Friday, April 10, 2009

Early Second Round Wins in September Shogi Open!

I must confess that I'm a bit excited right now. In the second round of BrainKing's September Shogi Open, I've managed to quickly earn a couple wins against one of my two opponents. Both games were pretty loose and crazy as we were making many moves per day, but I was able to build mating attacks by applying pressure and doing my best to avoid the urge to profit materially. Instead of trying to capture pieces as I would in Chess, I tried to ignore unimportant threats and keep focus on attacking the king...things worked out for the best. I made a load of mistakes, but I feel for the first time in my Shogi "career" that I'm reading pretty well and seeing the entire board.

Hopefully I can keep this up in the coming weeks or months it will take to finish these other two games.

8 comments:

Ryou Takehito said...

Good luck with your September Shogi Open.

Anonymous said...

Well frankiii,

My name is Diptansu, Am from India. Probably this is the first time I am posting any comment to any blog at all. Even if I posted somewhere earlier I do not really remember. So lets assume that this is my first comment to any blog post lol.

Okay, lets get into the point as soon as I can, (but it seems I am in no mood to get onto the point fast). Okay 3 years ago I used to play a lots of lots of lots of chess and to my surprise I was best in my college. Then suddenly one day I stopped playing chess. Well, this is not too unusual. I do such things often. Then I went for a comp game called 'Age of Empire', which is a strategy game, and not too easy to play. Anyway, after trying to master the game for last three years and after getting a little bit success, I am now interested in 'go' God knows why. And my old craze for chess is also coming back.

Well, with this historical paragraph as a prefix, I wd like to tell u few things.

1) I liked your blog very much, though I still have not read 98% of it. But I bookmarked it, and hoping to finish it all.
2) I also liked the 'glgo' graphics almost due to the same reasons u liked it. I really like neat @D game graphics.
3) As I got interested in 'go' I have downloaded " glgo and GNUgo " to start with.
4) But i think 'go' is probably the toughest game to learn, even tougher than chess.
5) I want you to help me on this.
6) My EMail ID is 'diptansu.sengupta@gmail.com'. I will really be glad and grateful if you contact with me. If I knew your ID, I wd have mailed you myself.
7) I wd like to play chess with you somewhere in net. Do tell me when you be online.
8) If you have any Facebook account, I wd like to add you there. I have an account with my name (Diptansu Sengupta).
9) You even encouraged me to start a blog myself. [:p] I am really thinking about it seriously.

Hope you wont get crazy with such a long comment and contact me soon. [:)]

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Diptansu again [:p]. I have completed ur blog. Its a great blog for the strategy game lovers.

After reading your blog smhow i have started to think that chess is the best and most enjoyable strategy game ever made. Anywy, bst of luck for shogi.

I hope one day u start playing AOE II(Age of Empire II: The Conquerors Expansion) though it is not board game. I can send u the literature U will need to master the game . [;)]

Keep blogging, I like it.

frankiii said...

Thanks for the comments and I'm glad to see you enjoy the blog. Sorry if I haven't responded quickly, but I've been incredibly busy. In addition, Street Fighter IV has been taking up much of my free time so the only shogi I've been playing has been in this brainking tournament and my opponent has been pretty slow. :)

Anonymous said...

hey Frank,

Diptansu here.
Can you tell me where can I found 'go' games played by experts?

What wd be the file extensions of these save game files if I wanna play them in 'glgo'?

Is there any particular openings in 'Go' (Like chess)?

Otherwise its really difficult to understand how I wd start my game in a Vaaast 19x19 board. [:(]

It wd be better if u help me a bit.

frankiii said...

I would recommend you start with http://senseis.xmp.net as you online go resource. They have a ton of info and should point you in the right direction. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Hey i suggest you check this site. Its a Shogi server. Its live not turn based and heaps of fun. I use it all the time. and im worried that you cant beat the easiest opponent on Shotest Shogi. Im up to Robot =)

frankiii said...

What site? Thanks.