CoffeeMachine/OldCoffee2005-2007

Sub-page of CoffeeMachine

2007-12-11

Ralph: There seems to be the common understanding that playing go does not make you a better person (Equating Go Skill with Intelligence et cetera). However I was wondering if people can positively report that honing the Skills one needs to obtain to be good at go, also have the side effect that you become very good at something other than go (for reasons of similarity in the structure of thinking). Has this been explored before? Not sure this is the right place, but I guess the Coffee Machine might be a place to start - if big discussions evolve we can move to a seperate page.

John Bickerstaff?: I hope it's OK to drop a line in here - I'm new to the forum... My thought on what I call the "noble" games (like Go) is that although they may not enhance specific skills, they certainly enhance the ability to play the game of life. Specifically, decision making, risk assessment, finding the balance between timidity and aggression, dealing with anxiety and tension and so on.

In my own experience, I found a strong correlation between Go and playing the "game" of survival in Corporate America - thinking in terms of "creating space" and "preserving liberties" in the minds of the my superiors has been helpful. It was a clear indicator of approaching layoff when I "felt" clearly that my "liberties" had been reduced to one...

As far as specific skills go, I think there's a close correlation to Martial Arts - Go shapes in particular seems to map well to the ideas of controlling space, feinting, and other combatitive concepts... At least I've "felt" the same sense of awareness of a "shape" when trying Martial Arts...

From a cognition standpoint you are getting into the issue of transfer. There is quite a lot of research looking in brain differences between professional and amateur go players that shows significant neural differences in professionals. For example, in life-and-death problems professionals tend to recruit entirely different motor areas of the brain than amateurs in addition to have more focal, concentrated neural processing during the problem solving. This is generally considered to be related to efficiency of neural processing in professionals, and the plasticity from their difficult road of go study.

The problem arises when you try to equate the types of cognitive or neural differences to other walks of life. As of yet there really arent very strong findings in ANY field showing that training equates to transfer to other domains. You may have heard of things like pianists and math, or chess players and visual spatial processing, but the truth is that outside of the domain of training, transfer tends to be of limited scope. Furthermore, experimentally, it is difficult to design a test that accurately guages performance in one domain and a completely other domain for the same underlying cognitive ability. Is visual-spatial problem solving in Go the same thing as when i parallel park my car? Most definitely not. So how do i look at parallel car parking and make direct comparisons to Go problems. This is a difficult area to draw conclusions from.

That being said, I know that go has taught me many lessons by metaphor that I apply in my daily life. Just recently Ive stopped playing crap kgs fast games, as I found that truly rewarding and rich experiences come from careful, well-considered, and respectful play. Isn't that something worth a little transfer into daily life?

2007-11-14

Chris Hayashida: Anyone going to watch the Oza today? I was looking on here, and I realized that it would be helpful to have a web link to the sponsoring newpaper's igo web page for each title. Unfortunately, I only found [ext] http://hobby.nikkei.co.jp/igo/ and I can't tell if it's correct. I can check later, when I am able to log into IGS.

Bob McGuigan: That is the correct link for the sponsoring newspaper's web site for the Oza tournament, and the game will be shown "live" there. Click on one of the red buttons labeled "Live". The left one includes a running commentary, the right one no commentary. You probably need software to read UGI format. The Panda-net client (used to be Panda Egg) will do this.

2007-11-04

unkx80: Microsoft Research Asia's Feng-Hsiung Hsu believes that the Go counterpart of Deep Blue can be created within a decade, via sheer computing power and brute force. See the [ext] Cracking Go article published in IEEE Spectrum of October 2007.

Makes a good reading, but not that I really agree with him though...

Dieter: The article correctly identifies the two major issues with Computer Go: the sheer size of the game tree and the lack of a good evaluation function. It then goes on to explain how the tree can be cut down to calculable proportions for a next generation computer but regularly makes assumptions about a good evaluation function whose existence it fails to motivate. I'm not choosing sides with the AI school really but I'm unimpressed with the conducted line of thought. This being the brain behind Deep Blue however, I should probably shut up.

hk: I'm sure he's a clever researcher, but all this talk of null move pruning indicates to me that he hasn't been keeping up with computer go. UCT is just better than alpha-beta for Go, there's hardly any question of it any longer. All these fancy alpha-beta tricks like null move pruning presuppose a good evaluation function, and no one has found that yet.

But whether a Go-solving supercomputer could be built is another question. How many simulations do CrazyStone and MoGo typically do per second? A couple of hundred thousand? I'm sure they could build a dedicated computer that can do a hundred times more. Will that play better Go? Definitively. By how much? I haven't a clue.

2007-08-17

Well seems like kgs's back (thought I'm still having disconnection/login trouble - maybe it's my connection again?)... But goproblems.com's down now... (And the page could really use some clearing... How do i move the discussions into a sub forum? Should it be posted as per-author posts or as a conversation? And there's the whole gp paid-for plus account to keep your attempts that hasn't been mentioned(?) anywhere on senseis....) Reuven

11PM - Ah never mind, it's back... god I'm such an addict... =)

2007-07-08

Still down? - or is it me!?

It is not you. See [ext] http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/showthread.php?p=40862

2007-07-07

KGS down? I need a fix ....

2007-06-29

There's an article in today's (UK) Times on computer Go:

[ext] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article2002699.ece

It's the most high profile mention of Go in the UK I've seen for a while.

2007-05-30

xela: Someone on a forum elsewhere has been discussing "viscous go". I think it's a typo for "vicious", but it's still an interesting idea... Mozart, in some of his letters, described how he wanted his music to "flow like oil". It's an image that initially surprised me--I normally think of water as flowing, but oil as more oozing--but it makes sense. A watery flow can splash and easily become messy, whereas a viscous flow embodies a certain sort of smoothness and connectedness. I think in my next few games I will try to play "viscous go"! (I'm tempted to make a separate page for this concept, but I'm not sure where I would put it.)

2007-05-30

Mmlvx: Has anyone heard news (or even rumors) about the next Toyota/aDenso North American Oza? It should be in about 7 or 8 months, right? I assume one tournament in New York, and a simultaneous tournament somewhere west of the Mississippi River... but where? And when?

2007-03-01

RobFerguson: So [ext] Umezawa of Hikaru fame, won the Female Kisei tournament. Now my question, is will her rank now change with the new Japanese rating system? I noticed that the previous champion was also rated 3p, which is surprising to me given the weight of a title...

2007-02-21

LukeNine45: Is this talking about the Monte-Carlo algorithm? [ext] http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL2053348420070221

Bill: Yes. I am skeptical of the claim of being close to pro level on the 9x9.

LukeNine45: I'd like to try playing the program they're speaking of. Anyone have a link?

LoP: You can play against MoGoBot on KGS when it is online.

Fenris: MC with UCT. UCT is an algorithm used in conjunction with MC to improve its efficiency by trimming the search tree. The UCT page on SL has links to some programs which use this combination. Whether any of them are as good as Reuters/the Hungarian researchers claim for this method, I don't know.

2007-01-25

Phelan: Just saw a post on rec.games.go which I assume was by breakfast, saying that he will explain the test problems in [ext] http://play.baduk.org/, this sunday, Jan 28 at 6pm GMT (21.00 Moscow time) on KGS (English Game Room).

Phelan(much later): Did anyone catch the lecture?

LukeNine45: No, but Goama said they'll send the SGF in the next issue.

2006-12-14

Remillard: I'm not sure if there is a page for these sorts of things, but my wife has started making Go related bookmarks. Her little shop is located here: [ext] http://carelia.etsy.com. Book not included unfortunately :-).

Phelan: How about Go Apparel?

2006-12-12

Phelan: Heheh, nice motto, velobici! Seems like something out of HumourAlmostProverbs. :)

2006-10-28

Warder05: I imagine that this might come as super-obvious to many people, but I realized that Hikaru no Go became dated almost precisely after its termination. What excellent timing! In 2003 (shortly after the end of the series), the new promotion system renders the plot of the last third of the series almost completely obsolete. In the Oteai world of the series, Hikaru plays the 3p Akira in the first round of the Meijin tournament. At the time, Akira had already been admitted to the Honinbou league. Under the new system, that would mean Akira would already be 7p. The series implies that low-dan players are unlikely to play high-dan players until the later rounds of the tournament. Thus, the culimating game between Hikaru and Akira would likely not have occurred. On the other hand, the new system agrees pretty well with the anime. Kurata 6p (widely viewed to be the best 'younger' player in the series) would be 9p by the end (after securing the Kisei title). While none of this is of great interest by itself, it's interesting to see how quickly the anime became dated by the changes to the ranking system.

Zarlan: Yes, and the komi also changed. From 5.5 to 6.5.

2006-10-25

Chris Hayashida: Why is there no page on Sensei's for Tadanobu?, the samurai that fought off his assailants with a goban? Someone more qualified than me should write a stub article...

Bob McGuigan: Kiseido's web pages on Go in Japanese Art have a lot of information as well as pictures: [ext] http://www.kiseido.com/printss/goban.html

2006-10-24

Chris Hayashida: This weekend in Los Angeles, is the Cotsen Go Tournament. It should be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it means that I'm going to be running around making sure everything goes (more or less) smoothly and probably my game will suffer. Anyone from here going? It'd be great to meet deshi from out of town...

2006-10-11

(Technical suggestions and ideas moved to page GuineaPigsFeedback. -- RueLue)

2006-10-05

BradJackson: I don't know where else to post this, hope it isn't inappropriate. I'm in Japan for a semester, my Japaense is not up to conversations yet, and the university I'm at (Obirin) doesn't have a Go club. Anyone have advice on where to go to find a game?

Since Obirin University is in a suburb of Tokyo, why not go into the city to the Nihon Ki-in ([ext] http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/img/img-e/tokyo-office.gif)? They have a playing room open to the general public with an employee whose job is to find games for people. There are probably people around who can speak useful English. Maybe some one there could suggest a place closer to Machida city. You could also visit Ben's Cafe in Takadanobaba in Tokyo ([ext] http://www.benscafe.com/en/).

BradJackson: Thanks. I'd completely forgotten to look for the Japanese Go association, which is pretty stupid of me in retrospect. Ben's Cafe also looks interesting, the weather is supposed to be clear tomorrow and I'm headed into Tokyo anyway (I want to see the Meiji Shrine in Harujuku), so I'll stop off there.

I should have specified that I'm in Machida, instead of just naming the university. Thanks again for the advice.

kritz Let us know how it goes! I'd love to play in Japan.

BradJackson: Regrettably how it went was that I got the flu and stayed home sick. I'm planning on heading out this Sunday though.

2006-9-14

RobFerguson: Are the cool demonstration go sets used at congress the same ones Kiseido sells? Its the MDS set at this link: [ext] http://kiseido.com/go_equipment.htm

2006-9-2

paradroid?: does anyone know where i can purchase an MB600 magnetic go set from migame for delivery to canada? migame never responds to my emails. it would be much appreciated.

2006-8-19

Bob McGuigan: Andy Liu, age 15, has just won the US Open tournament at the US Go Congress, with a perfect 6 wins to 0 losses record. One of his defeated opponents was Mingjiu Jiang 7p.

2006-08-16

unkx80: The diagram font changed? ;)

2006-7-31

Can anyone update me on the latest state of play at the EGC. I can't see any updates. IanDavis bored in work.

Phelan: Can't you access their [ext] Live News page from work?

2006-7-11

Hicham: Is the whole UGS project dead or is there any chance that something will be done?

I was really looking forward to it, but it seems people got enthousiatic and then it all slowed down and just died aslow death... If it is dead, we should change the info on the pages i guess.

unkx80: I guess the best way of finding out is to ask Benjamin Teuber himself.

jfc: I've seen Benjamin talk about UGS on comp.lang.lisp recently so apparently he is still thinking about it (2006-07-13). Whether UGS will ever get beyond the "dreaming of utopia" stage is open to debate.

2006-6-27

Fhayashi: As I was thinking of random things while trying to fall asleep, I was wondering if anyone had encountered a ruleset where, upon running out of byo-yomi (whether traditional or Canadian), one simply loses his turn instead of losing the game? For the purpose of kos and such, it would be the same as passing, though it wouldn't count as a pass in terms of ending the game. Any thoughts?

Hu: I like it!

Fhayashi: It's hard to imagine that someone hasn't thought of it before, though...

blubb: Just stumbled accross this - nice idea!

2006-6-18

ilan: Today on Cyberoro: [ext] http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/KF.JPG

Fhayashi: link appears broken... what was it?

ilan: Sorry, I know that that doesn't always work, but I don't know of another way to show pictures here. I think it might be working now, otherwise, instead you can see the picture on my page [ext] http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/ but that way, you'll have to suffer through my other ramblings. Anyway, it has to do with the soccer match.

http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/KF.JPG

2006-6-16

Dieter: This is what gobase says about the NHK cup:

The 54th NHK Cup took off. The world largest professional hayago (fast go) tournament is one of the few tournaments where both men and female can join the same competition.

Is that really so???

Dave: This is an odd statement. All female pros are able to join all the open tournaments in Japan. In addition, the NHK cup (one game a week, broadcast on Sundays at noon on NHK) is obviously smaller than the Ryusei cup (two games a week, broadcast on Friday and Sunday evenings on Igo/Shogi channel) in Japan.

RichardHunter: I agree this statement is odd. I can guess what the author is trying to say. The participants in the NHK cup are all selected by invitation and this includes female title holders, so there are guaranteed to be female players in the tournament. In the open titles, female players can play in the preliminary rounds, but rarely make it to the main tournament.

2006-06-01

RobFerguson: As I am still celebrating my pi kyu-ness, I have a question for all you mathy types. At the tournament where I archived near perfection (not in games, but in rank number), someone asked "are there any equilateral triangles on a go board?" I submit the following for peer review with the help of my friend Jim Martino:

Look at the formula for the cosine of the angle @ between two vectors v and w:

cos @ = v*w / (||v|| ||w||)

Take the set of all points in the plane which have both coordinates rational; pick any point x to base at, and form v and w by choosing any two points y and z which are the same distance away from x, so that v=vector from x to y and w = vector from x to z. If the points all have rational coordinates, then formula above applied to v and w has a rational right-hand side. (Since v and w have the same norm, the square roots go away). This means that @ needs to have a rational cosine; but the cosine of 60 degrees is irrational.

Is there a generalization as to exactly what kinds of triangles can be put on a grid?

Short answer: the tangens of each angle has to be rational. Long answer: [ext] http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/beeson/Papers/triangle.pdf

x is okay, but maybe y isn't. I'll get back to you :)

Chris Hayashida: Just out of curiosity, did you take into account that the Go board isn't square? I don't know what the ratio of x/y is, but I'm sure that's listed somewhere. What if the y-axis was marked in increments of sqrt(3)?

RobFerguson: Nope makes no difference. Integer problems are tough, but the guy above proved it very well. Here is a simpler link: [ext] http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath261.htm

FredK: I think there is a misunderstanding here. If the vertical distance between grid points were sqrt(3), as suggested, while the horizontal distance were 1, then you certainly could get an equilateral triangle: Let the base be given by three points in a horizontal row --i.e. length 2-- and let the top vertex be the grid point directly above the center of the base, giving a height of sqrt(3). (I don't know how to make a diagram here.) The resulting triangle is equilateral, as Chris Hayashida surely had in mind. The Beeson paper cited above concerns lattices with integral lattice points, i.e. equal unit distances in the different coordinate directions.

In fact, if the vertical incremental distance were an arbitrary positive number (while the horizontal increment remained 1), then on such a Go board with sufficiently many points (a mega-Go board?) one could find a triangle whose angles would all be arbitrarily close to 60 degrees.

2006-05-31

Dudzik: Has anybody seen [ext] this ad? Hilarious, and kind of disturbing.

Velobici: The board position is disturbing, as is the way he's holding that go stone. The filtered cigarettes are disturbing as well. For the full Turkish and domestic tabacco taste unfiltered is the way to go. Given the way the game is going its no surprising that Black appears so angry. I can just see the beverage girl shaking her head as she looks at the board from behind Black.

zinger: OK, I give up. What's wrong with the board position?

kind?: hey who knows there are lot of go masters maybe he is that kind of guy who set it up so it looks like loosing but is winning lol (maybe that is why the guy is called smart in ad ;p

   but i just think he smoked too much and can't really tell if he sucks or he is good lol

peterius: frighteningly intense smoker's board:

[Diagram]
 


I think I screwed up the lower left hand corner, partly because the shoulder of "the man from the east" cuts it off. But more importantly, I bet that 70s ad model doesn't know how to play Go and I bet the game is just a straight up copy of some famous game. Anyway, if you find errors and want to fix up the board, please do.


2006-05-30

RobFerguson: So official ranks have been updated, and as of today my rank is 3.14 kyu. That's right my rank is pi!!! All day I've been considering quitting tournaments forever. Truly, how will I ever beat pi? Well, instead of quitting I'm thinking I now have to go for e kyu. I haven't decided what that EQuals tho...

Velobici: Well, the only thing to do is reach Pi Dan.

Dieter: Most people are i dan already ...

2006-05-24

Dieter: I've been replaying a lot of Gu Li's games lately. It very much feels like replaying Go Seigen. The same surprise sequences that seemingly invite disaster but somehow give an equal local result that becomes favourable globally. More importantly, ko is a major key to victory in Gu's games.

RobFerguson: When I meet a stronger player I like to ask them "who is your favorite player?" Lately, many people have started to tell me Gu Li. The second most common is Cho U. I prefer to emulate Cho U's style, but I find Gu Li's to be more interesting. Is Gu Li your favorite player Dieter?

Dieter: Definitely. But there is some bluff in there. Show me 9 games, three Black, three White and three not involved and let me guess. Not too confident I'll score better than 3.


Rob?: I noticed that Cyberoro is not on the RankWorldwideComparison. How does it compare with KGS? (Sorry if this should go on another page).

Velobici: Please add Cyberoro and your rank on whichever servers you use regularly.

2006-05-21

Bill: Charles Matthews has recently referred to the concept that go is a flowing game. I did a title search for "flow" and found that SL has no pages with "flow" or "flowing"! Maybe we need a page or two about the flow of the stones.

Bob McGuigan: Wouldn't haengma be involved somewhat with flow of stones? Seems this would be a big topic, though.

Bill: Yes, I think that haengma is definitely a synonym or related concept. And it is a big topic. That's why I was surprised to find no page on it at all!

IanDavis: For me the concept of a flowing game (a lively dynamic game) is a little distinct from the flow of stones. However it would probably be a good westernisation to create something like the flow of stones, yes.

Charles We have a little on flexibility. A flowing game is really one in which a player (perhaps both) makes use of inherently flexible strategies.

Bill: Recently I have been playing over ancient games from a time that emphasized territory and fighting. I have been impressed by how often during a fight a player will make a play that says, "If you want what we have been fighting about, you can have it, but you have to give me this." (This being thickness or other territory.) There is flexibility there, but I think more of turbulence than flow.

Charles Mmm ... of course before komi, a game that was a natural flow would be Black's victory (other things being equal). So I can believe White had to think of both flexibility, to get off the tramlines, and causing some sort of disruption. So I can believe what you say.

2006-04-29

P7A77: I've been wanting a PDA for recording games for a while. An opponent in a tournament today was using an old Palm III. I never thought there'd be software for something that low-res. So. What's the oldest, cheapest, most basic, but still completely usable for recording games in color? I'm mostly interested in utility, so no other bells or whistles, tho' high res is desired if it's not too expensive. Recommendations for models I could find used?

Chris Hayashida: I have had good luck with the monochrome Palms. They have really good battery life, and I'm sure you can get them for cheap now. PilotGOne is the way to go for a Palm OS device. Check out more information listed under Palm Pilot.

Zarlan: For monochrome Palms, I recommend older models. The new ones aren't as good. Well at least not as good as the old Palm m500, which I have. The only annoying thing about PalmGOne?, is that it can't use SGF-files on the card.

2006-04-27

Anonymous: Three things for today:

1) KGS ratings suck. Everyone I know who plays regularly ends up making multiple accounts which settle with several stone differences. 2) I believe coffee should be the official drink of go, and nutella and bananas should be the official food of go. 3) K9 is the hand of dog.

This is all.


ilan: I agree with you, as my KGS account states that K9 is my favourite move. However, to me, smarties are the perfect go food.

2006-04-25

Bill: In the discussion about the political correctness of oriental, Dieter mentioned that neger has been banned from the Dutch dictionary. Many Americans pronounce the name of the current governor of California as though it were spelled, Schwarzeneger. That made me think that it was similar to the English name, Blackmore (black + moor). But it is really spelled, Schwarzenegger, which is quite different. ;-)

Velobici: There are a couple different possible sources of Schwarzenegger. One is Schwarzeneck (Dark Hamlet, Shadowed Village), so that Schwarzenegger is a person from Schwarzeneck. The other is Schwarzen egger which derives from Schwarzen acker, so that Schwarzenegger means Dark Plowman, or Dark Farmer.

Zarlan: Wikipedia seems to agree on Dark Plowman

Bill: Isn't there a place called Schwarzenegg?

Velobici: There are several in Austria and Switzerland...your question made me look. ;) Adding er to the end of a place name or profession is a common method of creating family names, common in both English and German (Farmer, Baker). Not so different from adding man to place names and adjectives (Hauptmann, Eichman).

amc: my German is absolutely horrid, but here in Switzerland, "egge" is a shop, I believe. Could there be any relation to that? I don't know if the term is purely swiss or if Hauptdeutsch shares it.

Velobici: Please dont take the two possible derivations above as being exclusive of other possible sources. The bottom line is that I dont know the derivation. The two I mentioned are possibilities. Wikipedia mentions only one possible derivation, as is there standard practice, select a single possibility as correct, ignoring all other valid possibilities.

2006-04-16

I have been trying to log on to KGS for the last twelve hours with no luck. Has it gone down?

  • Due to problems with the ISP provider the web pages are down and so you cannot log in through the web interface. You can log in using the client with no problems.
    • I was using the client. I had to restarted the client to get it to connect me. So the ISP problems is not just with the web pages.

2006-04-15

Reuven: I just noticed that Japanese Go Term has term which aren't included in Go Terms. Some however are simply words in japanese such as amai for weak. If it's considered a go term, shouldn't it be added to the later? Basically what I'm asking is wherether "big point", "weak", "heavy" and other descriptions are go terms or just words in another language..?

Bill: I regard the Japanese Go Term page as an aid for people to read Japanese go material. It does not bother me if a word is a go term or just regular Japanese (although there is no point in posting a full Japanese dictionary ;-)). As for your particular examples, I would say that oba, amai, and omoi are Japanese go terms.

Bob McGuigan: Also, ordinary words have special meanings related to go. For example "heavy" is certainly a common English word but its meaning in go is not very obvious from the common usage. Same goes for Japanese words.

2006-04-07

Chris Hayashida: Does anyone have any details about Lee Sedol's win in the Maxim Cup? The AGA E-journal made said that Choi Cheolhan was confused about the byouyomi, but it didn't say anything else. Anyone know more of the story?

Chris Hayashida: Well, it looks like I have to answer my own question. The AGA E-journal reports that Choi thought that there were three byouyomi periods, but there was only one, so he lost on time when the first byouyomi period expired.

2006-03-10

GoDiscussions: I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new Go forum site, [ext] GoDiscussions.com. I believe the Go community could use a more user-friendly alternative to rec.games.go and I hope you'll check it out.

ilan: I was on KGS the other day, and I noted that the chat was about the latest and most popular video games (I'm so out of touch I had to do searches to understand the acronyms). It seems to me that KGS might be changing and that there are many more teenagers and children, as opposed to a couple of years ago, when it was mostly middle aged pseudo-intellectual dilletantes (like myself). For that reason, I have hope for the progress of Western Go.

Dieter: Maybe you are so out of touch that you mistakenly assume that chatting about videogames points to teenagers ... Where I work, occasionally a LAN-party is held. Average participant is 30 years old.

Chris Hayashida: True, but I think 30 years old is young for a Go player. And we all act like teens and children, so I wouldn't be surprised if we were confused for them online. :)

DrStraw: The average age of players on KGS is definitely much lower than it was when it started 6 years ago. I have noticed a steady decrease over the last 2 or 3 years. I have also noticed a steady increase in the number of double-digit kyus whose goal is to become pro. They are just about always teenagers (or younger) who found the game through Hikaru no Go. I hope that the disillusionment when they realize that this is most unlikely to happen will not lead them to abandon the game.

ilan: Well, as one of the many exponents of the Fischer Boom (I started playing chess seriously on August 15, 1972), I can attest to the fact that some relatively strong players emerge from these fads. The only thing that worries me is the current "sliding scale" KGS ratings which are progressively getting harder, where improvement is not just measured by increasing ranking, but by harder rankings. As far as I can tell, this has discouraged many players who started at the same time as me and who would have been 1D KGS in the last year (according to 2004 ratings) but whose ratings have in fact dropped.

Bob McGuigan: Could this be due to games tending to be between people of similar rank? If 5k people only play 5k people, for example, they will all be improving at roughly the same rate but their ratings won't improve in general so, in fact, the ratings will get tougher.

ilan: This phenomenon explains tougher ratings, but I don't think it's any worse now than it ever has been, so doesn't explain the sharp sudden decrease in KGS ratings in the last 18 months.

kokiri: has there been a noticeable drift in western rankings over time? The impression seems to be that Japanese amateur rankings have slipped (over the long term) but the arrival of the servers with tough ratings systems and the introduction of the european ratings list (or whatever it's called) seem to be two forces at least preventing ongoing slippage in europe. As a fully paid up member of the Go Ratings & Aglorithms Sceptics Society, the KGS ranking system has been a sole source of comfort in a cold world...

fhayashi: so... is that why I stay at the same rank or go backwards in rank with each additional go book I read?

MarkusKoivisto?: That might actually have more to do with the fact that go knowledge is not the same as go ability. Even if you had a sound opening and a good strategy, you will lose to someone who has no strategical knowledge but is a strong fighter. No amount of strategy is worth anything without the tactics to back it up.

Velobici: It has been said that Reading is Everything. Then again, Direction of Play is Everything Too.

blubb: That statement asks for normalization. ;)

Bill: Nothing is everything.

2006-03-09

I got kicked off around that time too.KGS has let me back on now though. -griffin

2006-02-27

KGS kicked me off at 4:00PM EST, and is now saying it's refusing connections. Are others getting this? -NickGeorge

2006-02-15

Does anyone know if the set of Chinese bowls type B from Hebsacker Verlag would be large enough for size 31 (8.4mm) stones?

Thanks, Kamiru

2006-02-06

Steve Kroon: Hi folks!

I'm organising the African qualifier for the World Go Oza, and we'd like to attract as much interest as possible. If anyone could translate the following for me into Chinese, Japanese and/or Korean, I'd much appreciate it. It's to be attached to a poster.

"African qualifying stage of Toyota-Denso World Go Oza to be held with South African Open Go Championships upstairs in the "Neelsie" in Stellenbosch, 24-26 February 2006. Details at the website below (unfortunately English only)."

Many thanks.

unkx80: Possible Chinese translation: 第三届丰田杯非洲区代表资格选拔赛将于2006年2月24日至26日与南非围棋公开锦标赛同时举行,地点为Stellenbosch的Neelsie室。预知更多详情,请观看以下网业(英文)。

Reads roughly: [[第三届/3rd] [丰田杯/Toyota-Denso cup] [非洲区/African area] [代表/representative] [资格/qualifying] [选拔赛/selection competition]] [将于/will be at] [2006年2月24日至26日/2006 February 24 to 26] [与/and] [[南非/South African] [围棋/Go] [公开/open] [锦标赛/championships]] [同时/same time] [举行/held],[地点/place] [为/is] Stellenbosch [的/of] Neelsie [室/room]。 [预知更多/To know more] [详情/details], [[请/please] [观看/see] [以下/below] [网业/website] ([英文/english])。

Note the uncertain translation over Neelsie. I have assumed that it is a room.

Steve Thanks unkx80. The Neelsie is a building with a basement, ground floor, and first floor (upstairs). How should I change your suggestion in this case?

unkx80: Oh, then change it to: ...,地点为Stellenbosch镇,Neelsie上层。 Reads: ...,[地点/place] [为/is] [Stellenbosch [镇/town]],Neelsie [上层/upstairs]。

Korean: 도요타덴소배 아프리카 지역 선발전이 남아프리카 바둑 선수권전과 함께 2006년 2월 24일부터 26일까지 Stellenbosch Neelsie 2층에서 치러집니다. 자세한 정보는 아래 웹사이트(영문)를 참고하세요.

도요타덴소배/Toyota-Denso cup 아프리카/Africa 지역/region 선발전이/selection competition 남아프리카/South Arfica 바둑/Go 선수권전과/Championship 함께/together with 2006년 2월 24일부터/from 24 February 2006 26일까지/to 26 Stellenbosch Neelsie 2층에서/at second floor 치러집니다./is held. 자세한/detailed 정보는/information 아래/below 웹사이트(영문)를/website(English) 참고하세요./see.

Steve: To whoever added the Korean, thank you very much! Also, someone sent me the Japanese translation by e-mail, so there's no need for that anymore.

2006-01-30

Hicham: Doas anybody know where you can buy Ing-stones?

Bob McGuigan & ChiyoDad: [ext] Yutopian sells them. The cheaper $20 set uses a different plastic container.

Caraoke?:

Kurokigoishi?[ext] http://www.kurokigoishi.co.jp/online_shop/english/index.html has some of the best product on Go equipment - or so they claim. If you're going to play often then buying high quality stuff from this site is probably a good investment.

2006-01-27

TheKro: I see in the [ext] Taiwanese prelims of the CSK Cup, Yang Zhude? was awarded an "arbitration win". Does anyone know details behind this? Was there a rules dispute?

2006-01-25

Hicham: Does anybody know if people still work on the UGS-project? I really liked the idea, but it seems to have died out somehow.

Chris Hayashida: As far as I could tell, there were a lot of kibitzers, but no coders.

2006-01-19

eng60340: Is there a html code or something that i can use. so that i can have a GO game/problem on blogspot ? (would be great if the board can reside on the side bar.. like chatterbox ) i have found [ext] goodshape applet... but is there another applet that can remember the recorded moves across sessions ?

ChiyoDad: Leonard Dragomir of [ext] The Warriors Go Academy had suggested [ext] ZGo Applet in his comments to my [ext] November 22nd Post. I don't think it will fit in the sidebar but it can be coded into your posts.

My first problem with these apps is that you cannot host the code and SGFs on Blogspot and would therefore need to create an account elsewhere. This is easy to circumvent since you can usually find a free host these days. The bandwidth and capacity needs are small.

But my second problem is that it still takes a little work to code these apps into one's post. I prefer to just focus on playing and conveniently typing my thoughts into [ext] my Go blog. That doesn't mean that I won't use them someday.

You can see samples of both used with Blogger/Blogspot on [ext] my test blog. Other applets that I've seen cannot be appropriately resized.

eng60340: thanks! Is there an applet that can REMEMBER the recorded moves across sessions ? (so that you can play a Go game in a blog)

2006-01-18

Kos: Well, I have a question, I hope that the Coffee Machine is a good place to ask, for I haven't found any article about this issue here. So: What should I do during a tournament, when my opponent forgets to press the button on the clock after his move? I was on my first tournament some days ago, and one of my opponents was constantly forgetting about this. I reminded him, but after first, uh... 10 times I got a bit tired of it, since he pressed the button after 1/3 or 1/4 of his moves. Should I remind my opponent every time or it is correct just to let the timer go?

Velobici: Quick Questions might be the best place for this. After you have reminded him several times...what more can you do? It is the player's responsibility, not yours, after all.

Chris Hayashida: I was on the other side of this issue. I forgot my clock, and was in byouyomi while my opponent still had 30 minutes left. I think it was my own fault, and I guess having to play quickly was the punishment for it.

Can they say that you played illegally, since he didn't hit his clock yet? I would think that once the move was played, you'd be able to move...

Andrew Grant: As a tournament organiser, I wish to second the comments above. You are not obliged to manage your opponent's time for him/her. Reminding them a few times is polite, but if they can't learn to press the clock after that, they're going to have to learn the hard way. You should be allowed to concentrate on your game without being distracted by issues such as this.

2006-01-17

Chris Hayashida: I had a blast this past weekend at the 3rd Toyota/Denso World Go Oza in Las Vegas! I don't know if there were any other deshi there. How was it in NY?

2006-01-14

New York Times has an article about Feng Yun which also mentions the Oza tournament. [ext] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/arts/14go.html?8hpib

2006-01-08

Chris Hayashida: Is anyone playing in the North American Oza this coming weekend? It looks like I'll be going to Las Vegas...

Jared: I'll be in NYC

2005-12-30

Anonymous: Perhaps someone more skilled than I can remove the WikiOrphans warning on the probe page. It isn't on the orphans page (it's extensively linked) and the warning itself doesn't seem editable.

RiffRaff: It's not the probe page itself that is orphaned, but one of its aliases. This is not necessarily a bad thing when SL standardizes on one way of referring to things. See also Yosumi vs Yosumiru.

blubb: I can perfectly understand that these "orphaned" as well as "candidate for deletion" warnings can be rather confusing when they appear at very well titled pages although just a single (and not even specified) alias is actually affected. To my impression, it would be clearer to either show the warning to those readers who are redirected from the particular alias page, only, or generally indicate which alias(es) a warning refers to. Anyway, this is no biggie, and I do not know if it can be fixed easily.

2005-12-26

It'd be nice if the Search results page contained a couple of handy links such as for Recent Changes. Or, why not just put the normal left hand bar on the search results page? Also, if would be great if when searching for titles the results page had a link for a fulltext search on the same string.

2005-12-25

Reuven - I think that SGF format should support linking as it'd be useful for every kind of file but normal game records - The ways problems, joseki/fuseki lists and lectures could benifit are preety obvious. I guess programs can custom support it using an in comment notes in the style of #nums like it's done with footnotes here, but it'd be best if it was widely supported... What do you think?

2005-12-15

Deebster: I'm trying to find a page I stumbled across before, featuring a Go applet that would highlight groups in Atari. Anyone got it in their bookmarks?

unkx80: Maybe the KGS how to play Go pages?

Deebster: No, this page showed the stones as squares, so that groups were a complete block. When a group was in atari, the whole group changed colour.

2005-12-12

ChiyoDad: Folks, like fatoudust, I bought myself a Go set from Yellow Mountain Imports albeit I opted for their Kaya table set. It arrived yesterday and there's [ext] an entry about the set-up and clean-up of it in my blog. I took a lot of photos so you can evaluate this set for yourselves. This is a follow-on to the earlier posts in [ext] my blog where I provided some eBay search and bidding ideas for Go items.

Feel free to ask questions about the set in the comments section of my blog. I'll answer them as best as I can.

Incidentally, it looks like YMI has gotten wise that most of us prefer kaya to shin-kaya. They've adjusted the starting bids of their kaya sets up to $145. Bidding for Shin-Kaya sets still start at $100. I won my bid at $128.

I'm still waiting for some replacement Yunzi stones from YMI (5 arrived broken). After these arrive, I'll wrap-up with an overall assessment of the product and their service.

2005-11-23

fatoudust I just got a good deal on a go set and thought I'd pass along the information. I was also wanting to start a conversation on good deals.

Yellow Mountain Imports has an ebay store where one can get a nice go set with a little effort. No, I have no connection with them aside from being a customer.

I just picked up a 2 3/8" dragon spruce board with wooden bowls and yunzi glass stones for a very reasonable price. The "shin kaya" or "kaya" sets are offered expensively in a "buy it now" auction, or one can take a chance at a $99 open auction. I've seen sets go for quite a lot, but a new auction starts the day after one ends, so bid a reasonable amount, and be patient. I finally got one for $120, plus shipping, but I'm sure if I'd been patient I could have gotten one for $99 eventually.

Honestly, the grain on my board is nicer than the ebay pics. I'm very pleased.

A few years ago I bought a 2" agathis board (veneered) with glass korean stones from Yutopian for a friend as a degree present, no bowls, for about $100, and I think my new set is nicer.

What are your best finds in the world of go equipment?

2005-11-15

GoJaC: I was looking around on Sensei's trying to find something on something I heard somewhere. <g> It was something along the lines of "play 1000 games to reach shodan", though there were some other variations too. Am I not searching right, or is there no page on this here yet? I don't know enough about such things but I suppose I could start a "stub", commenting on what I've heard.

Bill: See Contradictory Information. I found it by searching for shodan 1000 with the full text option.

GoJaC: Ah, of course. Thanks! Never did search that thoroughly. I suppose that confirms a page does not exist. I'll consider creating one later.

2005-11-14

Question regarding Japanese: We have both Tiger Shape and Hanging Connection. On Japanese Go Terms, カケツギ (kaketsugi) is linked to Hanging Connection. On Hanging Connection, the Japanese is given as: 欠け継ぎ without transliteration. Can someone review these three pages and fix if needed?

Bill: I removed the Japanese from Tiger Shape and gave the transliteration on Hanging Connection. I am not sure about the kanji. The kake is usually written in katakana.

2005-11-12

Jared: The AGAEJ recently published this link: [ext] http://www.narahaku.go.jp/exhib/2005toku/shosoin/shosoin-1_e.htm Look for the 'Red Sandalwood Go Board with Animal Motifs' You will be glad you did.

blubb: Precious woodwork indeed (even though I favor less ornate boards). A little aside: did you notice the 17(!) hoshi points?

Bob McGuigan: Did you notice that one of the animal figures appears to be a camel?! Wonder how that ended up on a go board in Japan?

2005-11-11

unkx80: According to GoBase, the 31st Gosei preliminaries featured a very interesting tsumego on capturing race involving sacrificing 8 stones on the first line. Go check it out.

2005-10-18

I was wondering if there's anywhere where I could ask for help with [ext] http://www.goproblems.com/prob.php3?id=7471 - particularly constructive criticism about the correctness of other covered (or even uncovered) moves...? - Reuven

[Diagram]
19x19 HnG ep 11 - Retaliation by Sai  

Any idea who the players were? - Reuven

2005-10-15

[Diagram]
Breaking through  

Bob Myers: I'm thinking of adding some material on "breaking through" (J. sakare-gatachi), such as shown in the diagram. Where, if it all, is this covered currently on SL? Is there an English term for it? Can't find anything.

kokiri - split shape I think. When I was around 5 kyu (japanese, so maybe 7-10k europe) I would often ask my teacher for advice and he always said 2 things - 'try not to make empty triangles, and never allow sakaregatachi.'

dnerra: There is also the page SqueezingOutTheToothpaste.

gojac: Is this sequence realistic? I am curious here why 2 is played at 2 and not at 3? What black response does white want to avoid? (Of course this may be dependent upon surrounding territory.)

kokiri - this is the point, i think - it's an example of bad shape. In the diagram, White ends up with two groups of (weak) stones separated by a single connected black string. Thus White is much worse off. With a crosscut both sides get cut in two and thus an equal fight can break out, but in split shape, one colour remains connected whilst the other is split and so at a big disadvantage.

dnerra: This sequence may be a little exaggerated but you will see many sequence of plays by single digit kyus that have as a result more or less the same as above.

Ian: I'm sure I've seen something similiar on GetStrongAtCrawl


2005-10-10

Thad: What is the "official name" of the images that appear in a game on KGS. I've heard them called avatars, icons, images, pictures ... ( Obviously they are not all pictures of the player, though I've heard them refered to as "his picture". Certainly in my case I don't looks as good as the photos in my olczyk and DrOlczyk accounts. )

DrStraw: Pictures.

2005-10-10

agro1986: Is it OK to make pages in a language other than English here? I want to make articles that use Go diagrams and Sensei's Library seems like a quick and convenient solution :). It's for the members of my club in Yogyakarta (which speaks Indonesian). Thanks a lot.

agro1986: Since this is a wiki, I'll be bold and create the page. If it is inappropriate please inform me so I can save the diagrams and host in on a normal site :).

2005-10-07

Chris Hayashida: The wildfires in California have spread, starting yet another flame war on Sensei's. Any chance we can go back to arguing about time systems? I liked that one better... :)

SirLyric: I still like Fischer time... :)

2005-09-30

unkx80: Just being curious: how many of these 12,000 pages are not aliases?

Arno: 1377 aliases, 1130 homepages, 2138 sub-pages.

2005--9-29

EdwardHammerbeck: Those of you who care probably already know this, but for what it's worth Little Golem is down again. Anyone know what's going on?

Ian?: It has an apache server page up earlier, maybe somebody is playing with it. (Just noticed I filled in the wrong date for my edit below)

2005--9-28

Ian: I've been trying to find out how many people suceeded in the AGA shodan challenge this year, but can't find the information anywhere. Has anyone seen any information about this?

2005--9-23

ilan: Well, it's been kind of fun escaping from hurricane Rita, like when I tried to find a motel room in Paris, TX, and the clerk told me they were all full up, and with much pity handed me a flyer for some church where they were serving free food. I had to keep driving North and finally found a motel with vacancies in Mcalester, OK, and the weirdest thing is that when I turned on the TV, it was showing a red go board with red and white pieces on it, and some serious looking guy was saying: "Chairman Mao made his aides play it. The game of Go is very psychologically revealing, there is the aggressive attacker and the defensive point counter." They then look at the position on the board being played by the serial killer, and the expert's opinion was: "aggressive attacker." I had this hope that the writer was an actual Go player, and would have the person say: "The mark of a truly strong player is the flexibility of his style, which is what I see here -- you won't be able to categorise him so easily." Anyway, it turned out to be the latest Profiler, FBI type show starring the versatile Mandy Patinkin (of Princess Bride fame). The show continued in its pretentious vein by quoting Samuel Beckett, though they tried to balance this with some humour by quoting Yoda. Anyway, it confirms my belief that Go players are overly representative of a certain type of pretentious, pseudo-intellectual poseur (I include myself in this category).

Otherwise, the trip to Texas was enjoyable and I did manage to play a Go game while in Huntsville. I saw this girl in a cafe with a Go board, and I challenged her to a game. She didn't want any handicap, nor did she want to play on a 9x9. I am not sure what to do in this situation, as I figured I could probably give her 5 stones on a 9x9, but she wasn't strong enough to know about ratings. Anyway, we ended up playing an even 19x19 game. She was quite aggressive and tried to kill one of my groups, but she started losing interest in the game when I saved it with only 2 liberties left (I think she was sure she was going to capture it) then she totally stopped paying attention to the game when I saved my other group. She had previously stated that she wanted to start a Go club in Huntsville, but I don't think I did too much to help that out. I think I was friendly, but it's not my style to play a teaching game, I just let people play and then I will go over the game if they are interested. Also, I don't believe someone can be serious about the game if they start losing interest when things don't work out for them. I think it is a normal reaction for a child, which is why one avoids playing real games too early, but this person was at least 18 years old. Anyway, what I learned from this experience is that I'm probably not a very good Go teacher. Apparently, she also met some other go players evacuated from Louisiana who talked to her when they saw her Go set. Maybe they will have better luck than me.

DrStraw: Interesting story. But for some reason I always thought you were in Paris, France, not Paris, Texas.

2005-09-22

Jared: Does anyone do Sudoku puzzles? If you don't know what they are, wikipedia has an article. Also, I just wrote a sudoku solver in Flash (my first Flash program) and that's available at [ext] http://www.jaredbeck.com/sudokuHelper

  • DrStraw I tried it a couple of times in the local newspaper but it did not seem particularly interesting. Completing it is pretty much an automated process.
    • Jared: Perhaps your newspaper published easy problems? Not all sudoku can be solved by process of elimination alone.

Chris Hayashida: My ex was doing these, along with kanji crossword puzzles in magazines in Japan. She's won a bracelet, about $30 US, and a PSP...

How come I can't win a PSP by playing Go online?

Dieter: Our newspapers are full of them, from beginner to "diabolic". I find no problem particularly diabolic. There are a couple of techniques which have enabled me to solve any problem in less than 15 minutes. There is some strategic, intuitive aspect, but not enough to keep me interested.

EdwardHammerbeck: Hi, my name is Ed and I am a sudoku-holic. Hi, Ed!

Zarlan: Both of the (free) newspapers we have here have sudoku. I kinda like them, though I agree that it is an automated process. I like to solve them, on the buss or train, when it is late. Partialy because I then don't have anything to do and am too tired to read anything in the paper. Partialy because my sleepiness increases the (realy low) difficulty.

2005-09-21

Chris Hayashida: Just a reminder: Game 2 of the 30th Meijin will be broadcast on IGS later today.

2005-09-19

Hu: Thank you to the anonymous person who edited the home page to remove the reference to the "Boundaries of Go" page. However, when correcting an inappropriate edit that is a major edit, please do not set the correction to a "minor edit". I was probably not alone in spending time to go to verify the nature of the edits on the home page, and I wouldn't have, if the edits had been left marked at "major".

2005-09-16

Steve: Has anyone got a link or information on the South-East Asian Go congress that was held in late August? It would be much appreciated.

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...

Truc: I, for one, welcome the change. Too often I see pages with discussion and content so mixed together that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I especially welcome this on the fundamental topics where potential confusion should be avoided as much as possible.

SirLyric: I definitely agree with the reasons why Discussion pages were implemented... my concern is that they aren't visible enough, which tends to (I think, radically) depress the amount of discussion that goes on. One of the things I liked when I first came to SL is that I could see the discussion - to see where players disagreed and questions people had. I wonder if we could get an automatic "Subpages" table at the top much like the Table of Contents table, or something similar. Just, anything so that people know that it's there.

Hu: An idea would be to have an option to append discussion pages to the actual page, separated by some divider that makes it clear that what follows is discussion. That way, for people who like it, they would always be visible directly. I might select this option if it were available.

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?

FredK: He devotes a chapter of his book Go Strategy to that advice. See my review for some discussion, as well as full publishing information.

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!


CoffeeMachine/OldCoffee2005-2007 last edited by bugcat on July 20, 2021 - 09:28
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