Harry Fearnley's Main Go (Baduk, WeiQi/Wei-Ch'i, Igo) Page
Last Updated 2000/03/13
- - - - - - - - - - -
Items marked
![[NEW]](../gifs/new.gif)
have been added, or updated, in the month before this date.
![[Go kanji]](gifs/gokanji.gif)
Keywords: Go, Igo, WeiQi, Wei-Ch'i, Baduk; TsumeGo, Britain, Computers,
Rulesets, "Bestiary", Books.
Contents
- Introduction
- Lots more Go links
- Go in the British Isles
- Go in the rest of Europe
- Go in the rest of the world
- Some personal pages
- Computers and Go
- Combinatorial Games Theory/ Maths/ AI, and Go
- Introduction to the Game; History; General
- Books and Bibliographies
- Playing Go on the Internet -- IGS, NNGS, GIGS, LGS, WWGo, the Gaming Zone, iGo
- Play Go by E-mail
- Newsgroups : rec.games.go, fj.rec.games.go, and japan.games.go
- Archives of Go-related information
- FAQs, other information
- Printing and Typesetting
- Go products and Services - Suppliers
- Go Problems - Tsume Go
- A "Bestiary"
- Rulesets
- Game records
- Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, Databases
- Teaching and Studying Go
- Go Variants, and Go-related Games
- Some Korean pages - not further classified
- Not Elsewhere Classified
This page contains material related to the oriental board game Go
(Japanese Igo ,
Chinese WeiQi [ Wei-Ch'i], Korean Baduk/Paduk).
Please note my use of the word Baduk, and use the word "Baduk" in a
prominent place on your Go pages -- preferably in the TITLE, and in
the META tags within HTML. Doing this will make it much easier for other
people to find your page using simple search tools.
Apart from its use in Korean (meaning this game),
the word Baduk seems to exist only
in the Basque language (as a stative verb!). All the other
obvious names for Go also have other meanings in other languages
(Go - English verb; WeiQi/Wei-Ch'i - Chinese name),
and/or exist as widely-used abbreviations (Igo -- IGO :
Inter-Governmental Organization; International Golf Organization).
On this page I will specialise in links to British Go activities and
people, as well as matters broadly relating to Computers and Go,
and Rulesets (and problems arising from them, thus giving us "beasts" for a
"Bestiary"!)
There will also be a number of links of particular interest to me. However,
where other people are providing well organized indexes, I will often simply
point to them.
Please note that I cannot update this page as frequently as I would like to.
Please check out
my Personal "Bookmarks"/ "Hotlist"/ "Favourites" file,
which has lots of Go links. I find new links almost daily, and I check, and
update, the links in my bookmarks fairly frequently. My bookmarks are likely
to contain many things that are not here.
-
The British Go Association
, with a price list for books and equipment (also available to non-members),
club lists, the E-Journal, information about the Journal,
and access to programs in the BGA Computer Library of Shareware
software for the IBM PC, etc.
-
UK Go players mailing list :
if you have a message that would be of particular interest to British
players, then you can send them
all an e-mail message at
ukgolist@dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk.NOSPAM (remove the ".NOSPAM"). There is some
further information about the GoUK mailing list.
- The British Go Association maintains
a list of British Go clubs,
as well as
a clickable map.
Since I live in Oxford, here is the home page for the
Oxford City Go Club ,
and also some information (not always up-to-date) about the
Oxford University Go Society.
- Private sales/exchanges of any Go-related material via the
UK Go Mart and Exchange.
I expect to be adding to this substantially in the year 2000 -- watch this space!
- John Fairbairn researches the history of Go --
he is also the author
of the Go-displaying program "Go Maximizer" for which he has recorded a
number of games. T Mark Hall has recorded a large number of Games in
Ishi/Go_Scribe/Many_Faces_of_Go format. Further information about all of
these, and more, can be found on
John Fairbairn's Home Page
-
There are several other people in Britain who provide Go products or
services. These include:
- Go is one of several major games that was played at the
First Annual Mind Sports Olympiad,
which was held at the Royal Festival Hall, London, UK from 18-24 August 1997,
and annually thereafter.
-
Jan van der Steen's home page
-- many links, especially his
"Go Game Database", and his
"Interface to the Internet Go Dictionary" (9 languages).
-
Fred Hansen
- Software Engineer and Go Player
-
Ken Warkentyne's Go page
-- lots of links
-
Martin Müller
author of the program
Explorer, and a PhD thesis on Computer Go
-
John Tromp - interested in Rulesets
-
Go WWW-Pages
-- Christoph Birk
-
PHOAKS: Resources for rec.games.go
-- seems almost useless with Microsoft Internet Explorer v 4.0, but completely
broken with Netscape v 4.05 - downloads a lot - do "View" / "Source" -
but displays nothing!
-
Go (Baduk) Links -- from ChangSup Ryu
-
Benz GO Stuff -- Many useful links
-
SmallBear's English HomePage
-- also has a Japanese page.
-
Japanese - many links
-
joelr's home page
-
Matthew Macfadyen's Go Pages
-- tuition; courses; problems
-
Takashi Michikawa's Homepage - Go player
-
Mark Wainwright's home page
-
Ken's Go (Baduk, WeiQi) Page
-
Per-Erik Martin's Go page
-
Ari Karppinnen - WWGo opponent
-
Barry Phease - Home Page
-
Go -- Youd's page
-
David J. King's Go Links
-
Michio's Go Page
-
WeiQi/WeiCh'i, Go, Igo, Baduk
-- Chinese page with links to other Chinese, as well as Japanese and Korean, pages.
-
Check out the
"other go pages"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
which is a bit of a mixed bag of links.
Combinatorial Games Theory is based on work first published (formally, and in
a book) in
On Numbers and Games by John Horton Conway; publ Academic Press;
1976. These ideas were developed, in a more accessible way, in
the 2-volume Winning Ways, for your mathematical plays
by Elwyn R Berlekamp, John H Conway and Richard K Guy; Academic Press;
1982. (If you like these, or you are simply a fan of Donald Knuth, then
check out Surreal Numbers , by Donald Knuth; Addison-Wesley; 1974.
This humorous, though basically,teatment pre-dates On Numbers and Games
by 2 years).
Most of the work being done now in CGT and Go seems to be by people centred
on University of California at Berkeley including
Elwyn Berlekamp
,
David Wolfe
, YongHoan Kim, Bill Spight, and possibly others. Others who are active in this
field include Howard A Landman,
David Moews
,
Martin Mueller
, and Ralph Gasser.
Available resources include:
-
The book Mathematical Go
-- Chilling Gets the Last Point
by Elwyn R Berlekamp and David Wolfe;
Publ AK Peters Ltd, 289 Linden Street, Wellesley, MA 02181, USA; 1994.
This was also published in paperback, with (optional) accompanying software, as
Mathematical Go: Nightmares for the Professional Go Player, by the Ishi
Press International, San Jose CA (1994?). I found the software a useful supplement
to the book -- a bit expensive, perhaps.
There is a brief description of
Mathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point
-
David Wolfe has written a theory program, for Unix systems,
which implements the mathematical formalism used in that book, and
makes some provision for kos. I have made
a version of David Wolfe's "theory" for the IBM PC -- runs under DOS.
You can use it to do the arithmetic.
-
David Eppstein has provided a description of
Combinatorial Game Theory
, together with links to many other CGT resources.
-
Some of these ideas -- CGT, Go, and computers -- are brought together by
Tristan Cazenave - Computers; Combinatorial Game Theory ...
-
Following a workshop held in 1994, Mathematical Sciences Research
Institute (MSRI) produced MSRI
Publication 29, edited by Richard J Nowakowski, and published in 1996
by Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0-521-57411-0) with the title
Games of No Chance. It contains 4 articles -- 83 pages -- about
CGT and Go.
There is
an Online version of "Games of No Chance"
-- all 4 Go papers are there.
General introductions to the game include:
Some other articles are:
A good starting point for other introductions is the
"general"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
Do your own searches on the Web for pages about Go, now:
You can play against opponents ranging in strength from complete beginner
to Professional. You can even play against a very recent version of the
program Many Faces of Go. If you're tired then simply watch others playing and make
comments on their games!
The Internet Go Server (IGS) has been around for several years, and the
No Name Go Server (NNGS) is a more recent creation. There are several "clones"
of the NNGS. These include The Legend Go Server (LGS) in Taiwan which opened
in early 1996(?).
The IGS, and NNGS (and "clones"), all work with various "Internet Go Clients",
which can be obtained from various places, including
the IGS itself.
The Gaming Zone is different.
Other -- non IGS-compatible
The following do not use the standard IGS/NNGS Go clients:
-
World Web Go
let you play Go (for free, if you join their Fellowship service),
using a Java-capable browser -- this requires a bit of work to set up,
and it works on Windows 95 0nly (as of 1998/11/21). They also organize
an Internet Go World Ranking Contest with games played
using E-mail (and maybe in "real-time" for the endgame if you
have played very slowly).
You play up to 10 games, simultaneously, over a 3-month period from
mid-September to mid-December, each year. I have enjoyed all three
that I have played in. You can find out more about
WWGo - The Internet Go World Ranking Contest
-
The Internet Gaming Zone
--- you will need a client for a PC or a Mac, which you
can get from them.
-
"Harmony" - Haplink Go Server
- Chinese - has own client
-
Welcome to Yahoo! Games
-
Playing VR Games:- WeiQi(Go/Baduk),Chess,Mahjong using VRML 2.0 viewer
-
AirSource Enterprises -- Go and Chinese Chess -- using Chinese language
-
Handtalk World - Go Server; etc
- has own client
-
ClassicGames.com
-
Welcome to PlaySite
-
Check out the
"java"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
for various Java applets.
-
Ergo
-- a Java IGS Client
-
Use a Java-capable browser to try
iGo (Internet Go) -- slow?
-
The JAVA IGS Telnet Applet
-
JavaGO
Richard's Play-By-E-Mail (PBEM) server makes life easier than having to
find your own opponents, and keeps game records ...
Newsgroups are a kind of electronic notice-board. You can post messages there for people to
read world-wide. there are currently three newsgroups which specialise ing Go/ Weiqi/ Baduk.
You will need access to a news server to read these directly:
- news:rec.games.go
-- The main Igo/ Baduk/ WeiQi / Wei Ch'i newsgroup. Unfortunately it
often contains a high percentage of rubbish -- it is fairly easy to
ignore this.
-
news:fj.rec.games.go
- WARNING - probably not available everywhere
-
news:japan.games.go
- WARNING - probably not available everywhere
If you do not have access to a news-server, or you have difficulty reading some
of these newsgroups, then try:
For everything from game records (professional and amateur) to game-diagram
typesetting and printing tools;
from Go-playing programs to tools for converting game-records;
lots of information about/from the IGS, and tools for using it;
etc.
-
Private sales of second-hand books and equipment -- there is a
UK Go Mart and Exchange
-- a Wanted/For-Sale page for British Residents who want to
buy/sell from/to people anywhere.
-
Check out the
Suppliers of Go books and equipment in Britain (and the World)
page of the BGA site.
-
Check out the
"products"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
-
Samarkand
is the company started by Janice Kim, an American professional Go
player. They now stock
a wide range of competitively priced Go equipment,
and paraphenalia. They obviously also stock the books of their sister
company Good Move Press, publishers of
Learn To Play Go (they have already -- by 1998/11/11 -- published
the first four in a projected 6-part
series of books, which are designed to take players from complete
beginner to strong kyu). I highly recommend this series.
They can be contacted by email at
info@samarkand.net, or at
sales@samarkand.net,
as appropriate. There is more contact information (including a US
toll-free 'phone number) on their WWW page,
as well as pictures of their products, etc.
-
Yutopian's
Web page. They supply most things -- including material in
Chinese and Japanese. You can order online.
Email:
info@yutopian.com
-
Ishi Press :
There are lots of companies containg "Ishi Press"
in their name -- very confusing! As a matter of fact,
most books supplied by Ishi, are now available via Kiseido.
- Ishi (US) seem no longer to have their own WWW page
As from 27th April 1995, Ishi in the USA seems to have a
new address (do they still reply?):
Ishi Press International,
1702-H Meridian Avenue, #193
San Jose,
CA 95125,
USA.
Tel: +1 (408) 271-0415.
Fax: +1 (408) 271-0416
US Toll-free order line: 800 859-2086
Email:
ishius@ishius.com
.... However, they seem to have moved to:
1394-A Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Tel: 1-800-859-2086; 1-415-323-6996
Email:
ishius@ishius.com
In late 1999 Herbert M Bryant Jr told me that Ishi Press International
can be reached
on the web, or
by email;
Tel +1-800-859-2086
-- I do not know who these are!
...Not to be confused with a company with a similar name
(allegedly) run by Sam Sloan ...
- In the UK, we (used to) have:
Ishi International Ltd,
PO Box 3288,
London NW5 1RQ,
UK.
Tel: +44 171-284-4898
Fax: +44 171-284-4899
Graeme Bruce of Ishi UK now has/had his own e-mail address:
gb@ishi-uk.demon.co.uk
I have no evidence (1998/11/11) that they are still trading
-- anyone know? If they are trading, it is probably unlikely
that they will have books published since 1996.
- Ibuki Trading Post supply the full range of Go material -- they
have a list of books, videos,
boards, stones, software, etc.
You can order online. They can be reached by email at
info@ibuki.com, or, for orders at
orders@ibuki.com
They can be reached by more conventional means:
Phone: +1 (415)961-4996 [GMT -8],
Fax: +1 (415)949-2961.
I can find no record of a business address to which one can send an
ordinary letter!
- Kiseido (USA) supply their own books, "Go World", some Japanese
books, computer software, and a wide range of equipment.
Kiseido (Japan)'s catalogues
contain detailed descriptions of their product range.
Trading by Kiseido (USA) is now via Yutopian.
- Schaak en Go winkel Het Paard
are the largest European distributor -- agents for Yutopian and Kiseido, I
believe -- and can be reached by email at
paard@xs4all.nl
-- as well as selling direct to the public, they seem to act as
wholesalers to other
retailers throughout western Europe
-
Fourthline Press
are publishers. Their first
publication is Whole Board Thinking in Joseki - I, which I
highly recommend, is sub-titled 3-4 point, low kakari.
The second book in the series - Whole Board Thinking in Joseki - II
(sub-titled 3-4 point, high kakaris, and far kakaris)
is equally well written, illustrated, and organized.
I am eagerly awaiting one which discusses the joseki starting from the 3-3
and 4-4 points -- I think that I might understand these better!
Their phone number is +1 (508) 368-8458, and their Email is:
FourthLine@aol.com. Their books are easily available from
Samarkand, as well as other suppliers.
- Village Games (of 65 The West Yard, Camden Lock, London NW1 8AF
-- proprietor Ray Bathke -- Tel (and Fax) +44 171 485-0653; email
bathke@villagegames.com)
do not yet have a Web Page, but here is a
message that I got from them about
Books available from Village Games, Jun 22 1995.
They also supply other shops, including "Just Games", in London.
- The Gameskeeper, 105 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1HU.
Tel: (01865) 721348
Smallish stock of books and equipment, but can get stuff from their wholesaler,
very quickly. Take credit cards.
-
Oxford Heritage Limited, 72 High Street, Oxford,Ox1 4BA.
Tel: (01865) 203244. Fax: (01865) 203250
Email: qg24@dial.pipex.com
They are 'Purveyors of Traditional games', and have quite a wide-ranging stock --
mainly games, but also a few books. They are not specialists in Go
equipment, but currently stock a quality medium scale board. I am expecting them
to stock Classic Board Games for Klutzes which contains a 9x9 Go board and
stones -- highly recommended as a Christmas present for a young relative!
- SpieleKiste have a wide range of go material, including a
number of books in Japanese. The proprietor is Rudige Burow, and they can be
reached at:
SpieleKiste Unna, Burow & Wiesen, Gesellschaftsstr. 15, 4750 Unna, Germany
Tel: +49 2303 22442 Fax: +49 2303 22967.
-
The Ing Chang-Ki Goe Educational Foundation,
4F Kuang Fu Building,
No. 35 Kuang Fu South Road,
Taipei,
Taiwan,
ROC.
FAX 886-2-768-6940.
Tel 886-2-761-4117.
- Various products and services - check out
Fred Hansen
-
Information about other suppliers:
I have a great interest in Tsume Go problems, and am in the process of putting
the 1,454 problems of the KanZuFu (Chinese "GuanZiPu") into computer-readable
format. If this is a success, I may well do the same for the other classics:
Here is a table of the better known "Classic" works.
References: (from Harry Fearnley's post to r.g.g. 17/10/95, substantially amended 19 Feb 1996
and July 18 1996 (Korean added))
|
Some Classic TsumeGo problem books
|
| Number | Title (Jap / Chinese / Korean)
| Author | (dates) |
Publishing date |
| 1a | --- / XuanXuan QiJing / Hyun Hyun Ki Kyung |
Yan TianZhang & Yan DeFu | 1347(??1349) |
| 1b | Gengen Gokyo / --- / Hyun Hyun Ki Kyung |
Ed. Honinbo Sansa | 1630 |
| 1c | Gengen Gokyo / --- / Hyun Hyun Ki Kyung |
20 editions | Edo & Meiji |
"Mysterious ..."/ "The Gateway to All Marvels" # Problems = 290/349?
|
|
|
| 2 | Kanzufu / Guan Zi Pu / Gwan Ja Bo |
Meijin Guo BuiLing
(Ed. Tao ShiYu et al) | 1689 |
| "Manual of Endgame Positions" # Problems = 1,454
| |
|
|
| 3a | Igo Hatsuyoron(a.k.a. Fudanzakura)
/ FaYangLun / Bal Yang Non . Hyun Gam |
Inoue Inseki | (1673-1692) | 1713 |
| 3b | Igo Hatsuyoron | Ed. Honinbo Shusai
| 1914 |
| "On the production of Yang in Go" # Problems = 183/201?
| |
|
|
| 4 | Gokyo Shumyo/ QiJingZhongMiao / Ki Kyung Joong Myo | Hayashi Genbi
| (1778-1861) | 1811 |
| "Brilliancies from Go Classics" # Problems = 505/515? |
|
|
|
| 5 | Shikatsu Myoki / --- / Sa Hwal Myo Ki | Honinbo Shusai |
(1874-1940) | 1910 |
| "Life and Death Brilliant Stratagems" # Problems = 168
| |
|
|
| 6a | Kifu Genran / ? XuanLan / --- | Akaboshi Intetsu
| ? | 1833 |
| "Go Diagrams: Mysterious Vision" # Problems = 15-20?
| |
|
|
| 6b | Genran / XuanLan / --- | ed. Inoue Shuntetsu
| ? | 1846 |
| "Mysterious Vision" # Problems = 69
| |
|
|
|
I am very grateful to John Fairbairn in helping me compile the above table -- all errors are mine!
You can also get
Two new problems (and solutions) every day
from Thomas Wolf's Go Tools collection.
Here are various problem pages:
Check out the
Go Problems
page of the BGA site, for links to several more pages.
- What is the maximum number of live groups that can exist on a Go board?
- What is the largest number of stones that can be captured, and still not
give two eyes?
- When could suicide be a good move?
- In which positions will the Japanese/ Chinese/ Ing/ New Zealand/ AGA/ etc
rules give different results?
- What are all the different types of "cycles" (e.g. Ko, Chosei, Jun Kan Ko)
that are possible? What is the longest cycle possible without a repetition
of a previous board position? ... or such that the last "n" moves are not a
repeat of the immediately previous "n" moves?
The above are just some examples of many similar questions which one can think of
and which give rise to strange or weird positions.
I am starting a collection of these "beasts" (hence the name "Bestiary"),
and would be grateful for any information.
If you have an interesting position, please send it to me by e-mail, and
I will make a WWW page here -- you will get the full credit.
I will place links to any relevant existing pages here.
My interest in such positions is partly an abstract interest in rulesets, and
partly because I want to have a collection of positions which I can use
to check whether computer algorithms work as they should -- for such tests, it
is often helpful to have very bizarre positions -- the more bizarre the better.
I already know of John Tilley's "International Go Handbook and Dictionary",
as well as the invaluable "Go Player's Almanac", by Richard Bozulich. I also have a
Japanese "Go Encyclopaedia" published some years ago by Nihon Kiin.
-
There is now a WWW version of
Ikeda Toshio's classic book "On The Rules of Go"
-- many thanks to James Davies for his work on this, and to
Fujitsu for sponsoring both the book, and its presence on the Web.
-
I have written a lengthy, if somewhat sketchy, paper called
Multistage Kos : Zippers, Wheels, Loops, etc
,
in which I discuss some discoveries relating to very artificial situations.
-
A collection of "beasts" which challenge various rulesets,
including classic material from Ikeda and Shimada.
- Here is
a further collection of ruleset-challenging beasts
from Matthew Macfadyen, Martin Mueller, and Nick Wedd.
-
Matti Siivola's Go page
contains references to several such positions --
now includes the fill-your-own-eye "tesuji". In Nov 1998, I made
my own, local, copy of that part of his page.
-
A collection of other "beasts"
-- do not challenge Rulesets -- mainly Ger Hungerink's articles.
-
Check out the
Comparison of some Go rules
page of the BGA site -- a good, practical, overview.
-
Fred Hansen's Compendium of Rules for WeiQi(Go, Baduk)
provides links to various pages, including
the Kim, Simon, and Straus commentary on the Ing rules,
as well as Ing's 1991 rules, The latest Japanese Rules, etc.
-
Fred Hansen's precise, and nearly complete, SST Ko rules
-
Robert Jasiek's original work on Ing Ko Rules, and much more
-
John Tromp's Go page
- with his "Logical Rules", and links to other "Rulesets" pages.
-
Check out the
"rules"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
-- mainly for beginners.
-
Korean Rules
-- from Barry Phease.
-
There is a mailing list devoted to the discussion of rulesets.
frequent contributors include Robert Jasiek, Barry Phease,
John Tromp, and James Davies. Robert Jasiek provides
details of how to subscribe, etc
-
Jan van der Steen's
GoBase -- A Go Game Database
-
The WWW Joseki Dictionary
-
The Internet Go Dictionary
-- 9 languages (English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, German, Dutch, Swedish,
Italian, and Esperanto!) -- extensive dictionary.
-
Go Data Base
-
GLOSSARY OF JAPANESE GO TERMS
-
Go Terms - Japanese Pronunciations
-
GO-termer. Japanska gotermer "versatta och f"rklarade.
-
Check out the
"definitions & proverbs"
section of Ken's "Web Go (Wei Qi, Baduk) Page Index"
I am interested in collecting information, about Go-variants (games which
broadly similar rules -- perhaps on different shaped boards), and also about
other games which can be played with the same equipment. I am hopeful that
one day enough of these can be brought together into a compendium of games
so that Go equipment will get in into a shop in every main shopping centre!
If you can provide more sensible descriptions, for these please tell me.
Check out
my home page
, where there is some contact information, and a link to my "Bookmarks"/
"Hotlist"/ "Favourites"
file, which contain many Go-related pages not listed here,
especially the newer ones.
Copyright © 1994-1999 by Harry Fearnley.
This page maintained by
Harry@goban.demon.co.uk.NOSPAM
(sorry -- please remove ".NOSPAM"),
whose WWW page is
Harry Fearnley's Home Page
