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Araldo
PageType: HomePage
A warning in advance, this is a very boring page. Please leave now, before it is too late. A few fact about me. My name is Araldo van de Kraats, age 25 years. I'm from the Netherlands, Enschede. Student from the University of Twente, faculty Electrical Engineering. Almost each Wednesday you can find me in the "Theater cafe" with my club "Drienerlose Go Vereniging". Playing seriously since august 2002, first on IGS, but switched to KGS after a while. KGS accounts: Araldo, Araldor and Blitzraldo. IGS account: Araldo Tom account: Marvin (the paranoid android) Dashn account: Araldo I took part in the following real-life tournaments until now (reverse order).
Rank development: End of each month (Europe rating estimated)
Books I own, have ordered or have borrowed (#1 and #15 I don't own): I bought a lot of chinese go books, which are not in the list yet. - in order of first reading - 1. I don't remember the title of my first book anymore. Explained the rules, eyes, life and death and other basic stuff in Dutch. Borrowed it from the library about 7 years ago. 2. Tesuji, James Davies: Really good, finished it in just a few days. 3. Kage's Secret Chronicles Of Handicap Go, Toshiro Kageyama: I won this one in my first tournament, because I finished last:). It contains 9 games with 2 to 5 stones handicap. Lots of funny dialogs and humour in this book. 4,5,6. Dictionary of Basic Joseki (I, II and III), Yoshio Ishida: A few hundred joseki with variations, mistakes you should avoid and a way to punish those mistakes. Will take a lot of time to learn all this, another year probably 7. The Endgame, Tomoko Ogawa and James Davies: I've read only the first part about the theory, and was somewhat usefull for me. Maybe a little boring. 8. The Art of Go, Volume 1: Connecting Stones: Problems which deals with connecting your stones. However, I don't really like a book with problems only. Did a few chapters but is a little boring. Problems are not very easy though. 9. Attack and Defense, Akira Ishida: This is a good book. But difficult to implement all those ideas in a real game. A summary would be nice. 10. Keshi and Uchikomi, Reduction and Invasion in Go, Iwamoto Kaoru: I won this one because I won 4 games in my second tournament. Has some standard paterns in it and ways to reduce or invade those paterns. Contains almost only patterns with 3-4 opening. A little too advanced for me at the moment, I will start with this one if I'm 5 kyu or so. 11. Life and Death, James Davies. I have won this in the Apeldoorn 2003 tournament. Will start reading it soon. 12. 501 Opening problems, Richard Bozulich. This is really an excelent book. Each problem comes with a hint, what the purpose of the move is (i.e. make/prevent moyo, attack/defend weak group etc). First you can try to solve the openings problem without the hint, then check if it is what you thought, maybe try again and finally look at the answer. After doing 100 problems I really got the hang of openings strategies (that is, positions after about 10-20 moves). Note this book is not about joseki or fuseki. 13. Lessons in the fundamentals of go, Kageyama. Nice to read, but I don't think it will improve my go skill more than a fraction of a stone. I agree with the criticism on Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go / Discussion. 14. Dictionary of basic shapes?, Unknown autor. Korean Language. Difficult to use, since I cannot read a single letter (or character, whatever) Korean. Still it is somewhat usefull. A lot of frequently occuring patterns appear in it. The book shows what the standard reply is, and what can happen if another move is done or if it is ommited. 15. Get strong at the opening, Richard Bozulich. Borrowed this one from my neighbour. It has about 150 openingsproblems, about well known fuseki mainly based on 3-4 and 4-4 points. The answers are explained quite well. I like this book. 16. Jungsuk in our time, Seo Bong-soo, Jung Dong-sik. The first korean book translated into english. It is about 3-4 joseki. Often the josekis are discussed with the complete board in mind (or at least multiple corners). A nice addition to the Ishida dictionaries I think. What I like about this joseki book, is that they are discussed in more detail than the Ishida one and easier to read because it is not so much a dictionary. 17,18. Fuseki dictionary volume 1 and 2, Rin Kai Ho (japanese language) 19. Invincible, John Power. Seems like a nice book, about Shushaku's life and his games. Contains over 100 of his games, of which 80 are commented. 20. Tesuji dictionary?, Go Seigen (japanese language). This stuff is way too advanced for me. So difficult I can only solve like one out of ten correctly. email: a.vandekraats@student.utwente.nl Still here? I cannot believe it. Rich: If the latest entry was the Keizer Karel toernooi, shouldn't that be March? :) Araldo: Well spotted! And congratulations with your 4 out of 5 result in the tournament. Rich: Thanks! I only managed it due to an opponent's big endgame blunder, so you weren't the only one to suffer from that at the tournament... :) andywilliams82 i am new to go and have just started playing on KGS. i was wondering how you get your original rating because mine is just a question mark and i don't realy understand how the rating system works Araldo: You do not really have to know how the rating system works. Just play several rated games (on 19x19 board) against players who already have a ranking (some 28k or 30k players for instance). Then you will get a rating automaticaly (first with a question mark, but after a few games is disappears). If you win a game your rating increases, if you lose it will decrease a bit. This is a copy of the living page "Araldo" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |