Adante

Adante (born 1983) is a former psychologist and linguistic student. Born in the Netherlands but now living in Bucharest, Romania. In the year 2002 he managed to discover the game of Go and rose to 1d within a year, online. Years later were not as much dedicated to Go so his rank remained to be unbalanced throughout the 7 years of having Go experience. He now works as a clinical laboratory scientist and is now also becoming more and more active in the world of Go. Hence why many people all over the world rejoice at this refreshing wind of a returned Go prodigy!

He has participated in three Dutch national tournaments. The first one being a blitz tournament in Apeldoorn (2003) where he entered as 5k EGF together with a friend of his (Tom Mekenkamp aka hidden), also 5k EGF at the time. Both players managed to impress at this event and Johan(Adante) won 5 out of 5 games, claiming the title of being undefeated and winning a prize (Go Book). Tom, however, won 4 out of 5 but that proved to be enough to be the youth Champion of the Apeldoorn tournament (Which was all archived in the monthly distributed Dutch Go Magazine, thus making it worthwhile.)

Other tournaments with less success for Mr Adante were the Martini Cup (2003) and the Pandanet-Toyota Tournament (2005). The Martini Cup proved out to be an average display of ability for him, winning 2 out of 5. The A'dam tournament was just a big disaster. Winning one but losing the rest by not showing up the second day of the tournament. Sadly personal emergencies took its toll. This was also the last tournament in real life for Mr Adante, between then and now he hasn't been sighted at any other events. Which naturally is a blow to the Go society but mostly to himself for missing out on so much fun and experience.

In the near future all of his interesting games, tournament results and other noteworthy Go-related adventures will be listed here from now on.

2/18/2009 Today, well, a few hours ago actually, I've had the honor of playing Fernando Aguilar on KGS. He is an excellent experienced player (even managing to win vs professional players like Hasegawa Sunao 9-dan and Yo Kagen 9 dan in official tournaments) and one of the players to look out for when he starts a game, just to be dazzled by his interesting moves. The Maradona of Go. Although in my game versus Mr Aguilar I wasn't playing that bad but my nerves restricted me from reaching my full abilities so I turned up to be either passive or greedy at the wrong moments. Nevertheless it was a tickling experience that begs for more games vs players like Fernando Aguilar. One of my Go-heroes.

The game itself can be viewed on KGS or with a direct link like this: http://files.gokgs.com/games/2009/2/17/aguilar1-Adante.sgf

Since a while now I've been on KGS pretty much every day. Mostly chatting in a room called the European Go Brigade (EGB), where notorious and talented Go players gather to push their abilities to the limits. (haha..) Anyone is welcome to look it up and join the happy bunch in the EGB-room.

Highest rankings pertained:

Online:

• KGS 3d
• IGS 5d
• ORO 1d

Offline:

• EGF 2k
• Japanese rating 5d

My RL Tournament results

• 2003 Apeldoorn Blitz Tournament 5/5 as 5k EGF. (won vs KGS player Dragnslayr)
• 2003 Groningen Martini Cup 2/5 as 2k EGF. (lost vs KGS player flush)
• 2005 Amstelveen European Pandanet-Toyota Tour 1/6 as 2k EGF.

KGS players to idolize (fanlist)

• Younggil 6p / Yinkao 3p
• climax 8d / jia117 8d
• Aqua4 7d / Cornel 7d
• aguilar1 6d / BUM 6d
• goen 5d / SURARINBES 5d
• TheCaptain 4d
• dezomb 3d / k1412t 3d
• hirakawade 2d / TheClown 2d
• frankie 1d / sverre 1d
• LordCPop? 8d? / PKUChina 8d?

My Go Books

1. First Kyu Novel by Dr. Sung-Hwa Hong
2. In The Beginning, The Opening in the Game of Go (Elementary Go Series, Vol 1.) by Ikuro Ishigure
3. The Direction of Play by Takeo Kajiwara
4. Dictionary of Basic Tesuji, Vol 1: Tesuji for Attacking by Fujisawa Shuko
5. A Dictionary of Modern Fuseki: The Korean Style by Kiseido

Go Philosophy

A 6 Point Go Philosophy Copr. 2001 John C. Stephenson:

1. For those who like speed go, practicing mistakes will perfect them.
2. For those who take long to play, the worst move is indeed hard to find without sufficient time and thought.
3. The purpose of go is to make interesting moves and enjoy the game at whatever level one is capable. The benefit of study, discussion and review is to deepen enjoyment.
4. When rank becomes more important than enjoyment, go has changed from a wonderful game into work.
5. When winning becomes more important than enjoyment, go has changed from a source of wisdom to a source of deception.
6. During play try to do your best. This respects your opponent. Victory itself is of no practical consequence, unless you're a gambler or a pro.

If you have any comments or recommendations, feel free to submit them below!

Further information and filling of page to be continued.