oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

Real poo poo: Playing with the outside world and your fellow goons in ITGO

Just to re-iterate the point that once you're fairly happy about the rules, you can stop playing bots. They are no substitute for the real thing. You'll want to play actual people who can give you advice and make delightful chat with you in the process. The best way to do this is join your fellow SomethingAwful go players on KGS (Kisedo Go Server). Note that there are other servers, but KGS is generally considered the best for English-speaking players, as well as the client being the most user-friendly.

How to get online:

1) Visit the KGS website. Here you can launch the KGS client in your web browser, or download it to your computer.
2) Register an account.
3) Log in, choose the following menu option: Rooms -> Room List
4) Under the "Social" tab, find the room "SA" and double click. This is our public room, but it's not where we usually hang out.
5) Ask for permission to join "ITGO", our private room.
6) Once permission has been granted, you can join by going Rooms -> Room List, and double clicking ITGO under the "Social" tab.

Don't worry if you don't get an immediate response, someone should notice your request eventually. Try again at another time (evenings is best) if there's still nothing happening, or ask in the Ask/Tell Go thread.

Magna Kaser posted:

I do have a question though. All my experience is in China using Chinese scoring rules, but all the online go mentioned here seems to use Japanese scoring. I've been told like 99% of the time both methods will end up at the same person winning, but am I going to be at even more of a disadvantage going in with Japanese rules? Are play-styles radically different between the two?

Xom posted:

For example, there's a corner position called Bent Four in the Corner. White (for supposition) has a tiny group in the corner. Black has a move that initiates a favorable ko fight (i.e. White needs to make his first ko threat before Black makes his) that kills the group if Black wins it and lets it live if White wins it. White has no way to initiate any such ko fight (favorable or not), and neither player has any other move that improves his position in the corner.

Under Chinese rules, Black could wait until no other score-improving moves are available, then preemptively defend against any ko threats otherwise still available for White to make; this involves Black filling in his own territory, which doesn't affect the score under Chinese rules. Then Black can play the move that starts the ko fight, which he will win "for free"; typically, you can only win a ko fight by ignoring a ko threat, to which your opponent gets to follow up for some payoff, but in this case White has no moves to which, even if Black didn't respond, a follow-up would improve White's score. The players can foresee all this and consider White's group to be dead, with no need to play it out.

Under Japanese rules, filling in his own territory would reduce Black's score. But that's okay, because under Japanese rules, when you decide whether a group is dead after play has ended, it's considered dead as long as you can kill it for sure, even if killing it would involve some loss elsewhere.* So the result is the same: White's group is considered dead, without affecting the scoring of the rest of the board.

But once in a blue moon, there will be a ko threat White can make that Black has no way to preemptively neutralize. Under Chinese rules, its existence may be detrimental to Black's final score, depending on the rest of the board (a player with sufficiently many, sufficiently powerful ko threats can win a ko fight "for free" with no need to think about removable / unremovable ko threats). Under Japanese rules, White's group is still considered dead no matter what, and the final score would not be affected by the fact that killing it would involve some loss elsewhere.

*(A different, more contrived scenario to illustrate this: if White had two groups, and Black could kill either one of them, but doing so would let White save the other one, and White has no way to force Black to start playing this out, then when play ends, both groups would be considered dead under Japanese rules. Under Chinese rules, Black would have to play it out before ending the game, so he'd have to let one of White's groups live.)

oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

A classic example is making an invasion very early in the game:

quote:

Move 73
Xombar: you shall not pass
rebus: ?
Xombar: gandalf reference

Move 99
Xombar: http://i.imgur.com/72dijmE.jpg
rebus: i am the huge monster? thanks^

W+R
Athanos: greedy xombar
Athanos: if you lose the big kill it kills you big
rebus: gandalf just stop the monster not kil him^

quote:

WuChou: rebus clearly not familiar with the actual events of gandalf v durin's bane as gandalf does destroy its physical body
WuChou: half credit, I guess
WuChou: since it is also maiar and who knows what happens to its spirit after, maybe purified or jailed by iluvatar or some poo poo~
WuChou: I have already thought about this
WuChou: too much

Kheldragar posted:

2014 Go Superbowl Between The Sedol Hawks and The Li Tarantulas is LIVE! - ITGO MOTD

uranus posted:

So if I were trying to teach someone on a 9x9 board, I should use the 6.5 komi when explaining the score?

Hardfl1p posted:

Good post so What Identity is monter in a box -san

Kheldragar posted:

KGS is great! The only real complaint I have is that there's no sound when you place a stone.

h_double posted:

The no stone clicks thing is a Java-related bug: https://www.gokgs.com/help/Java.html

Xom posted:

There are two ways to get the sound back:

• Install Java 1.6 (also known as Java 6).
• Download this hack for Java 1.7 (also known as Java 7) that "implements the mixer that cgoban is looking for".

'javadummymixer_biguglyhack.zip' works for me (I'm on Windows 7). So I haven't tried the "Install Java 1.6" option.

Tarezax posted:

It appears to me that Black is going to lose the capturing race in the mid left unless he prevents white from making an eye on his dragon. G9.

Xom posted:

silvergoose posted:

I uh missed the entire bottom row. I might still be right? I can't comprehend your image at 3 AM, sorry, and I'm also bad at this game.

Svartvit posted:

I just played a game that turned out pretty even, so i think it would be a good game to post here for comments. Also, why did I screw my invasion up in the lower left corner? Should I have haned? (that group was really totally dead)

http://online-go.com/game/503024

uranus posted:

My most recent full size game, played live this time. http://online-go.com/game/503248

I lost two huge groups pretty early on due to retarded idiot mistakes, but still managed to win it by 12.5. Mostly cause my opponent was really helpful in assisting me with constructing my borders.

uranus posted:

yeah i was not confident in my ability to live after poking into the center.

Under 15 posted:

Yeah it's a very western thing to get hung up on joseki, an idea which comes from the Japanese, who are themselves kind of hung up on it. If you go on Tygem you will see the koreans play the same ten sequences over and over - they just do not give a poo poo.

Kheldragar posted:

I tried my hand at 20 of them for ~20 minutes, can you tell me if my first move is right?

UNREADABLE poo poo

Hopefully I didn't mess up the coordinates.