Coffee Machine

   

Taking a break? Go ahead and add what's on your mind right now. Alternatively, take a look at some go humour.

Motto for today:

"Teacher: So, what you think?"
"Student: Scary, those cutting points."
"Teacher: Scary? Scary that's okay. Go game always scary. Chech, read, it's okay." -- Yang Yilun at a 2005 Go Workshop

(You may change the motto of the day, but please save the old motto in Old Mottos.)

2005-09-09

SirLyric: So, I'm not a major frequent contributor, and maybe I don't know, but does it seem to anyone else that there's less discussion on the fundamental topics since the introduction of subpages? I know that when I go look at a page, all I see is the statements of fact there, and the subpages are off on the left, almost invisibly stuck in the sidebar. Do newbies ever even stumble on the /Discussion pages that might illuminate some questions of theirs, or spark some new ones? I'm sure there was discussion on this when they were implemented...

2005-09-02

eng60340: is there an sgf player that plays back kgs sgf files in real time or double quick time for slow games?

Hu: The CGoban2 editor has a feature where you can set it to play back at a regular rate ranging from very fast to glacially slow. It is not real time but will mostly satisfy what you asked for here.

eng60340 there's a difference. timing differences will indicate to a beginner if there's something complicated in the particular pattern then...and hence will induce "deeper" thinking.

Thad: no. It will allow a beginner to know how long it takes the relayer to get a kifu and read it. Many SGF players can demo sgf in the same times as it took to produce the move. The problem is that none will scale the time.

eng60340 would help if someone can let me know ONE sgf reader that replays in real time.

Thad: qGo

Tas: Am I understading it right? You want a player that shows how long time it took to make a move when the game was played? Well if that information is not stored in the sgf, its simply impossible. But it would be a nice thing to have though. Someone with programming experience should make a recorder, a player and a new file format that does it.

  • DrStraw The information is available in the sgf format. Whether a given recording uses that or not is a different issue.
  • Tas: It is?? I've studied an sgf file in a tekst editor, I saw very litle information beside the moves themselves. (Player names, result, time the game took) We'll if it's there, then someone should write a player that uses it.
  • Steve I believe what DrStraw means is that the SGF format can handle including time information for moves. However, most SGF files don't include that information.
  • eng60340 kgs client records the timing info for moves.

2005-08-29

Bob McGuigan: I was rereading some of John Fairbairn's excellent material on the old MSO site and ran across an essay called Advice from the Kansai Kiin, which was originally part of their 50th anniversary publication. Each player gave a very brief statement as to what is the best way for amateur players to improve. One of them, SOnoda Yuichi 9p, made a particularly cryptic statement. He said "Don't attack and don't defend". This was especially intriguing to me. What are we supposed to do if we don't attack and don't defend? I can think of a few types of moves that neither attack nor defend, big points, for example. Tenuki also seems to be suggested. Anyone else have any ideas about this?

Malweth: It sounds to me as if his meaning is: there's no such thing as "attack" and "defense" because there is no territory that can be considered "owned" if it can also be "attacked" or "defended." In other words, do not attach yourself to areas of the board that you consider your own - neither should you attack indiscriminately (another Amateur way of thinking is that the opponent cannot be allowed to make any territory).

2005-08-28

Hikaru79: It seems that [ext] Go Problems dot Com is down ... this is the first time this particular site has had any downtime that I can remember :( Anyone know what could be going on?

2005-08-26

EdwardHammerbeck Is it just me or is Little Golem a little buggy today? It's giving me 500 Internal Server Errors and other garbage. I need my LG fix!

hexkid I get "Your games: 0/0". And I know it should be something like "Your games: ##/50".

2005-08-19

ilan It just occured to me why I might not be as strong at the endgame as I should be, especially given that my 19x19 endgame is much worse than my 9x9 endgame. It is that I play poorly under time pressure, and that the time controls I play under do not give me enough time to think things through. Basically, in any 19x19 game, I will always end up playing the endgame in Byo-yomi of 30 seconds, which just isn't enough time. My conclusion is that the best way to improve my endgame is not more study, but simply to play with a one minute Byo-yomi.

Chris Hayashida: While I agree that more time does help, I think that also some study in the area will also help speed you up. With study, you should be able to look at a board position and say, "Oh, that's one point gote, that's two points gote, but that move there is two points sente." Granted, you won't be 100% correct, and sometimes you might be way off, but at least you'll have the correct mindset, even if you don't have enough time. When you do have enough time, it'll help you to read even further.

DrStraw: 30 sec/move is enough to identify the values of basic moves but not enough to find endgame tesuji. But, there again, neither is 60 sec/move, except for simple tesuji. Study, is the answer, regardless of time limits.

dnerra: Hmm, I would have thought the opposite. With 30 sec/move, I can see almost all tesujis, but it is never enough to work out move values precisely, or understand all gote/sente relationships.

DrStraw: Exactly! Which is why study is necessary to hardwire the basic situations. And as for seeing all endgame tesuji within 30 seconds, try picking up an advanced endgame tesuji book.

dnerra: I know endgame tesujis have unlimited difficulty. But they are pretty rare in games in my opinion.

Bildstein: I think part of the point of knowing the tesuji is so that you can take care earlier to avoid those shapes in your own stones (perhaps?).

Bill: Ilan, when do you tenuki? Early in my go career, I would try to read a position out, and then, upon reflection, realize that it was time to play somewhere else! ;-) I also realized that my time reading the local position had not been wasted. The understanding I had gained about possible lines of play and tesuji, and about their relative size, came in handy later in the game, as a rule.

My suggestion: Think about local followups before you tenuki, and then you will find that 30 sec. is plenty of time in the endgame (as a rule). After all, normal play averages 15 sec/move or so, and the long huddles usually come in the middle game and opening.

ilan: Well, it seems that I was not expressing myself clearly. I am having problems near the end of the game, but not necessarily the endgame, more like the late middle game. In particular, it's when connections which were valid, start changing, due to increased surrounding stones. That is, it's the later part of the game in which lots of things which were true have to be recalculated, which requires time.

nachtrabe: I've recently become convinced that my endgame is a total mess and I'd like to improve. Can people recommend any problem sets, books (either in English or Korean is fine), or sites that would help me improve?

Bob McGuigan: One good book is _200 Endgame Problems_ by Shirae Haruhiko, 7p, published by Slate&Shell, their catalog number SSSH001. It's about endgame tesuji rather than counting.

2005-08-07

erm anyone has any idea if there's gnugo for psp ?

guest: There was a discussion about go on PSP at rec.games.go: [ext] link

2005-08-04

Proposal for World Team Go Champs moved to Proposed World Team Go Championship.

2005-08-02

Velobici: Velirun has found a supplier of Korean Problem Academy books. Is anyone interested in a group purchase? Shipping from the Far East can be rather expensive. A group purchase should significantly reduce the shipping cost. If you are interested please indicate that on the Korean Problem Academy/Discussion page.

Malweth: Relating to the topic of Go Books and Go Apparel, Note that Cafepress will now publish books on demand. Perhaps we can actually see books like Charles Matthews' Shape book in print. +

IanDavis: The self publishing option I presume would be a last resort. You can use websites like Ludo for that too.

2005-08-02

DJ: A friend of mine owns a small publishing house and would like to translate in Italian and publish some Chinese go books. I went to the proper page but I've found there are too many, including Japanese and Korean books...

I'd very much appreciate suggestions on which are the best 3 or 4 books to start with, mainly aimed at beginners/intermediate levels.
I'd really love if you could add ISBN ecc. Thx a lot!


This page is pruned on irregular intervals. Have a look at the page history if you are looking for older conversation.


This is a copy of the living page "Coffee Machine" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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