David's Go Dojo

I think my most recent game with Sam has come to a close, the borders are established and I intend to pass when he realizes there are no more points left to contest on the board. I do not believe he will allow the slightest weakness, but the game appears to be mine.

By a single point. Black 66, White 65.

We are already on to two more games in rapid succession. But I am grateful to have a new game record, and a new idea for iShudan: submitting game records to the GTL for analysis. Perhaps also a URL export that allows anonymous visitors and not just dojo members to view a game in progress… Long term games have the luxury of being well considered battles, and members of a dojo already have their email addresses in the database. The submission to the GTL for review could be made on behalf of both players and then the response is instantly useful for both people, all using the built in power of people volunteering on the Internet.

To do this would depend on us finding out how to re-implement the SGF export that was present in the original PHPGo. The URL export I’m thinking of is also similar to one of the main changes from PHPGo to Benjam‘s version, where the URL held both the player name, game name, and password. Less secure for sure, but on the other hand no registration necessary to view someone’s game as it is currently in the unified database.

Aiden is up from his nap, so we are going for a walk in the brisk October air.

Tuesday night is my customary night to play an over-the-board match of Go, so I headed to the Seattle Go Center for my game. I was there for a short time but there was nobody looking for a match, about 5 matches in progress. There are sometimes spouses and other non-go playing significant others who are at the Center, but not looking to engage in conversation or interact generally. After watching a few games in progress, I left to secure a quick but healthy-ish dinner nearby.

When I got back, there were perhaps twice as many people as before, although still no Jon Boley. Apparently he is away for a while, so other senior players take turns stewarding the place and greeting unfamiliar faces. I watched the end of a match on a 13×13 board, and once it was over was able to make some comments on the ending and contribute. I counted it out silently as an exercise, and so knew that it was over already but that playing it out was a learning experience and kept my peace. One of the interested watchers looked like he might be interested in a game, so I asked him for a match and we played a game on a nearby 13×13 board.

And so I came to play a game with Andy. He was a fellow novice, and had no idea of his relative strength, but was familiar enough with the rules to play a good game. I explained a bit about ranks, or stones, and then we agreed upon a 4 stone handicap on the 13 square board. It was very enjoyable, and tough to the end. Black ended up winning by around 15 points or so, which goes to show that a 4 stone handicap counts for a LOT more than the same on a 19×19 board! But all around, it was a learning experience; I got sloppy and let a group die that shouldn’t have and was meant to become an excellent buttress. I make good fast shapes, but then have to defend them well enough to make it stick.

I like thinking of a python squeezing out a shape; if another player is unable to make life in the “bubbles” on the board, then all the stones inside die, as if swallowed whole by a snake. On the other hand, I didn’t win, so I don’t get to give much advice…

I sent him an email recommendation on the spot and tried to warmly welcome him to playing Go on the Beginners Night there at the SGC Tuesdays, or online at KGS, or anywhere at all that he could find a match and a partner. He asked me what I thought the best way to get started getting stronger at Go was, and I thought that it was good enough of a question I would post a thorough answer.

(more…)

I am back again from a small vacation to see family in Indiana and to celebrate my wife’s birthday. I was able to take the game of Go along with me via a set I brought as a present for some interested family members, and got to teach a newbie how to play in the bargain. Jon may continue to learn after I have gone now that he has the tools he needs in order to actually play a game with his wife: a full board (my very first set, purchased more than 5-6 years ago), and the slim introductory book by Cho Chikun on learning the rules and history of the game, another early purchase of mine.

Jon and his wife Jessica don’t have much time or money to spend on entertainment, but they both seem interested in the possibilities of such a balanced board game, with each other if nobody else, as well as the mental challenge offered. I would be pleased to play more with them some day in the future, perhaps after they get around to getting some Internets…

I am also excited as I have received my copy of the GoGod CD and I look forward to exploring it more in depth and writing up a review, I purchased it with the prize from my entry to the AGA quiz, $15 off the full price for initial subscription. As was likely the intent, it was necessary to supplement the certificate with my own money, but the reduced cost was good nonetheless in prompting the purchase. I just managed to make it under the deadline for expiration, October 1st.

I am a bit further now in the Bruce Wilcox software which reads more like a book, Contact Fights. I am feeling very happy with that purchase for sure, as I feel a much more calculated appoach now in fighting with enemies. I have yet to prove its improvement on my game, but look forward to completing the study materials and quizzes soon. The style is very understandable, and straighforward. I will take screenshots and offer an analysis in the near future for others who may be interested in it.

I am at a pause with my game with Sam, I have resolved that I would like to fully play out the game upon my board and review the game so far. I was laying it out on my home board to renew my rememberence of the game and immediately found a few moves that I would play differently, so I suspect that hindsight will reveal more as I finish replaying the game to date.

I have also now helped two people get set up to use third party applications on the iPhone by loading the Installer application, and unlocked one of those as well from AT&T, and I’m committed to helping someone at work do the same to his phone. I’m thinking I might just set some kind of standard fee to do this, since it takes quite a while and although it is straightforward when you know how, there are some significant pitfalls and some of the people who have an iPhone just want it converted over to be able to participate in the bleeding edge without risking their $400 gadget. All of the stories about the iPhone bricking update have caused FUD that many non-technical folks interpret as bad things for the iPhone hackers. So the wheel begins to turn…

While I was away in Indy for the week, I had considerable opportunity to use and test iShudan using only the iPhone via EDGE. This experience should be written up into what is basically a use-case for the program and some of my reflections on the experience. The overall data usage is low, as expected, and the experience was overall quite positive. We already have a useful tool! There are two important things however that need addressed, and this is stressed by the remote experience: Takeback is vital, due to how easy it is to make a mis-move, and the export to SGF features are sorely missed from previous iterations. Now with the single database structure in place, it may be difficult to spit out a properly formatted SGF file of the game as it is, which makes it harder to use in other contexts such as review or posting somewhere else, such as to the Go Teaching Ladder or a review by another stronger player.

I will devote more time to writing and coding this week for iShudan, as well as studying my favorite game.

It has been a few weeks since I posted anything about iShudan. There are many new developments, so I think it’s time to set my thoughts down for others who may be interested.

We currently have about 5 people with different specific itches to scratch who are all listed as admins on the project home page. This is in order to facilitate subversion access to the code, and these are known, trusted associates of mine. Since the big “G” is hosting it, there are a variety of different methods for checking out a copy of the code for inspection that will be familiar to anyone who has used Subversion in the past. Personally, I use IntelliJ IDEA for checkouts and edits, I have a registered copy but there are free trials available.

One of the first updates was against a type of SQL injection attack, contributed by my very remote friend Sam. My buddy Adam has been working hard in the background on adding in support for the Ext Javascript Library. Matthew, a classmate from UW who is currently expatriated to somewhere in TN is working on helping me with the SQL-related portions of implementing a “request takeback” feature so that accidental moves (which I have found are common to a novel mobile interface such Apple’s multi-touch screen) or rash overplays can be erased from the game in progress.

Matt also has noted a particular limitation of the current design: all the games are kept in a single game database, instead of as a separate instance for each person’s game. This means there is an upper limit of people who can be online using iShudan at the same time, since each re-display of the board reads from this single DB. Matt estimates this limit optimistically at around one hundred connections. I cannot imagine this type of activity short of a Denial of Service attack.

Currently, I am troubleshooting a particular odd behavior that makes the reminder emails sometimes use a broken URL. The simple fix for my public installation (the Go Dojo) would be to create a symlink on the host where the dead end points. However, I find it confusing that this appears to be intermittent, and so I’m stepping through it in more detail since I’d rather solve this than just patch the problem.

I have also noticed that someone added code that will send emails if a game is idle for a period of time, but I have not seen this triggered yet, so there may be some flow error or it was never completely implemented. It seems like a reasonable feature, so I will look more at this When There Is Time.

I’d like to make a mailing list but it doesn’t appear that Google includes the necessary tools for this on their hosting site. I will look about for something else to fill that need, so that interested parties can talk generally about the code amongst themselves or listen in to the current dialogue.  I have received a few notes of interest on the project so far, and I’d like to continue encouraging other people to participate.

The next thing to do quickly is to get autodetection of the iPhone or iPod Touch working.  Then we can start doing some smart resizing of the view portal to the known size of MobileSafari on these screens. There’s a good thread with techniques on this here.

One very amusing thing I have done this week is roll a .app “package” for installing onto an iPhone. This is basically just a clickable bookmark which appears on the Springboard with a custom icon, and takes you to the main play page for iShudan. It is not necessary to run a full unlock of an iPhone to install the .app file; you just have to be able to copy this file onto the iPhone and then make a few modifications to the files to have it show up. Therefore it would be available to anyone who can run Nullriver’s Installer.app on their phone.

(Installer.app is the single MOST useful application I have found. This one “mod” for the iPhone enables a full package management system, similar to apt-get or yum. Anyone with an iPhone should try installing this at least once to take a look at what the homebrew iPhone scene is doing.)

This “app” isn’t a big deal, but it allows iShudan to superficially resemble a native iPhone application. Local techie Wil Shipley writes a great entry here about why Apple really ought to release some kind of dev kit and allow this type of work to continue.  Instead it appears they would rather than engage in a tit-for-tat war against the rest of the human race. Some people know Wil as one of the authors of Delicious Library, which is a great application for the Mac that is very popular and rather unique. This guy has purchased no less than 19 iPhones (!!!), and owns a few hundred thousand dollars worth of Apple stock. He’s not just another whiny random blogger asking for His Steveness to bend an ear and listen to the outcry against the “sweet” dev system currently authorized by Apple.

Much thanks to both the authors of iPhone Apper and OpenURL , as well as to the entire iPhone Dev Team and all of the people working to make this marvelous device more useful for everyone. “I honor the place where you and I come together.”

I came into work this morning much earlier than normal, as I was unable to sleep after about 6am. Shown at left is my Go board that I keep at my desk for demonstration purposes, as well as a bonzai tree I got last week at the state fair. The pattern on the board was laid out based on a pattern I saw elsewhere, showing the smallest possible living shapes to make with 2 eyes and the space required to outline them.

Here is a better shot, top down. It makes for good study:

I’ve gotten more interest from co-workers in learning more about the game from this simple visual exercise than anything else I’ve put on there since rescuing the board from my house… (it had to go when it was determined that the pieces look just like tiny candies to everyone in the house, including my one-year old.) I am going to sit down with one of the database coders on Wednesday during lunch and hopefully teach him enough about the game to pique his interest in playing further.

As for the tree, I’ve never owned a bonzai before, so I’m learning up on it now. There’s plenty of light most of the time, and my desk at work is pretty stable and safe for a small defenseless life form. Plus, I love the look of the panda meditating beneath the tree upon the board

Good luck in avoiding a “case of the mondays“, as it appears Fall has begun here in Seattle. The rain feels long overdue, despite the short summer, like a tardy but familiar friend.

I was reading around on a popular Go discussion board, and found a thread that had a link to download a movie based on the life of a famous Go player that was very interesting, Go Seigen. He has a controversial past, and during the time depicted in the movie, he is forced to make a choice between his homeland and his adopted family in Japan when war breaks out between the two counties. The historical and cultural background here is pretty rich, and recent enough that the subject of the movie is still alive.

I found an agreeable and informative review of the movie here, and I remember that either this movie or another with a similar title recently toured through the Seattle International Film Festival although I was forced to miss it. “The movie is a melodrama on an epic scale, an Asian “Gone With the Wind,” filled with romance and action but built on a foundation of Eastern philosophy.”

“There is also a genuine strength in the story, and in the feeling of epic history that it evokes. The movie employs a novel solution to the fact that most viewers don’t have the slightest notion of how to play Go; the story doesn’t require any such knowledge. Instead of showing individual moves, it evokes the incredible concentration of the players and then depends on their personalities away from the board to develop the story.”

I would recommend the film to anyone interested in watching something of this description, and reading into the background of the game depicted during the movie gives a look into the rich cultural and historical traditions embedded into the game of Go. There are some minor syncing issues but since the film is subtitled this is not overly disturbing. I will likely also put the movie file up somewhere else for download in case this copy becomes unavailable in the future.

Go is the next frontier in computer board game Artificial Intelligence. The game is simple enough for one to learn all of the rules in a day, but so far, no computer has managed to even compete with any professional players. The best programs in the world are beaten regularly by smart school-children!

My friend Adam has said that one reason he is interested in Go is because of the challenge that it presents to programmers and artificial intelligence graduate students. It is said that the game of Go will not be reliably “solved” in our lifetime by current non-quantum computing methods as chess has already been via Deep Blue.

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I came across this quote by a great man from the local area that I was reading up on, and it inspired me to begin writing immediately.

“A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You’re there now doing the thing on paper. You’re not killing the goose, you’re just producing an egg. So I don’t worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It’s a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I’ve heard about it. I’ve felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I’d much rather go fishing. for example. or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, ‘Well, now it’s writing time and now I’ll write.’ There’s no difference on paper between the two.”

Frank Herbert, 1920-1986

I’d like to think this is as applicable to writing on a web log about Go as it is to writing excellent science fiction novels. He has another quote as well, that I thought sounded appropriate for Go players: “The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.” Territory on the board is like wealth, or oil, or brownies in a pan, depending on who is explaining it at the time. Obviously, the ultimate goal in Go is to control the most actual territory at the end of the game. The approach is where the artistry comes in

I have lately been seeking out advice on things like fighting in close quarters, and am particularly interested in acquiring Bruce Wilcox’s “Contact Fighting” software, as I have heard excellent things about it, and I am currently reading something else that he wrote, “EZ-GO: Oriental Strategy in a nutshell” which I think is most excellent.

Here is an excerpt from a great section I was reading under the heading “Philosophy and Go”:

Go has a spiritual side, a reflection of Oriental philosophy. To concentrate only on the concepts easily understood in the Western tradition would not make a good Go player. To become a strong player, you need qualities that seem unexpected at first, but which can have repercussions in everyday life. Duality: In Oriental philosophy, everything in the world can be seen as the dynamic interplay of opposite qualities: Yin and Yang, felame and male, receiving and giving, rest and activity, faith and rationality. Within every individual are both opposing qualities. The West tends to think of opposites as opposing, whereas the East thinks of opposites as cooperating parts of the same whole. (…)

For example, the Western mindset is heavily biased in favor of action and often neglects the value of its polar opposite, inactivity or resting. Allowing situations to “ripen” and delegating action to others comes less easily to us. In Go, a weaker player is tempted to make overplays, feeling that the only way to get the opponent to make a mistake is to take action to force the opponent to pick badly. Stronger players are content to be passive and play a non-threatening peaceful move. They know full well that if you give a weaker player the initiative, the weaker player will usually pick a bad move without any help.

I am quite impressed with the book overall, and I am certain I will be purchasing additional materials from its author. I feel that he is definitely calling out some mistakes I make regularly, ie. being on the attack constantly and then running out of all the aji or potential gain in a situation. I very much enjoy the philosophical ruminations on Go and its nature. This section continues on to talk about radical change, cyclical change, preparation, and surrender, as each of these ideas apply to the game of Go and with examples in each section. The clarity of thought and excellent use of metaphor makes this a must-read for anyone looking to hook an english-speaking person into Go. You will be able to explain and see some of the deeper elements of the game I think are present vs other similar games such as Chess.

More later, but I have to get back to work.

So, Terry and I arrived at the PAX, and I told him that the best time to get his Frontalot CD and have it signed would be before things got too hectic, at the start of the expo. We were walking towards the main theater and I could see that Frontalot was in his booth and we would be able to stop without waiting for nearly as long as the line after his show would be sure to be.

So we stopped, and since Terry got the hotel room (and the bright idea to get it in the first place), I purchased the Front’s first CD for Terry and the sticker pack for me. As part of this ritual, Frontalot has a sort of “bonus round” where people who purchase schwag from him get a chance at a little something more. He allows the roll of a 20-sided die, and upon achieving the lucky and magical “20″, you are rewarded with a signed poster, and perhaps other such prizes as I was unaware of. I have done this before when purchasing something from him, both with my (now) wife and by myself, chatting him up nervously as we greeted Frontalot and exchanged our moneys for goods.

I was feeling bold, so I made a comment to Terry and MC Frontalot along the lines of “I Roll Twenties,” which is a really funny joke if you read Penny Arcade. Tycho has mentioned it since and I think even had a shirt made with that particular line of dialogue upon it, so this is a well understood joke for fellow aficionados of the comic strip.

I gave it a windup, took a breath, and rolled a twenty!

Pow. Yeah. I control the Matrix and stuff, too.

I am now a proud owner of a signed poster of the Frontalot/Optimus Ryhme/MC Chris tour from this last April, which is just great since both Bekah and I made it to that show, and I even made a DVD of the event for my friend Adam afterwards as an exercise. He (Damien Hess, the man behind the Frontalot facade) congratulated me on my good fortune, and asked me to roll again for what I assume was even more schwag, but I was still quite excited and happy with the first go-round. Had I won again I would have almost felt guilty of taking a disproportionate amount of the prepared show-booty that he had brought for his faithful schwag-purchasing public. Nice problem to have to worry about…

Just goes to show that sometimes it pays off handsomely to take a breath, go all out, and throw the dice (or place a stone).

The concerts tonight were a lot of fun to listen to, and I have a roll of pictures from the iPhone taken during the event and at some of the concerts that I might put up later. Its late now, and tomorrow I will be driving to see my dad again and pick up my family. Hopefully, we will enjoy another game of Go together and a glass of beer.

I’m taking a personal day off of work today to attend the PAX 2007, an annual event I proposed to my wife at a few years ago.  On stage.  In front of like a thousand screaming nerds.  It was awesome.

This year, she and Aiden are on a mini-vacation of sorts, and I’m going to be going to spread the “original table top gamer” meme.  It now sounds like I’ll be staying in the Westin with Terry, so I’ll bring my bamboo board set and teach him a little about Go at nights when we are done at the convention.

If you happen to be there, say hi if you see me playing Go in a corner somewhere