Life In 19x19

After nine great months spent fighting against the SmartGo AI on iPad (mini 2), I am outgrowing its AI. Now, I am considering moving to Little Go (Fuego), Champion Go HD (Crazy Stone) or Igowin HD (Many Faces of Go). Which one(s) do you recommend?

My needs are:

1) Get an offline AI opponent that can accompany my progress for as long as possible (without paying extra like offered in Champion Go HD, at least at first).

2) Being able to add comments to the moves while playing would be great. Little Go cannot do it. Igowin HD can, but can it do this mid-game? What about Champion Go HD?

Any suggestion and remark would be greatly appreciated!

What's Smartgo AI's level on 19x19 on your iPad,
and what's your current level ? Curious.

I don't know what SmartGo's level is (except that I'm beating it at its second highest level on an iPad mini 2, which is a relatively fast iPad, with 16 seconds per move for the AI). Its author also said it did not know it's level (on Twitter recently).

Now, as for my level, I'd be interested to know too. I essentially only ever played go against SmartGo, so I don't know!

EdLee wrote:What's Smartgo AI's level on 19x19 on your iPad,
and what's your current level ? Curious.

<ignore, may have used a weaker setting by accident, UI is unclear>

Lebigot, Champion Go is a lot stronger than Smart Go but really you need to start playing humans as well.

lebigot wrote:Now, as for my level, I'd be interested to know too. I essentially only ever played go against SmartGo, so I don't know!

Skip the Ai then and get the pandanet app - you'll learn more playing against people (and get a rank too!).

Boidhre wrote:but really you need to start playing humans as well.

I keep reading this piece of advice: I will explore this.

Now, I also need an AI, hence this thread: I love how I can start and interrupt a game absolutely anywhere, anytime. So, I will play against humans, but I am still very much interested in answers to the original question.

lebigot wrote:[..] I love how I can start and interrupt a game absolutely anywhere, anytime.

Correspondence games

Bonobo wrote:

lebigot wrote:[..] I love how I can start and interrupt a game absolutely anywhere, anytime.

Correspondence games

Good point! I should have added "and resume".

lebigot wrote:

Bonobo wrote:

lebigot wrote:[..] I love how I can start and interrupt a game absolutely anywhere, anytime.

Correspondence games

Good point! I should have added "and resume".

Playing 10 - 20 or so games at once gets around this.

You're all giving good advice, but not answering his question

Amelia wrote:You're all giving good advice, but not answering his question

Thank you for the support: I feel less alone in noticing that!

lebigot wrote:

Amelia wrote:You're all giving good advice, but not answering his question

Thank you for the support: I feel less alone in noticing that!

Neither Champion Go nor Igowin HD allow you to make comments as you play (as far as I can see) however you can export the sgf to SmartGo Kifu and add comments later if you want to review the game. Or you can mirror the game in SmartGo Kifu or another program and add comments as you (some people do this with Dragon Go correspondence games). Both programs are substantially stronger than SmartGo.

You're still better off playing humans as well though! So do correspondence and bot play. I'll give you a game on http://www.dragongoserver.net/index.php if you like.

I ended up getting Champion Go HD (Crazy Stone), for some tangential reason: it is the only one that offers landscape mode too. Now, this may seem like a detail, but in my experience developers who make efforts and offer some basic but important user interface features tend to have stronger products. I guess that it is not totally a coincidence that this program has been updated more recently than Igowin HD, too.

In any case, it is hard to find much information on how the three programs I was citing compare, so I had to take the plunge.

Well, at least they're not expensive!