The Game Is Not over Yet – Go in the Post-AlphaGo Era
Recently, my and Associate Professor Egri-Nagy’s second go paper, The Game Is Not over Yet – Go in the Post-AlphaGo Era passed its peer review and got published in the Philosophies open access journal. You can read the article here.
Most of the main content in the article is by Mr Egri-Nagy, but I am responsible for the parts that relate to stronger go players’ point of view. There are also a few tangents to my Bachelor’s thesis, which I was happy to build on.
2020 November Bonus Update 1
Unfortunately, with the COVID-19 pandemic still going on, relatively few tournament games are still getting played. As has been the case for the past half a year or so, I have also recently been concentrating more on ngd teaching work and cheat detection research, at which we might soon again move a small step forward (I will probably write more …
Sunday Problem #26
With this post, we have reached half a year’s worth of Sunday problems! In case you haven’t noticed, this page (the link is under the ‘material’ tab and also on the right-side bar) lists all the Sunday problems in easily accessible form.
This problem is from the Japanese book 達人の詰碁 (Tatsujin no tsumego), or Expert’s Tsumego. According to the book, a Japanese 2d (so perhaps a European 2k) should be able to solve this problem in 10 minutes.
Black to play.
Sunday Problem #25
To complete the set, this sample problem is from the advanced section of Maeda’s Tsumego Collection.
Black to play.
Solution
The eye-stealing placement of 1 looks like the natural starting point, but after White connects with 2, the next move is key. Only Black’s non-obvious sacrificing move of 3 will then manage to capture. After White resists with 4, black 5 connects under and the white group only has one eye.
If White instead responds to black 1 with 4, then black 3 again kills.
Sunday Problem #24
While last week’s Sunday problem was from the elementary section of Maeda’s Tsumego Collection, this week’s problem is from the intermediate section.
Black to play.
Solution
The key to this problem is the non-obvious black 5. If Black captured the two stones instead, white 5 would capture the black group whole; therefore, sacrificing the three stones to the right is the best Black can do. After black 7, Black lives with a minimal shape.
Sunday Problem #23
This week’s problem is from Maeda Nobuaki 9p’s three-part tsumego collection, titled simply 前田詰碁集 (Maeda Tsumego-Shū), or Maeda’s Tsumego Collection. The three volumes together contain 585 relatively basic life-and-death problems that make for good reading practice for players of all levels.
A shortened version of the second volume can be bought on SmartGo Books under the title ‘Life …
Sunday Problem #22
While on the topic of endgame problems, it would be remiss of me not to bring up Kanō Yoshinori 9p’s excellent ヨセ辞典 (Yose-Jiten), or Endgame Dictionary.
When I was insei, this book single-handedly had the biggest influence on my endgame improvement. The book explains how to count values of moves (by swing counting), showcases many kinds of endgame …
TelegraphGo wins 1st Pixel Go Tournament
The first-ever pixel go tournament just concluded, with TelegraphGo emerging as the winner and ‘roflmao’ as the runner-up! The two get ngd vouchers of €80 and €40, respectively, for their go studies. The record of the final game can be viewed below.
Thanks for all players for participating and for the lively discussion we had in the Twitch stream! We hope to hold another go variant tournament in the not-too-far future.
Events
All times are in Helsinki time (eet with summer time).
2nd Corona Cup on November 2 – December 15! Tournament details are here.
Gothenburg Online Open on December 5–6! Tournament details and registration are here.
New pairing for the online league made every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month.
Public lectures on Twitch every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month at 1 pm.
Jeff and Mikko stream on Twitch on Fridays at 6 pm.
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