Pimenta

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Who I am

My name is Vasco Pimenta. I'm a portuguese aerospace engineer, working in Delft, the Netherlands. (not anymore, living and working in Lisbon since December 2006)

I've started playing Go around June 2004. I've learned a lot through Sensei's library, and it's also an excellent location to find external resources related to Go.

December 2004: I'm playing more often at KGS (Pimenta), and I'm currently 23k, although still with the annoying ? that everybody seems not to want to play against.

March 2005: I'm sort of stuck around 20k, and it's frustrating how hard it's getting to progress. I guess I must play more often and increase my readings.

September 2005: I've reached as high as 16k, but am now back to 18k. Sometimes my stength (in KGS) is abuptly changed in just a few weeks time. In the meantime, at the local club, people rate me considerably higher (12~14k), making it difficult to answer the simple "how strong are you" question at the start of a game with somebody I never played before.

June 2008: I've been back to Portugal since December 2006. I'm currently 6k KGS, and part of the board of the Portuguese Go Association.


Reading

I already own (and enjoy reading!) a number of Go books. Next you'll find my (necessarily pretty uninformed) comments about them. You're probably better off just going to [ext] David Carlton's Go Bibliography and reading much more meaningful opinion about many more books there. Or simply click the book's names below to go directly to their respective page on that site.

Please also bear in mind that these are all the books I have read, so there may be other, better books on the same subject that I don't know about, and therefore don't recommend here.

[ext] Go: A complete introduction to the Game, by Cho Chikun

I chose this introductory book over Charles Mathews' [ext] Teach Yourself Go for no particular reason, really, after pinning these two (plus Iwamoto's [ext] Go for Begginers, that was unavailable at [ext] Schaak and Go Winkel Het Paard) with the help of [ext] David Carlton's website. I was later happy to find that it is suggested as the companion begginers' book in Bozulich's excellent [ext] The Second book of Go. I only read this book once (perhaps I should have re-read it already...), and it's well-written and easy to follow. Would recommend it as a first book on Go, although really without any terms of comparison.

[ext] The Second Book of Go, by Richard Bozulich

This book was instrumental in my learning of the structure of a go game: fuseki, joseki, middle-game, endgame, etc. It is a very good, albeit short introduction to these and other aspects of the game. I dearly advise it to anybody that has just finished reading an introductory book, but has little or no understanding of either strategic or tactical concepts fundamental to the game. Highly recommended.

[ext] Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, by Kageyama Toshiro

Excellent book, read it three times already. It's written in an entertaining and funny way. It's difficult to pin down a range of players' strengths that should read it, because it really conveys broad principles that should be followed by players, strong and weak. You probably should read it immediately after the two preceeding books, and keep re-reading it as you become stronger, as you'll always learn new things you didn't get the first time around. This is generally true for all go books I read, though...

The author browses several subjects, from the opening to the endgame. Given the lenght of the book, these are not exhaustive chapters, but rather pointers and examples of important things. It's a bit as if the author is trying to teach you not Go, but "philosophy" of Go. Cannot recommend it more.

[ext] Opening Theory Made Easy, by Otake Hideo

[ext] Attack and Defense, by Ishida Akira and James Davies

[ext] Tesuji, by James Davies

[ext] Life and Death, by James Davies

[ext] Appreciating Famous Games, by Ohira Shuzo


Rich: Hi Vasco! Where in the Netherlands are you? Do you play at a local club, or only online?

Rich: Hey Vasco, thanks for your message. Hope you get this one... I play at Leiden, but there's a club in Delft. Ledien's big and meets Thursdays, Delft's smaller but very friendly and meets on Wednesdays. There are contact details here: [ext] http://www.gobond.nl/adr.htm Hope to see you soon!

TDerz: Rich & Pimenta, could you please come into contact with me? Rijswijk & The Hague are between Delft and Leiden.

Email me at [email] removethat.go.tderz@2005.nl (removethat) and 2005=xs4all or here on Senseis.

Hej Vasco, I read the problem with the keyboard. I have the same problem. I never can see the lower part of the board. Did you solved the problem ? Please let me know. I love to play GoSuite.

Thanks TeeGee? (teegeebee777@web.de)

RobAnybody: Hey, I sent you mail with my SLoT patch, but still no answer. Are you still there?


Pimenta last edited by 83.187.72.100 on June 13, 2008 - 15:28
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