since I got back to from Korea, time doesn't seem to exist, I am still there but very clearly I am here. Also I think I am in Germany and Finland right now too....Wierd.

31st World Amateur Go Championship Starts

2010-05-25T16:59:11Z

The 31st World Amateur Go Championship (WAGC) will start tomorrow in Hangzhou, China.

This eight rounds, two games per day championship will be played between May 26th and May 29th.

You can follow the updates on the International Go Federation’s website and on the Nihon Ki-in’s website.

The presence of the young and very strong players from Asia, several ex-insei from Europe and Fernando Aguilar from Argentina will make this a very interesting tournament, I am sure.

From webcam to sgf file

2010-05-22T11:37:19Z

There was a long topic recurrently appearing in Godiscussions: it would be great to save sgf files directly to the hard disk. Some users had tried it combining several tools, which made it a quite complex procedure for anyone but tech-savvy players.

Unless you’ve been living in another world, you’ll already have noticed the users migration from Godiscussions to Lifein19x19 with both administrators agreement. So the original GD discussion moved on to the new forum. By the way, I just happened to register in Lifein19x19 with the same nick: Alejo. The structure of the forum is very similar and the registration process is totally painless and just takes a minute.

On the Computer Go section, we can see this software announced:

From the video above, the result looks quite promising. Stone detection is very good and the program detects in-game board rotations. Though the video is quite limited and we can’t see all its features, adding a territory counter, while not very difficult, would be quite useful. On the other hand, the developer still hasn’t decided whether to release it freely or not, so we’ll have to wait for the final decision.

While writing the previous lines I’ve started wondering about possible software combinations for these tool. How would this affect the Go software market if this application was embedded in SmartGo or Moyo Go Studio?

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

May 19

2010-05-20T17:29:44Z

Re-defining the classics

2010-05-18T10:29:07Z

When a player, currently enjoying their third or forth decade, is asked about a classic game from his childhood, there are high numbers that Monopoly, Risk or Clue come out among the first places. The time when these games were considered with high standards has long passed away. Today, I can’t imagine a gamer (i.e. a person who often plays games) trying to teach Risk or Monopoly to his son. It would be unbearable, it’s not just the amount of time it would require for both to be able to enjoy a game or the effort input to move a 8-years-old boy’s eyes from the videoconsole the slightly boring and dull board of Monopoly.

Being close to my thirties, I’m starting to see some couples around myself with newborn. Obviously, I’m not going to try teaching Go to someone younger than 3, he would certainly eat the stones!! But the minimum recommended age for “The Kids of Catan” are 4 years; and I can tell you I’ve seen one enjoying it with just a hand. Hey, wait a second, Blokus can also be played with 5 years!! Though I lack experience on this game, I’m quite convinced both parents are children are equally matched on the board.

With 6 years, you can already make videoreviews on boardgames. If you don’t trust me, just check Games with Hayden. In fact, there is another family where both children, not aged the same, make videoreviews and comment on them, so you can understand their thoughts on the game.

Shortly afterwards, we find ourselves with the 8-10 frontier with great games which both adults and kids can enjoy at the same level… or not, I’m certain I would have been better at Ubongo than I’m right now. But here we have some educational gems and, in order to avoid making this post too long, I’ll comment on just a game.
“The Settlers of Catan”, hands-down one of the best gateway games: resource management, a bit of strategy, commerce and negotiation, with some randomness played in just 60-90 minutes. Unless you haven’t been in Earth during the last 15 years, you’ll know what I talking about, if you don’t… then watch this reviews and buy it, the other option would be to buy it straight away, without watching the reviews. A complete must-have.
So current kids will find themselves playing The settlers of Catan, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, Dominion or Bohnanza, when we used to play Monopoly (endless 4 hours games), and Risk (did I already say endless long hours?). Videogames can be left aside by the eye-catching Galaxy Trucker, Through the Desert, The Pillars of the Earth…

When this children become grown-ups, what do you think they will consider classic family board games?
My vote goes for The Settles of Catan as the first option…

Some of you may think of other games such as chess, checkers, pachisi… though this would need a whole new post to talk about them, I’ll try to sum it up into a couple of sentences. The first two – chess and checkers – require the kid to endure intensive training if they want to play on the same level as their parents and this is usually reached within the arrival of mature thinking during the second decade. Pachisi and domino are clearly beaten by other modern games when it comes to enjoyability and interaction for children below 10 years.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

No related posts.

The Joys of Losing Many Games

2010-05-16T02:13:46Z

I have been playing on wbaduk and have yet again discovered what a mind game go is. I can win if I actually focus on the game. But if I have to play in a hurry or am distracted or annoyed by my opponent's unreasonable play, I do make stupid mistakes.

As in misreading something obvious or messing up a joseki I know well enough. Or suiciding while trying to kill my opponent. Very frustrating. And very clear that calmness of the mind has a huge influence on my go game. As it does on my life, but that is another story.