Studying Go Seigen's book
In his comment to one of my recent posts, Leonard Dragomir of The Warriors Go Academy asked if I had tried memorizing a pro game. He didn't explain the "why" behind it; he just tossed the idea and a few hyperlinks at me.
As is the case with any motivated student, a teacher often just has to say, "Go in that direction. You'll learn something by the time you get back."
Memorizing a game is a lot easier if you understand the reasoning behind the moves. I thought that I would try Leonard's suggestion with the partial games in Go Seigen's book, A Way of Play for the 21st Century since it's got considerable commentary. It only took me about 15 minutes to memorize and understand the first 32 moves. That's very encouraging so I'm going to see how far I can take this practice.
New freeware SGF editor features embedded audio
Frank de Groot has released Moyo Go Editor; a freeware SGF editor which was derived from his Go pattern analyzer, Moyo Go Studio.
It's an attractive editor with a uniqe capability to play back audio that is embedded in a SGF file. To create a SGF file with embedded audio, one would need the full version of Moyo Go Studio which he sells for $69. Both applications were designed for Windows only so an emulator would be needed for different operating systems.
Even with embedded audio, the SGF file retains its backward compatibility. Frank sent me a sample and I tested it with Drago and was able to open it with no problems.
Each audio segment is associated with a node (a move or variation in the SGF). Presumably, the feature could be used by remote-learning Go schools to create an audio lesson in a SGF.
In other news
A rather dramatic preview of KHII.
A tour of KHII's worlds.
ChiyoChan has been enjoying her new game, Kingdom Hearts II, which combines characters from Disney's pantheon with some from the Final Fantasy series of games. It's rather fascinating to see the pairing of Disney animation with Japanese anime.
Suntory's ad for their new drink, Final Fantasy Potion.
Final Fantasy XII is due to be released in Japan to much ado. Beverage manufacturer Suntory had launched a special drink, Final Fantasy Potion, which is tied to the game. Its humorous ad is featured above.
posted by ChiyoDad @ 9:53 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi ChiyoDad,
I’m glad you got the right message … and you found YOUR reason to do something, in this case, to memorize a pro game.
Out there are “different ways to the mountain top”, and of course many ways you can improve your GO skill … one, indeed, is memorizing a pro game.
Different peoples will say different things … do not memorize joseki … or do not study them at all until 5 kyu … do instead more problems … harder the better …. or … nooo!, don’t do that …. just try to guess the next move … and so on.
You don’t need their reasons. … you need to find YOURS!
Listen to everybody … but do it your way!
Leonard
I myself have recently taken up memorizing pro games and so far have found great value in doing so. Starting a couple of weeks ago with the game made famous in Kawabata's book, The Master of Go, I was so pleased with myself that I discovered white's losing move by myself (forgetting that it had been discussed at length in the book because its been a couple of years since I've read the book). That, in turn, inspired me to try and memorize another. (see my comments on a recent
leisureguy post)
Today I've just finished reading the book for a second time and it really helped make the story come alive with the game already in my head.
And coming up with my own reasons for a move (in order to memorize them), even if they are initially wrong, so far really seems to help in my study of Go.
Now I have a second game in my head (kinda reminds me of Fahrenheit 451) -- Shusaku's Ear Reddening game. That one was a lot tougher to memorize.
I'm compiling a list of games I'd like to try next.
One of these days I should try to play some games :)
What I've enjoyed most from this trial exercise has been discovering that I CAN memorize games and sequences with a little effort. I had originally thought it might be a bit of a challenge.
You try something out of your comfort zone and you suddenly get rewarded.
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