tobe

tobe was the handle of a strong online go player from the mid 90s to the 2000s. His identity was later revealed to be Jimmy Cha 4p^[1]. He would later continue to play under many other pseudonyms, such as tobeee.

tobe's rise began in the Internet Go Server (IGS) in the mid 90s. He rose to eventually become the highest ranked player on the history of IGS with a rank of 12-dan ama. Although he was a professional in real life, he played under an amateur account. Several game records show him giving as high as 5/6-stones to 7-dans and 4-stones to 8-dans.^[2]

In 1997, tobe would play a number of 'Friendship' games with other professionals, with the most famous being against Ma Xiaochun, the then second strongest player in the world (next to Lee Chang-ho). The match was played on August 4th, 1997 with a handicap of one stone given to tobe. Throughout the match Ma appeared to be losing exchange after exchange and giving up many stones. But in the end, Ma managed to come out ahead by 3.5-points. (See Tobe v. Ma Xiaochun, IGS 1997)

A second friendship match was in December of the same year and was a three game series against the world's strongest female player, Rui Naiwei. tobe won all three games.^[3]

The name tobe has also appeared off-and-on at various go servers. In 2003, he reappeared on the KGS go server. A couple of game records show him giving 6-stones to 2/3-dans. ^[4] In the late 2000s to early 2010s he began to appear on Cyberoro (a.k.a. WBaduk) as tobe7, tobeee and others.^[1][5]

Notes

^[1] Confirmed via Alexander Dinerchtein: http://gosensations.com/?id=2&server_id=3&new_id=864

^[2] tderz: (IGS matches) I got the results from a WinRar file with raw SGFs.

• 6 stones to 3d* players (W+)
• ...
• 6 stones to 5d* players (W+)
• 6 stones to 6d* players (W+)
• 5 stones to 7d* players (W+)
• 6 stones to 7d* players (B+)
• 4 stones to 8d* players (W+)
• black vs. Ryu* 7p (3 games: B+0.5, B+T, W+R)
• white vs. (Rui?) Naiwei* 9p (W+)
• white vs. (Jiang Zhujiu?) jujo* 9p (W+)

^[3] http://gobase.org/games/inter/misc/igs/etc/

^[4] http://www.gokgs.com/gameArchives.jsp?user=tobe&oldAccounts=t&year=2003&month=8

^[5] http://gosensations.com/index.php?id=2&server_id=3&new_id=1116