Chris Ball

Hi. I'm an AGA 1-dan in Boston, MA. E-mail: <chris-sl@printf.net>, Blog: Chris Ball, Web: Chris Ball.

2007-04-25: I played this magnificent B-2 bomber in a three-stone game last night. :) It's black to play.

2006-03-19: An awesome life and death problem from a KGS game, http://kgs.kiseido.com/games/2006/3/19/flyingo-twoeye-3.sgf . The question is the status of the bottom-middle black group, if W plays first. I like this problem because it took me three different conclusions of why one player was alive before I got to the correct one. :)

 

2005-12-06: A silly page wondering whether I've acquired the UltimateGoBoard.

2005-11-11: A beautiful (but sadly unplayed) squeeze from one of TheCaptain's games tonight; white to play. W resigned, missing that L8 (circled) captures B, and keeps W's otherwise-dead group connected no matter what the B response. Check it out! http://kgs.kiseido.com/games/2005/11/11/Rumburak-TheCaptain-2.sgf

 

2005-08-28: I'm going to mention some patterns I'm trying to see more often, since they tend to improve my games. Here's the first; black overplays the response to white's cap, and plays himself into a ladder.

 

2005-07-01: I thought I'd start putting some favourite games from KGS up here:

• macisajt(8d) vs. Kosai, 2005-06-27: My first (and possibly last ;) time playing an 8d! It followed the usual nine-stone pattern of being ahead until early endgame, and then losing everything; I was down to 10s/move at the end.
• Kosai vs. rs220675(10k), 2005-06-29: I'm really happy with the willpower we both showed in the centre fighting, and really unhappy with my fuseki. Comments on both appreciated!

2005-07-01: My rank graph at the BGA.

2004-09-09: I wrote a piece of software for interpreting photographs of Go boards and outputting an SGF of the state of the board. Lots of images and a movie at < http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/cjb/image2sgf.html>. Feedback appreciated!

2004-07-12: http://www.queena.com/clips/go.html is a great article.

2004-07-04: A small progress table. I've been playing on KGS for a few months now; my username there is Kosai.

Date         Rank    Time/kyu
2004-05-01:  20k?    One week.
2004-05-20:  18k     Two weeks.
2004-06-01:  17k     Two weeks.
2004-06-20:  16k     Two weeks.
2004-07-01:  15k     Two weeks.
2004-07-20:  14k     One month.
2004-08-20:  13k     One month.
2004-09-20:  12k     One month.
2004-10-20:  11k     One month (predicted).

Here's hoping I can make SDK before Christmas.

I came across this pattern in a game today (2004-03-01). I proceeded to start playing like my normal patzer self soon afterwards, losing b5-c5 after the cut on d5, and letting all of the white groups live. Are any of them ``technically'' dead, though?

Thanks for reading.

Black to play -- who lives?  

The first thing that came to my mind  

Quacki : The monkey jump at would kill the left white corner group. The stones with circle are basically alive (A white hane at , answered by reduces the space to four in a row, which is alive). I did not read out (if possible to me) . There may the possibility that white can cut and kill one of the two squared groups.

The first thing that came to my mind  

Velirun: The corner will just wither away and die on its own - no provocation necessary. Next, you can aim at an invasion on the top. Either 3-3, a jump along the left side, or using the two cutting points top right will yield a fine result. Here's what may happen lower left:

 

Velirun: Poor corner...

(2004-04-14): I came across this seki in a game today; unusual since black has no eyes and white has two, rather than them sharing the same number. I was playing black, and white resigned at this point -- perhaps seeing that he couldn't play anywhere without checking to see whether it was the case that I couldn't either. :-) Does anyone else have unusual sekis to show off?

End position -- Black to play.  

wow this seki roxs. thx for posting a ginormous board. my friend unbiquity 2d had a sick seki in a tourney game. I don't remember which tourney, maybe Oza, maybe '04 US Open. -meditation

I don't know if you're still working on image2sgf, but I think GoCam might be interesting, since the program seems to recognise the grid from the image.