Table of contents |
Before there was an article of the week, we sometimes had a page of the month (mostly for good new pages).
Article of the Week | January 5-11, 2009 |
KomiKomi, short for komidashi, is a Japanese go term adopted into English. It refers to the compensation points given to white to offset the starting advantage that black has. Its value has changed over the years, and although it is now generally 6.5 or 7.5, it started as low as 2.5. The use of komi is now so completely ingrained, it is hard to imagine go without it. But just 100 years ago, komi was hardly ever used, and its introduction in professional go was controversial. |
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Article of the Week | January 12-18, 2009 |
LadderThe ladder is one of the most basic tactical techniques there is. It owes its name to its distinctive zigzag shape, reminiscent of a stairway. Although one of the first techniques learned by beginners, that does not mean ladders are only for beginners. Professional players are constantly contemplating potential ladders, and will often play a certain variation only if these potential ladders work to their satisfaction. Although most ladders follow simple diagonal lines, the presence of other stones may cause ladders to bend or shift. This has led to some players composing ladder problems, in which a player is challenged to read out a ladder trough all its twists and turns, often taking over 100 moves. |
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Article of the Week | January 19-25, 2009 |
Yi Ch'ang-hoYi Ch'ang-ho (이창호, also commonly written Lee Chang-ho) is a 9 dan professional player from South Korea. He is nicknamed the stone buddha, in reference to the fact that he shows little emotion and has a peaceful style, with which he yet more often than not comes out on top. Yi holds the record for most titles won, both domestically and internationally, with a grand total of 17 international titles. He is generally considered to have been the strongest player of the late 20th and early 21st century, and is still one of the top players today. | |
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Article of the Week | Jan 26 - Feb 1, 2009 |
Corner ShapesThere are a lot of shapes in the corner which occur regularly. To save yourself the time of reading out their status every time, it is useful to study these basic shapes and remember what their status is. This article gives a comprehensive overview of all the different corner shapes, such as L-Groups or J-Groups. It explains whether their status depends on whose move it is, what the result is (life, death, seki or ko) and how this depends on conditions like their outside liberties or additional stones nearby. | |
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Article of the Week | February 2-8 , 2009 |
Shortage of LibertiesShortage of liberties, also know by the Japanese name damezumari, refers to situations where a shape defect or lack of outside liberties changes the result of a local fight. Exploiting an opponent's shortage of liberties is an important technique, forming the basis of several well-known tesuji, and is used often in tsume go problems. In the example diagram, black would like to play a in order to make two eyes, but doing so puts his stones in auto-atari. This is caused by the shortage of outside liberties. If |
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Article of the Week | February 9-15 , 2009 |
3-3 Point InvasionAlthough the 4-4 point has many advantages as an opening move, one of its disadvantages is the fact that it is very easy for the opponent to invade on the 3-3 point. Even when Black has stones nearby, for example on one of the points a or b, white can still successfully invade here and make a living group. After the invasion, black has several choices to make in his response, beginning with the choice of which side to block. This and other choices depend on the overall position on the board. | |
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Article of the Week | February 16-22 , 2009 |
Two Stone Edge SqueezeThe two stone edge squeeze, also known as the stone tower tesuji, is a technique that allows an attacker to completely spoil the eye shape of a group, while at the same time severely reducing its liberties. |
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Article of the Week | Feb 23 - Mar 1 , 2009 |
In A Korean Baduk SchoolBenjamin Teuber and Hwan-Kuk Kang report on their experience of studying with Korean Go students (Yeongusaeng). They have visited the very same school that produced players like Yi Se'tol and Choi Cheolhan. If you have ever dreamed of becoming a professional player, this article is a must read! | |
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Article of the Week | March 2-8 , 2009 |
Haeng-Ma Tutorial for BeginnersHaeng-Ma is a Korean term, which means the way the stones move. It refers to the interaction between stones depending on their relative locations, and covers many important tactical concepts. This tutorial for beginners covers the basics in six articles, and is a treasure trove of tactical tips and tricks. A lot of good advice, will show you new ways to look at how groups develop and how fights are fought. | |
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Article of the Week | March 9-15 , 2009 |
Go SeigenGo Seigen (呉清源), is one of the strongest go players in the history of the game, perhaps even the strongest player ever. Born 19 May 1914 in China under the name Wú Qīngyuán (吳清源), his talent for the game quickly became apparent. He started playing when he was 9 years old, a relatively late age for top player, but by the time he was 12, he was already of professional strength. His excellent results against visiting Japanese professionals caused his fame to spread to Japan, and in 1928 he moved to Japan to start a professional career under the tutelage of Segoe Kensaku. By the time he was 18, he was already among the very small elite of the absolute top players of Japan, and it was at this time that he started studying the famous new opening strategies that became known as Shin Fuseki, together with his friend Kitani Minoru. | |
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Article of the Week | March 16-22 , 2009 |
Basic Instinct![]() Peep -> connect One of the fast ways to improve your go is to improve your basic instincts. These instincts allow you to much more quickly assess and respond to move by your opponent. The basic instinct move is the simplest and best way to respond to a move in almost any situation. Although there are exceptions, you can rarely go wrong by following your instincts, and they will come in especially handy in situation where you are short on time. This page gives you a set of basic instincts that any player should know, and should try to follow. | |
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Article of the Week | March 23-29, 2009 |
Beginner Study SectionSensei's Library's beginner study section is a real treasure trove of information for players who have just started. If you've just learned the rules, this is the place to go! | |
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Article of the Week | Mar 30 - Apr 5 , 2009 |
B2 BomberOn one of Sensei's Library all time favorite pages, learn about the awesome power of the B2 Bomber formation. It's deadly combination of stealth and firepower has turned many a game around. Even by simply showing up on the board, the B2 Bomber may completely dishearten your opponent, causing him to surrender instantly. It has been reported that the B2 Bomber was used to devastating effect by the child super talent Fu Ling Yu. For examples of the B2 Bomber's awesome power, see these tsumego problems. | |
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Feature of the Week | April 6-12 , 2009 |
A life with Rui Naiwei...Recently, Cho Hye-yeon wrote a series titled "With Rui Naiwei..." on her But the story isn't simply a story about Rui Naiwei, it's her story. The story of a young Baduk professional growing up in the overwhelming presence of someone so strong as Rui Naiwei. She freely shares her thoughts and doubts, tells about those decisions she learned to take for herself despite opposition from press and Baduk fans, such as not attending matches on Sundays. In short, it isn't the kind of sweet story about being a professional readers of Hikaru no Go are used to, but the story of a real professional, candidly told by herself. | |
Note: this is an external link! | ![]() |
Article of the Week | April 13-19 , 2009 |
McMahon PairingThe McMahon system tournament is by far the most popular form of tournament used in amateur go. It provides every contestant with interesting opponents that are roughly of equal playing strength. This page explains how the McMahon system work. How to assign initial scores based on playing strength, how to pair players in each round, and how to process the results. If you're always wanted to know what that wall list full of numbers meant, this is a good place to start! | |
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Article of the Week | April 20-26 , 2009 |
Joanne MissinghamEarlier this month, we featured a series of articles about two of the strongest female professionals out there. This week, we will look at a very new one. Joanne Missingham, a 14 year old girl from Australia was promoted to professional shodan last year. | |
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Article of the Week | Apr 27 - May 3 , 2009 |
Old MottosAt Sensei's Library's coffee machine, we keep a regularly updated motto. When it is updated, the old motto is saved here. These motto's may be quotes from famous wise men, from the strongest professional players, or just from some random kyu player. They are usually insightful, and give us a window into the mind of go players. The mottos show how they think and what they think about. Browse for your pleasure... | |
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Article of the Week | May 4 - 10 , 2009 |
Whole Board Thinking In JosekiWhole Board Thinking in Joseki is a series of books by Yang Yilun, currently consisting of two parts. The books take a completely different approach than the common "joseki dictionary" format. Each joseki is shown in context, and the focus is on how the context decides whether a joseki is good or bad, and on how to choose a joseki given a certain context. To this purpose, the book presents many problems, where the reader is asked to choose a joseki in one of the corners with the position of the rest of the board in mind. | |
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Article of the Week | May 11 - 17 , 2009 |
Data Collection for Worldwide Rank ComparisonRank - worldwide comparison is a well-known page on Sensei's Library. It mainly consists of a table comparing ranks over different ranking systems, both online and offline. While this table is widely read and often criticised it hasn't seen a major revision for a long time. For this revision, we need your help. If you have a stable rank in more than one system (be it online or offline), please add your data to our data collection. Thank you very much. | |
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Article of the Week | May 18 - 24 , 2009 |
Beginner Exercises![]() Example: Exercise 45 The Beginner Exercises series of tsumego problems is one of the most popular features of Sensei's Library. This series is ideal practice material for those who are comfortable with the rules, but are still lost when reading most situations out. These exercises will both improve your reading and give you a good set of standard situations to look for. Stronger players, well past the beginner level, may also benefit from doing these exercises quickly in order to train their instincts. And don't count on getting them all right the first time either! | |
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Article of the Week | May 25 - 31 , 2009 |
Nose Tesuji
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Article of the Week | June 1 - 7 , 2009 |
Rui NaiweiRui Naiwei (Chinese: 芮乃伟, Hanyu Pinyin: Ruì Nǎiwěi, born December 28, 1963) 9-dan is considered the strongest female player in the world. Born in Shanghai, China, Rui Naiwei began to play Go at the relatively late age of 12. She turned professional in 1985, shortly after the introduction of professional dan ranks in China, and became 7 dan immediately. She was promoted to 8 dan in 1986 and 9 dan in 1988, the first woman to ever be promoted to this level. Rui left China abruptly in 1989, just after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, moving first to Japan, and then to America. She now lives in Korea, where she competes in professional tournaments. In 1999, she took the Kuksu title, becoming the first woman ever to hold an open title. | |
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Article of the Week | June 8 - 14 , 2009 |
Find Position PageA long expected Sensei's Library feature has finally arrived! The Find Position Page allows you to search all the diagrams on sensei's library for certain positions. The search includes wildcards, allows any shape for the searched area, and will give counts for common continuations from the searched position. The position search can also be accessed from any diagram through the binocular icon under it. The diagram to the left shows an example, finding all positions where white has played a slide under a black 4-4 stone, with wildcards to allow for either a high or a low extension. Go ahead, try it out by clicking the binocular! | |
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Article of the Week | June 15 - 21 , 2009 |
Secret Art of WarThe 36 Stratagems (三十六计) Some 300 years ago, towards the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) an unknown writer published "Secret Art of War: The 36 Stratagems" writing down for the first time war stratagems which first appeared in the official history of Southern Qi about 1500 years ago. "The 36 Stratagems" is a military classic of ancient China and has its emphasis on deception as military art. Ma Xiaochun has written a book about their application, and here we discuss Sensei's Library's take on how those stratagems might apply to go. | |
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Article of the Week | June 22 - 28 , 2009 |
Tanuki no hara tsuzumiTanuki no hara tsuzumi is Japanese for The raccoon-dog drums its belly. It is the colorful name of a tesuji used in capturing races. The diagram to the left shows an example. In this position, because of the lack of liberties of the white stones, white cannot allow black to create additional liberties near the edge. The moves | |
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Article of the Week | Jun 29 - Jul 5 , 2009 |
Basic strategies list
These are but some of the many basic strategies listed. Some of these are so basic, that you may have heard them in the very days you started playing. Still, it isn't always easy to keep them in mind and to play accordingly. Try to keep the items on this list in mind at all times! | |
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Article of the Week | July 6 - 12 , 2009 |
Double crosscut to connectThe double crosscut to connect is a tesuji for connecting. It makes use of the fact that the opponent will run into a shortage of liberties with some of his stones by ignoring an atari that would otherwise save them. The diagram to the left shows an example from a situation after the tower peep | |
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