I often find that I am working in the morning, and this is entitled “Go In The Morning” by the artist, Nicholas Rougier. I think the tatami mats and the sunlight bring a particular restfulness to the scene, and I often imagine myself sitting there at the board instead of working late into the wee hours of the morning on a laptop. If I were to be able to construct a dream world where I could spend time and abide for a while, I would love for this to be a room in my house, sunlight streaming in a window and falling down onto a problem I am working through in the quiet morning hours. A mug of tea is warming my left hand and a go stone is held between the tips of my fingers on my right hand. The house is quiet and still on an early weekend morning, and I am the only one awake yet.

Sigh. I’m going on vacation today, so mostly just continuing my games on iShudan at the Dojo for a few days. Reading, family time, and unplugging from work for the holiday week. Have a good holiday if you are celebrating one, and have a pleasant week anyway if you aren’t.

I played a game this week that could have used this reference from Sensei’s List: The Bulky Five. There is also this link to an interesting video that was mentioned on a computer Go mailing list I’m on, where the presenter is talking to a non-go playing computer science audience about Go, and one method of searching move trees for a Go-playing program.

Exploration exploitation in Go: UCT for Monte-Carlo Go, Silvain Gelly

Ciao!

Korschelt also fancied himself a writer, as he wrote many other “articles” (and I mean this in the classical sense, these works are more like brief outlines for a book or a masters thesis!) about diverse topics like Fortune Telling, Sake, and Lacquer. His book is also a counterpoint to another famous Go book, Hoen Shinpo, which was written by Honinbo Shuho. A man some call the father of Western Go, Honinbo Shuho (1838 ~ 1886) was the teacher of Korschelt while he was in Japan, and tutored him through what Korschelt describes as the “tedious elementary stages of the game” and “got on far enough to see what an excellent game Go really is and that its level of skill is a challenge to chess”. I was particularly fond of this passage from his book:

“Rather than being the image of a single struggle as in chess, Go is much more like the panorama of an entire campaign or complex theater of war. And so it is more like modern warfare where strategic mass movements are the ultimate determinants of victory. … As in modern warfare, direct combat, without supporting tactics, rarely occurs. In fact, to engage too soon in direct combat frequently spells defeat. Comprehensive strategy and only comprehensive strategy makes victory certain.” (emphasis mine)

This book has been source material for a large number of other key books to appear in English, developing and nuturing a growing population of interested Westerners in what has been until recent times a very Eastern tradition. Korschalt was writing in German, and his treatise on Go was rescued from the aging public record via microfilm made by the Library of Congress for the translators, under the title: DAS “GO” -SPIEL by The German Eastern-Asia Society. The Society was established in 1873 to study “the countries and peoples of East Asia and to promote in the world a knowledge of these.” Samuel King and George Leckie translated , supplemented, and retitled the work “The Theory And Practice Of Go” in order to better align the body of work with its given name in 1963.

The original source material could be considered public domain by now, although I have done absolutely no research into the matter whatsoever… I will be taking this book, as well as Technician Class: FCC License Preparation for Element 2 Technician Class Theory by Gordon West on vacation to see my family this week. I think sometimes I must have the most boring vacation reading of anyone on the planet, with the exception of investment bankers or political lobbyists.

I also went out of my way today to make sure to purchase my laptop in the “Give 1 Get 1” program being run by the OLPC foundation. You’d never guess, but I think it would be a neat idea to make a Go playing client for this device. I put up a thread about it on GoDiscussions.com back when the program was announced in October, but it turned into a much more heated discussion than originally intended and I stopped reading there as much. Anyway, The tablet layout as well as the mesh networking are both stand out features for a Go computer, and now I will have the chance to try working with both in developing an interface. If you are feeling charitable this holiday season and you have a budget for it, I could definitely recommend this particular group (the OLPC Foundation) for your donation, whether you want the hardware yourself or not. I will write about it here when I receive the equipment and let you know how it goes… There are already great open source projects available in Fedora 8 (I have an install DVD of this I just burned) that allow playing many board-style games, but the XO Laptops shown here run a modified interface in Linux known as Sugar which I will have to learn if I wish to contribute to the project.

Until next time, take care.

I’ve just been busy. Very busy at that, both over the board playing my favorite game, as well as at several of my other side projects such as iShudan and the iPhone unlocking biz. In fact, I’ve had many more games over the board in the last week than any in recent memory due to my increased mobility. This comes at the cost of time for writing or studying software. Over the last week I enjoyed a best-of-three match with David York, a fireside game at HotWire with Adam, and at least 3 separate games with the newest person at work to learn the game, Benjamin. I think we had more, but they were interrupted before completion due to time. Unfortunately, my games at David’s Go Dojo have slowed considerably, as I have few moves per day lately, if any at all. I welcome anyone who prefers the slow pace of “Go-by-email” to register an account and start up a board or two with me here.

Most of my non-playing Go time has been spent learning something completely tangential to Go, programming PHP and learning the basics of Cocoa. I have watched all five of the video podcasts that Apple released to iPhone developers to help make sites Compliant, Optimized, and then Native. I have been putting thought into the design and roadmap, and I hope to have a wireframe mock up soon that I can post and share with others that explains my vision for the future of iShudan as a project. I can say that I have a lot of lofty goals currently, as I accomplish these milestones I will write about them further.

And did I mention that my Regular Job has been really busy too?

c’est la vie, c’est la guerre!

Some of my teaching games at work I lost because of moving too fast after a distraction, as I would lose the tempo of what was happening, and when I came back and tenuki‘d away from an important situation the student would promptly pounce without remorse on the now reversed situation. Counting liberties sometimes gives you a confidence you don’t deserve because the local situation has complexities that are not at first apparent.

This weekend I plan to have a mini-ranking blitz on KGS to see if my skills have improved of late, barring any late invitations to an in person game.

I hope to also start studying for my FCC Amateur Radio Technician Class license this next week and on my upcoming vacation. This is just a side project of mine, perhaps a work related hobby. I have precious little time left over for new hobbies, heaven knows, but I find I enjoy a steady diet of new and interesting technical material. I have been assured by one of my friends that the first level exam is pretty easy to pass once you have studied, particularly since they have dropped the Morse Code requirements. I have a book here on loan from the library, as well as some online resources to study next week, I think that may be really all I will need to prepare.

I will post some Go-related study materials this weekend, as well as a kifu from a 19×19 game on the Dojo. I hope your own projects and goals are proceeding apace, and that this note finds you well. Namaste’.

Ah, but this week I start anew, side project completed, and I asked if Bob would oblige me at his place for a game Tuesday night. It was clearly enjoyable for both of us, as he invited me back again in a week for a repeat. But I get ahead of myself, I wish to describe instead the match we played last night and its outcome.  I look forward to our next match in less than a week…

I am happy to hear that my recent improvements in our occasional games have sparked him to start studying as well, several unfamiliar and obviously older tsumego books were out and on top of nearby piles, signs of recent study scattered around the clear space on the floor around a roll up set with glass stones. Because I brought my home set to work to show a co-worker how to play Go on a coinciding day, I have my yunzi stones and bowls ready to play on the larger bamboo board. It is agreed that due to my loosing streak of late, I will take 3 stones from him. Play is begun, and as is common with an unbalanced board like that, becomes laden with fierce contact fighting almost immediately.

Now, although I haven’t been studying, when I get a rare weekend morning to spend an hour on Go all at once, I have been continuing to work my way through Bruce Wilcox’s Contact Fights software. Even though I am less than halfway complete, I am already feeling a marked difference in my game. By conditioning and codifying what I know and explaining it in the manner that Mr Wilcox does in his program, it has crystallized a few weak spots in my game that have stood for some rapid improvement.  I definitely look forward to completing the course fully and plan to share some of the distilled wisdom with some of the people I have been teaching lately…

Some people have a very direct attacking style, and a game of Pente with my non-confrontational wife made me realize that this initial leap into the fray can be quite off-putting if applied too soon to someone not yet committed to learning the depth of the game, Pente and anything else. A strong, bold, forceful response creates immediate tension that must be resolved, and blocks further reasonable development until the local situation is resolved. In a good fight, this can quickly cover a quarter of the entire board and of course strongly influences what remains of the game. Learning the method to contact fighting allows you to redirect this aggressive thrust into a weaker missed attack that then opens up possibilities for response and follow through. Almost like a martial art, such as Judo.

So, our three stone match began with a 3-vs-1 corner balance immediately. Bob successfully invaded but was boxed in, and a few empty triangles later I was in good position. His broad strokes made quick life, but not very large and not complete. He did show me a very specific technique that I think was useful, a way of poking along a long wall of stones to create a certain shape that establishes a beachhead of sorts. If you have ever watched despairing as an opponent builds an unbalanced wall of stones, ready to fall upon any unlucky victims trapped below the avalanche, then you might know what I mean.

Here is the last shot I took of the game before things got very intense and fairly quickly resolved. I have strong position in some places, and in some of the battles that were played out, I made a few mistakes but also some large captures. In fact, several captures really turned the course of battle to my favor. In the end, we played out all the situations and entanglements to create a line of battle, but once these were resolved Bob resigned the game without the final count since it was obvious and decisive victory for me. I will not be playing any more three game stones with Bob for sure now, I just have to consistently hold my own on a 2 stone.  Thank you again for the game and your teaching, Bob.  I hope to face you evenly soon.

Peace to you and yours, and good hunting.

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.

I can give a handful of links right now by many strong players on the internet who have echoed the wisdom of go sages for a long time, for example Guo Juan the traveling Go teacher who during her seminars observes and comments on games played by the attendees, holding court in the midst of those seeking the kami no itte.

But I have found that simply recommending study to a new player such as Andy as a way to continue to get into Go is not very effective; if instead you want to find out if you have interest enough to spark your making time enough to learn Go, I feel there is almost no better way than simply starting with the 4 volume set Graded Go Problems for Beginners. (GGPFBV1-4) (The cover pictured at the beginning of this post is a link to the book on Amazon, the book is widely available and very recognizable.)

This book really started me on the path to knowing that I enjoyed what I feel is the real “root game” of Go: tsumego, or life and death problems. Dramatic sounding title, but life and death problems are kind of like riddles that you solve by applying some foresight. And the wonderful thing about tsumego is that when you have really solved a tsumego, you know it for certain. You know it so well that you have absolutely no need to look at the answer at the back of the book, you are positive that the question is solved. The idea at first doestn’t have to be about memorizing some sort of random looking pattern, but merely excercising the part of your brain and eyes that work together at perceiving the board. This simple task, if done daily as recommended by prominent well-known professionals, will lead to a healthy fundamental base upon which to build skill at Go.

The full set of 4 volumes is not required to start you on your way, and are in fact quite challenging. I have not completed the full course of problems in all 4 books due to my level of reading skill and the escalating nature of the challenge. The volumes come with ratings for their difficulty, and so you can approximate a rating to tell other people if you are able to complete at least this first book of the four. It starts out very simple, but by then end is definitely worth your time. Remember, the point is not to be stumped (although this is good), but to train your brain and your perception. Constant and faithful repetition of these exercises are bound to be reflected in your play eventually as you increase your reading depth.

Graded Go Problems for Beginners, 30 Kyu to 25 Kyu (Beginner & Elementary Go Bks.)

This brought up the topic of ratings again, and what would have been a good handicap for Andy and I to use? How could he find out his rating if he wasn’t yet up to attending one of the monthly ratings tournaments held by the AGA at the Center? What if he just wanted to make a good handicap and have a quick but balanced or interesting game?

I recommended reading the GGPFBV1 and then going online somewhere like KGS and either playing against a bot (if you are shy or suffer Online Go Anxiety) or playing a few random ranked matches with other players. After some number of rounds you will at least have a rough approximate guess, and of course the longer you devote to this the more likely you are to get a good number that will help you in the future. If you are consistently winning matches, then you are likely playing below your true level. The problem is that novice players have a much greater variance from game to game, and so its good to get a number that feels comfortable and then just throw yourself into playing matches, as many as you can.

So, if Guo Juan and others say that daily tsumego are a sure way to improve, what are sure places where you can easily get the fuel for these daily exercises? I like to have some content come to me, and tsumego makes for a great daily mailing list, IMHO. I am subscribed to a couple which I found either online or via links from the AGA web letters, using filters to automatically sort and tag the emails so they all show up in a gmail folder tagged tsumego. Since I never have to worry about running out of space, I can just let this folder fill up all the time and review it whenever I have a moment for study.

One of my favorites is actually released en francaise, which is not a problem in the world of Go. The whole board position is laid out and different problems for different ranks of players lie in separate regions of the board. The French is easy to understand, and English translation is provided below anyway to help you get started. I once disagreed with the solution to a 10 kyu problem from this list and spent an hour laying it out trying to prove it wrong. It was easily the best hour I spent studying that week, and I don’t regret getting it wrong and using that to learn more.

In the programming world, there is a saying that “There’s More Than One Way To Do It.” It’s not necessary to study Go exactly the same way I did or that I think it ought to be studied. There are lots of ways that you can get hooked into the game, and I hope that something catches your fancy the way mine was as I rode on a bus in the rain reading GGPFBV1 cover to cover. If you feel like you get stuck, or you don’t “get” how to get better, or aren’t seeing results, then by all means try some daily tsumego study.

A tsumego is basically an idea, or a pattern. As such, supplies of them can be found all over the internet both for free and for paid access. Many ancient texts and literature in other languages is surprisingly accessible, and the more sources you have the better. Whatever works best for you, books or daily emailed diagrams or java applets on a bookmark, even if its ASCII art it can still help you improve and train your mind to play better Go.

Peace to you and yours.

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.

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.

“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.

Studying Go with Alejo :pictures by David Whitlock

I was reading around the net about all the Go-related happenings going on right now or being reported on, and one item in particular prompted me to dig out the board and lay out the setup (and then snap a few shots).

Alejo’s Tenuki’s most recent post is about Capturing on a Large Scale, and is from a situation taken from a real game.

Although I did not correctly predict the correct answer for the sequence before the jump, I did find studying the layout of the stones informative and worthy of a few quick shots with my new favorite camera. I uploaded some into the gallery, but here are the few I found most representative. Thanks for the study time, Alejo!

Here we have a few pictures of the first pause I took, after the initial phase of the game had completed.

Bob and I both commented that the game appeared to focus intently on each corner in turn, we both played relatively close the whole time. I tried to make reasonable or aggressive exchanges every time I achieved sente, and tried not to leave any specific situation unresolved (tenuki too early) unless the amount of points at stake were small…

Here are three shots of the final board position. The picture tries to show that I have a great deal of prisoners, Bob has perhaps half as many or less of mine, but I couldn’t get it all quite in the shot:

There were definitely some turnovers in this game. I managed to make significant captures three times against Bob’s stones, although I also lost a significant position due to failing to make life. I did not fall prey to the same type of initial mistake I have found myself prone to lately, allowing my initial attack to fail by not securing life. There was a genuinely interesting life and death problem I didn’t work out, but I didn’t capture it fast enough to make a study problem out of it.

I won the match by about 17 stones to 3 for Bob, I was almost suprised the score was not negative due to the amount of prisoners versus space on the board, but it was quite an excellent game. Again, as you can tell by the lighting on the board, it was several hours for the game.

Namaste.