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“GOAMA”, International Go Newsletter
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40th issue
goama40.sgf (goama40.sgf)

1. Article by A.Dinerchtein "Go and Chess – Two Games, Shared Experiences"
2. World Go news
3. Commented game from KGS "TORONTO1" vs "yuukikki" (sgf, at the attachment)
4. New photos from Korea
5. The most exciting game of the week
6. Gifts for our readers
7. Announcement: Free Go lecture on KGS

Dear friends!
We are glad to present you the 40th issue of the "Goama" newsletter, including:
1. Article by A.Dinerchtein "Go and Chess – Two Games, Shared Experiences"
2. World Go news
3. Commented game from KGS "TORONTO1" vs "yuukikki" (sgf, at the attachment)
4. New photos from Korea
5. The most exciting game of the week
6. Gifts for our readers
7. Announcement: Free Go lecture on KGS

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Go and Chess – Two Games, Shared Experiences

Chess and go show are similar in many ways, yet it's always strange to see how the masters of each game try to "invent the wheel", instead of benefiting from the knowledge of their colleagues.
Let's consider sharing experiences!

These ideas can be useful even for strong Asian Go professionals:

1. Currently, only a few pros use Go databases and programs for studying. It is easy to find commentaries, written by 9-dan masters, which state that a move is new and has never been played before. Yet if one checks such moves in Go databases, one can sometimes find up to 100 examples from professional games. How can they cheat the readers who study these commentaries?

Once in Korea, I showed the Bigo Assistant program (similar to GoGod, MoyoGo and SmartGo) to Lee Sedol's brother Lee Sanghun, 5-dan, who is the director of a large children's Go school. He was surprised and said that the program looked very useful, and he added that he had never met this kind of program before. He even suggested deleting all amateur games and games played on Go servers, because of their low quality. I promised to order the programs and to install them on the school's computers if he liked this idea, but he did not follow up. Lee Sanghun, 5-dan was not able to break the traditions of his forefathers …


2. Even such top chess players as Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov enlist the support of trainers during important tournaments and matches. During the Communist era, almost every Russian grandmaster worked on behalf of world championship candidates. Our government forced them to help, to show them new moves and ideas. Those who refused to help were punished severely: for example, sometimes a player would be prohibited from playing in tournaments abroad and would be refused foreign visas.

We do not see this in Go. Everyone thinks only about his or her own self. Do you know who is currently assisting Lee Changho? I don't know, either!


3. I would like to say a few words about playing technique. Chess players often used to write the move on paper first and then make it on the board. This helps to avoid impulsive moves and to prevent blunders. Go masters record the game afterwards, and so one can often find terrible mistakes, such as overlooking ataris and recapturing ko without playing a ko threat first. As an example you may see Black's move number 271 from this game:
http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/sgfview.php?id=10828
I am sure that if a player looked at their move at least twice – before they write it on paper and after – they would not make such mistakes.


4. Even top Go tournaments are usually run by the knock-out system so we often see sensational results. Mightn’t it be reasonable to think about increasing the number of games in each round? If rounds were best-of-three (in case of time constraints, it would be possible to use blitz time controls for the third game), it would help to minimize sensations.

How about organising a definitive World Go Championship? Chess players have contested one for more than 100 years, and competitions for this World Championship have revealed the very best players of each generation. In Go it's harder to tell which player is true champion. In 2006, for instance, one international tournament was won by Lee Changho and another one by Lee Sedol, while Cho U won the largest amount of prize money. Whom can we call the World Champion? Who can say which tournament is the most important : LG, Samsung, Fujitsu, Chunlan or another? We don't even have a unified rating system …

If we determined a single World Go Champion, he might earn the same degree of popularity as Garry Kasparov achieved in chess, and this could have a very positive influence on Go popularity around the world!


I will send this article to Korean "Sege Baduk" magazine as well. We will see whether they will publish it or not. Who knows? Maybe Korean professionals and the managers of the Hankuk Kiwon will follow my advice.

Few notes from Tamsin Jones, Goama expert, who is also strong at chess:
"Alex, I think you should know that it's now illegal in international chess to write down moves before playing them. Also, do you really want to condone note-taking during a game? It seems a bit close to cheating in the case of go, because writing a move on a score diagram or palm computer is tantamount to actually playing it on the board (at least with chess, using algebraic notation, you still had to imagine what the move would look like).
This is a very interesting article and I think it has the potential to be controversial. I would like to know if the Korean magazine accepts it."


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World Go news

Lee Changho's younger brother Lee Youngho got married on January,14 in China. His wife is Chinese and it's not so strange, because Lee Youngho is currently living in China and speaks Chinese very well (he works for Chinese office of Tygem Go server)
Maybe you are curious about his Go-level. Lee Youngho is 5 kyu, which is not much higher than the average rank in Korea (7-8 kyu, according to the statistic)
Wedding photos are available here:
http://www.baduk.or.kr/news/homenews_view.asp?gul_no=509137&gdiv=1

On the last photo you may see Chang Hao, 9-dan with his family (Chang, 9-dan is a good friend of Lee Changho, 9-dan)


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Commented game from the KGS

You may find it at the attachment. We took this game from the collection of commented games on Go4Go. If you like to receive more commented games, please subscribe the service here:
http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/alex/
The price of the yearly subscription (500 games: Pro, KGS, Top European and US tournaments) is $50 only. There is also a 6-months plan available.

In our collection we have the commented games of all KGS heroes: tartrate, cxwind, fondle, kirara, Weems, dinner, sariyu, Pretender, veggie, schneider, joeker, GEKO, Mfer, aguilar, yukisuke, intetsu, roln111, vic1000, TheCaptain, papipusyu, mymy, Galileo, maru16, warawara, darkmage and other KGS stars. You may even learn the history of KGS by replaying these games!
The price of the each commentary is less than $0.03!

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New photos from Korea

http://www.baduk.or.kr/news/homenews_view.asp?gul_no=509159&gdiv=2&frpg=MN
http://www.baduk.or.kr/news/homenews_view.asp?gul_no=509160&gdiv=1&frpg=MN
5th Jeongganjang Cup (Female event)

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The most exciting game of the week

4th Korean King of Kings, preliminary
2007-01-11: Kim Ilhwan 9p (Black) vs. Kim JongJoon 5p (White) W+R
http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/sgfview.php?id=13693
An exciting battle with lot of dead groups. It seems, that Black missed the attack at 164

4th Korean King of Kings, preliminary
2007-01-11: Paek Seongho 9p (Black) vs. Lee Hongyeol 9p (White) B+R
http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/sgfview.php?id=13692
Nice tesuji Black 89, which saved the group in sente

55th Japanese Oza, preliminary
2007-01-18: O Rissei 9p (Black) vs. Michael Redmond 9p (White) B+1.5
http://www.go4go.net/v2/modules/collection/sgfview.php?id=13746
An interesting probe - White 46

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Gifts for our readers

http://www.thetradingcentre.co.uk/ decided to offer a 10% discount on every order you make from their online shop within few months. You may get your discount by entering the coupon keyword "Goama" on http://www.thetradingcentre.co.uk/main.asp?sitepages=Coupons
They have not only Go books (great choice for all levels), equipment (sets, boards, bowls, stones) and software (Many Faces of Go, GoGod, Go++ ) but also everything you need for playing bridge, checkers, classic and Chinese chess, mahjong, shogi and other well-known boards games.

Contact us, please, if you have your own Go shop and would like to set a special discount for our readers.

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Announcement: Free Go lecture on KGS

I got a lot of requests from the Goama readers, who ask me to show the answers of the Go-test at http://play.baduk.org/
I decided to explain it online on KGS.
I will not only show the right answers, but also explain the positions in details.
I will do it on Sunday, January, 28 at 6 PM GMT (21.00 Moscow time) in English Game Room on KGS: http://www.gokgs.com/
Everything will be free of charge. Please, invite your friends to watch the lecture or inform them on local Go forums.

I suggest you to try the test once again and prepare the questions, you like to ask.

See you soon on KGS!
Alexander Dinerchtein ("breakfast")

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Enjoy the newsletter!
The IGN "Goama" editor's team

You are welcome to republish any text material from the IGN "Goama" without commercial purposes: please note the source and put the link to http://gogame.info/.

To obtain republishing rights for commented game records, please contact:
A.Dinerchtein ("breakfast" on KGS), editor-in-chief
E-mail: qp@omen.ru
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