Life In 19x19

I had the great pleasure of meeting Mark Siemons in Berlin recently. Mark is now based in Berlin but was formerly a China correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and heard about my go books there. He asked to interview me, in order to promote go by writing about the game in the Sunday ...

Some background points first.

No discussions by pros that I've seen waffle on about decimal points. They are trying to see the big picture. The big picture varies greatly according to whether you have near-impeccable technique, as most pros do, or you are an amateur who can't tell his hane from his ...

In the latest episode of his fascinating series on AI go theory, Shibano Toramaru examines the following position.

$$W ...

Some highlights from the Japanese 2024 tournament earnings table:

1. Ichiriki was in first place with 121,814,066 yen (US$814,000)

2. Iyama was 2nd with 57,449,414 yen

3. Top lady (in 4th place overall) was Fujisawa Rina with 35,187,216 yen

4. Ueno Asami was 5th with 20,390,526

5. Sister Ueno ...

Reasonable doubt is a reasonable principle to apply but what is reasonable can vary according to language, culture and legal codes. I think the sports authorities try to overcome these variations in part by using the "comfortable satisfaction" criterion. It's still vague, but as it's not already ...

The "in history" bit is not in the original (though it may be true - off the top of my head the only 4-generation string of pros I can think of is the Fujisawa one). The original is saying that it's the first time there have been five generations of pros who have been Nihon Ki-in or Kansai Ki-in ...

In shogi, captured pieces have to be placed on a highly visible komadai beside the board, so the principle of expecting to be able to see "prisoners", even in go, is well entrenched in Japan - and Korean pro go has always been most influenced by Japan.

But there are problems in relying on this ...

What I read online is that earlier this year, there were a few cases where a Chinese player didn’t place some of their captured stones on the lid. Because of this, a Korean opponent mistakenly thought they were leading by X points. So, they played safer than they should have, and as a result, they ...

I think we can all agree that some sort of rule is needed. Anyone who has played in an amateur tournament under territory rules will have encountered situations where your prisoners get mixed up with those of the person next to you - especially common when a left-hander sits next to a right-hander ...

I don't know what inspired the rule change, but there has been previous "form". In particular, in a Samsung Cup game in November, Ke Jie found an enemy stone in his bowl and assumed it was a prisoner, so he transferred it to his bowl. The referee realised it was a stray stone (a de-ishi as it is ...

It seems to have been overlooked here that Fukuoka set a new record in winning the Ryusei, his first title.

He won every game from his sole A Preliminary game (beating Cho Chikun; he was able to skip the B Preliminary) to Games 1 to 11 of the win & continue block preliminaries, meaning also he was ...

Also, from the Army, Cho Kosumi and Yanagihara Saki are the new 2 dan, promoted thanks to the money ranking. But Cho's promotion (first place, Yanagihara was second) sound strange to me. Her record was 12-18, and in her profile, it's all loses since September. Even so, first place...? One wonders ...

Readers of a certain age in Europe and South America at least might like to know that Nagahara Yoshiaki passed away recently at the age of 85. He was the pro behind Ishi Press's Basic Techniques and was also the pro with Hans Pietsch in Guatemala when Hans was tragically murdered.

American readers ...

I hope I didn't make a mistake in my solution but I'm really interested to know who considered that white could hane with :w8: and how they approached that position.

I am going back some 50 years and so the memory is hazy, but I recall there was a book (by Kageyama or Rin Kaiho?) which ...

The context of the game is that it was part of a ten-game match to gauge how strong was. At this stage he was still officially 8-dan but as he did not play in the Oteai then he had no normal way to become 9-dan. He was pitted against the top 7 and 6-dans, giving the appropriate handicap in each case ...