Eating Tokyo: Torikizoku (鳥貴族)

This is not directly related to Go, but many Go players want to visit Tokyo, and food is a good part of the experience. Torikizoku, or “Toriki” for short, is an izakaya chain specializing in yakitori (skewers). Every item is just ¥328; you order from a tablet. Torikizoku has a busy and lively atmosphere. The …

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Performing vs. Improving

Improvement does not happen while you are solving tsumego or while you are playing because then you are just performing at your current level. The phase where you improve is when you look at the answer or the game analysis and are thinking and figuring out things afterwards.

It’s not a failure, it’s a step to success

In April 2023, basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo said this after being asked if he considered the past season a failure: Do you get a promotion every year at your job? No, right? So every year, your work is a failure? No. Every year, you work towards something, which is a goal: It’s to get a …

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2nd So-Imba Cup

Last weekend I took part in the 2nd So-Imba Cup tournament in Mokrá-Horákov, near Brno. I made a video of the tournament and of my journey to Brno

Openings of the AI age

I wrote a program that takes thousands of pro-level games, extracts the first twenty moves and assembles them in a single tree. Here I have chosen games from 2016 – the year that AlphaGo made its impact – to 2019 so we can study what kind of openings are played in the AI age.

Plus and Minus Values

“Plus value” is something that either directly gives you points, like territory, or can potentially give you points, like influence. “Minus value” is something that can take something away from your pocket, like cutting points, weak shapes and weak groups. If you have them, you can potentially lose something. The opponent has something there.

Learning Techniques for Go

This article focusses on learning techniques based around Bloom’s taxonomy—remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create—and how they apply to Go.

How to Train with AI

You cannot beat KataGo in an even game; even top professionals have to take two or three handicap stones. But high-handicap games are different from even games. KaTrain can weaken KataGo but it does not play human moves found in Asian server games. Find positions from your games where KataGo says that you have a …

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Nigel Davies on “The How and the What”

The how is more important than the what. It really doesn’t matter what you study, the important thing is to use this as a training ground for thinking rather than trying to assimilate a mind-numbing amount of information. In these days of a zillion different chess products this message seems to be quite lost, and …

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