Slashdot Mirror

http://www.usgo.org/news/2017/...

The version playing Ke Jie is so much more efficient that it uses one tenth the quantity of computation that Alphago Lee used, and runs on a single machine on Google’s cloud, powered by one tensor processing unit (TPU). AlphaGo Lee would probe 50 moves deep and study 100,000 moves per second.

It was a 19x19 game and a perfectly normal 9 stone handicap. See http://www.usgo.org/congress/2008/myungwan-mogo.sgf

better link: http://usgo.org/congress/2008/myungwan-mogo.sgf

http://usgo.org/congress/2008/myungwan-mogo.sgf

While I am a high Kyu player and only played GnuGo I would like to weigh in that computer Go seems very artificial. It doesn't play like any of the high Kyu or Dan players I know. It got me into bad habits. Better just to hop online and play real people with KGS. Better yet go to your local Go club, it is quite a different experience playing with people.

Here's a better link for that story, directly from the AGA (American Go Association) Journal itself.

Bookware for various languages:

Living Language

A list of the 'Teach Yourself' Books.

Tuttle Kanji Cards - I have a set of these and they're very nice flashcards.

Free-ish software for Japanese:

Kanji Gold

Tile Tag - Drill game for Japanese kana.

Stuff to pay for:

Multi-Lingual Books - Seem to have a good selection of stuff.

OK... So I myself am interested in Japanese... ;-) However, it does seem to exercise a lot of different portions of your brain, from the pictographic script to the weird (to me!) grammer stuff. However, you should have her pick what she's most interested in, since interest is vital to keeping with a foreign language self-study program.

Another thing you might look at is the game of Go. It seems to be well thought of by various people who should know, and I believe it's even claimed to be effective in staving off such things as Alzheimers. However, the good players say that there's no good computer implementation, so you might have to find her a human opponent.

American Go Association

Good luck!

Disclaimer: I've tried some of these resources, not all. Your mileage may vary. Contents may settle during shipment.

See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.

First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.

Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com

Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.

There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire .

Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here

Happy gaming!

He-he...

Funny how it was the American Go Association who reported this...

They were always a bit slow compared to the Dutch in mathematics. ;)

I've read about this and 6x6 being solved a *long* time ago already here:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?SmallBoardGo

Plastic stones are available online for $20 or so. Real shell Go stones will reach into the $200 range.

If you buy plastic stones for $20, you're getting ripped off. You can get glass stones (the most common variety) for under $20 online. Prices vary by thickness. By "real" stones, I think you mean slate and shell, which are the traditional materials in Japan. I've gotten three sets of slate and shell stones for under $150, although it is possible to spend nearly a thousand dollars on a really nice set of stones.

Check out the links at the American Go Association for a list of distributors.

(Prices in US dollars)

Go is actually far more complex than chess in strategy and tactics (see earlier note about the best computer programs being only as good as intermediate level players [like me], and much weaker than professional level players).

On the flip side, it's actually easier to teach than chess (fewer rules, no difference in the pieces), so it fits a guideline in the article ("can be taught within five minutes") much better than most, if not all of the games in the article.

Incidentally, if you do get a board, you might want to get one online. Places like Samarkand have good stuff. And the US Go Association has links to more vendors as well as local clubs.

(Incidentally, "sabaki" is a Go term meaning light and flexible play.)

I am one of the people on slashdot who actually plays the game. It is quite a simple game, black and white stones, placed on intersections. Although quite simple, it is hard to master.

The Daily Yomiuri - A Japanese Daily Newspaper that includes a go collumn, has frequent discussions about pro matches, contains joseki, and best of all contains an archive of previous go collumns that teaches go to beginners. I greatly enjoy reading this site, but of late have not had the time.

GoBase.org, who could forget this essential site (actually I almost did) not only for beginners but for experienced players, contains many, many problems, classic games, wonderfull resource.

The American Go Association - Contains many resources for those who are interested in learning about playing go.

The Korean Baduk Association might be most helpfull for you, however I do not know how much help they can be to english speeking people.

IGS (Internet Go Server), synonymous with online and go, will provide you with many resources about go, and even have an online client that you can play people throughout the world.

KGS is another online go server, apparently it has lectures every week.

The Interactive Way To Go is a link my brother just gave me, it contains some go problems, hope it helps.

Well, I hope to see you on igs soon. Please enjoy the resources that I dug up from you from my personal link folder, they will be invaluable in your progress in learning go.

This game is so fun I am still a beginner though. Some good recources: http://kiseido.com/ The Go mecha The American Go assoctiation This has everything, might as well make this your homepage. The Kiseido Go server The best Go server out there, very use friendly. My username is "Elad" -oos

http://senseis.xmp.net/
Here's a wiki dedicated to Go. I've found it very useful.

http://playgo.to/interactive/
An interactive tutorial

http://www.britgo.org/cartoons/
comic for beginners

http://www.usgo.org/
the American Go Association

http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html
demo version of "The Many Faces of Go". I highly recommend the full version, but it's very very expensive. if you get to the point that this demo is no longer challenging, you should probably purchase it...

http://gobase.org/software/editors/
SGF editor

http://gobase.org/software/clients/
play go online with other ppl

http://go-club.1up.com/
a club I started on 1up

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/09/24/1742243.s html?tid=202&tid=106
like knoppix, but for go players

ok, that's all for now =P

American Go Association
http://www.usgo.org/

They have a ton of links to tutorials and multimedia aids.
http://www.usgo.org/resources/internet.asp

American Go Association
http://www.usgo.org/

They have a ton of links to tutorials and multimedia aids.
http://www.usgo.org/resources/internet.asp

No two games of Go have ever been the same (something that can't be said of chess). After playing almost nothing but Go for the last several years the chessboard feels incredibly cramped to me. Whereas chess is a limited battle, Go is a full scale war.

The best way to learn the basics is to look at The Way To Go. And then download the KGS client so you can play some real people.

It might also be good to start playing 9x9 games until you get the idea of the game (it'll take a few tries till it clicks in your head).

Here's some links I collected for my Japanese 101 classmates:
Hanafuda Card Game (Windows)
Hanafuda plugin for Flowersol (multiplatform)
Go Trainer (Windows)
Go SGF Editors (multiplatform)
Online Go IGS Clients (multiplatform) Ask people for a teaching game after learning rules, practising
The Interactive Way to Go Easy to follow online tutorial (requires Java)
Go An introduction Outlines basic rules in easy to understand comic
American Go Association The info hub of American Go players
Shogi Variants (Windows) Japanese Chess, Shogi
Ricoh Shogi's Page Rules of Shogi (harder to learn rules than Go, IMHO)
Online Mahjong on Yahoo! Games Requires Yahoo! account, web-based
Rules of Mahjong this isn't the Shanghai Mahjong you know! Real Mahjong is like poker, not a tile matching game.

With all due respect to Backgammon, Chess and Id, the best game I've ever played is Go. It's easy to learn but takes a lifetime to master. As well, it's deep enough to force a player to actual think all most all of the time. With it's handicap system, even beginners can offer masters a challenging game enjoyable to both.

American Go Association
http://www.usgo.org/index.asp

International Go Federation
http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/igf/index.htm

The Interactive Way To Go
(excellent tutorial)
http://playgo.to/interactive/

Tips for Learning Go
http://go.kestrel.nu/

Interestingly enough, it remains the one game that cannot be won by brute force number crunching. Even an average player can beat the best Go programs. As such, I conisder it to be a useful tool in the search for meaningingful computing.

Go is a whole new challenge
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html\

If you don't Go, you'll never get anywhere! ;~)

usgo.org

• Many that don't?? Many?? Such as?

• Again, its not just "my logic". Forestry is a science that's hundreds of years old. In North America, outside the unique ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest/Cascadia, where do trees live to 400 years?

• Yeah, except I do live "on the west side of Cascadia" you speak of

As a beginner playing on small boards (9x9), I find gnugo very frustrating. I worked up to beating it most of the time before I lost interest in the game for a few weeks. When I returned, it kicked my ass again. :-)

For those of you that enjoy interesting and different games, you should check this out. It's a 3d arcade version of the ancient chinese game Go.

yea, Go is awesome. I've been playing 10 years, and there's still stuff to learn! No clubs in your area? See you on Dragon!

Chess is still basically able to be brute forced by the large super machines, which is an intruiging feat, but I don't really concider it AI. Now, if we were able to get a computer that is able to match wits against the best Go players, I would be very impressed. Go is a very simple game to learn, but very difficult to master. There is more depth and complexity in Go than there would be in chess, therefore I concider that more of a challenge for AI.

BlackGriffen

American Go Association

this pdf also offers an extremely good tutorial of the game.

Oh, how very western to invite chess to the Olympics. Great game, for sure.
But I hope go is next.

According to the Nihon Ki-in, there are at least 7 million go players in Japan alone. That's 5-6% of the population! Go is rampant in China (add maybe 36 million players to the previous number!) and very much so in Korea (maybe another 5 million players there). In the US, it's not as well known as chess, but I'll bet more people could/have/would play it than other esoteric olympic events like fencing or whatever that gymnastic ball and ribbon stuff is.

But the big question: Is go more or less TV Friendly(tm) than chess?

Chess is fine and dandy, but for a game that is much farther from being "solved" by computers, and for competition that is actually accessible by amateur AI programmers, check out the Computer Go pages at the American Go Association...

http://www.usgo.org/computer/

Pinball is not very fun.

I've owned an Addams Family machine for a few years, and I've never tired of it. I don't play it every day, but it has outlasted a number of (software) video games I have owned.

Some pinball makers had the right idea by adding lots of lights and pseudo-video-game displays to the machines, but they never took it far enough, and the same boring slap-the-ball gameplay was the core of the game. Sorry, but I'm not a retard. I need something a bit more challenging[...]

Saying that pinball is just "slap-the-ball gameplay" is like saying that video games are just "press-the-buttons gameplay" or that role playing games are just "rolling some dice". Although on one level it's true, you're mainly missing the point.

Note that people have managed to find entertainment for years with things as simple as a slab of wood and bunch of black and white stones (the game of Go). Also consider athletes; runners do nothing more than put one foot in front of another, but there's no shortage of people who find challenge and reward in it.

So instead of saying "X is for retards", try saying "X is not my cup of tea". Because acting like you're the final arbiter of all that is interesting is, well, for retards.

Now, take the game of Go... it's much harder to figure out the victory condition. There are currently no computer Go program that play very very well (I think the best if first dan?)

Not even that good. Handtalk, one of the best programs, has a 5 kyu Japanese diploma, but most people agree that it is not even that good. For reference, I'm a American 5 kyu, and have only been playing 2 years. A pro player, the equivalent of a chess grandmaster, would probably give me between 9 and 13 free moves at the start of the game to make it reasonably even.

In a public demonstration, Janice Kim (one of the few western-born pros, and far from one of the top pros) gave Handtalk a handicap of 35(!) free moves at the start of the game, and then beat it. The current best program, Go4++, is perhaps two or three stones (free moves) stronger than Handtalk, but that's still a *long* way from the chess equivalent of grandmaster.

Now, I'm not saying that Go is a "better" game, but computationally, Go is a whole different scope of problem than Chess.

For more information on Go, email me or check out the home page of the American Go Association.

Patrick Bridges

Look at http://www.usgo.org