Hello! I recently downloaded SmartGo Kiku for my iPhone and I have been playing 9x9.

Does anyone know strong the program is?

In addition, please have a look at one of my games. I always lose by half a point! Can't beat it with a two stone handicap. I apologize in advance for my bad form but I feel like I really need some advice to get over this plateau. Thank you very much!

Is the scoring Japanese or Chinese? Because your last move is not needed at all, and protecting there will lose you an entire point with Japanese rules. Aside from that, I'm not sure what to say. I have never played 9x9 boards with a handicap. The program does seem to be pretty weak. Maybe you should try playing on GoQuest. you can play humans and bots there of pretty much any strength.

I would take issue with moves 8 and 10 for sure. Move 8 should either block on the bottom, separating white's single stone, or play where move 10 is, threatening an atari and black connection to the isolated stone.

Move 10 should block on the bottom. Now that White has turned, playing on the top is smaller.

And Black's last move is necessary, otherwise White ataris.

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Occupy Babel!

Oops! Sorry, I thought you were white.

Thanks for your input! I should have made it clear that I was Black haha. SmartGo has the rules set to AGA (Area).


Thank you for this advice. So just to be clear, I should have played B8 (D8) at B10 (D5) and instead play B10 at W11 (F3)?

I was just worried White would play in that large open space, so that's my reasoning behind playing B8 (D8).

Not that I'm remotely an expert, but my experience so far with weaker go-playing programs is that they adore the in-your-face tactical and prefer it overmuch to big moves. In the larger scheme of things it's fairly silly of the program, but nonetheless sometimes it forces a response, and if you can shape your response in such a way as to extend influence so much the better.