Changes

It's been a while since I updated this blog, and this won't be much of an update. But, I'm just noting that I've changed the layout around a bit and added a chess.com banner to the right. I've begun playing chess in April and have been finding it to be much more enjoyable than go.

As I've mentioned to my friend, KillerDucky, I enjoy strategy but I need a game with a payoff. Chess has a payoff where Go does not. Passing a couple times and counting up stones at the end of a game doesn't quite give me the satisfaction of a checkmate.

Oh, and I've also begun learning Shogi. I purchased Shotest Shogi 3D for the PC and will certainly be getting the Xbox Live Arcade version in the Fall. Interestingly, the XBLA version will include quite a few tutorials and puzzles. The PC version (which at $40 costs 4 times as much as the XBLA version) includes none of this. So, the only "tutorial" is watching as the computer crushes me over and over. :)

Decent Sound in KGS/cgoban3

As I've reported before, there was a way to replace the default ugly KGS/cgoban2 stone sound with a sound file of your choosing. That method also worked in the cgoban3 beta. Well, it's been a while since the full release of cgoban3 and I now find myself back on KGS. However, I see the full version no longer allows this same method since it's been digitally signed. I believe I've found the way around this:

1. mkdir cgoban_tmp ; cd cgoban_tmp
2. wget http://files.gokgs.com/javaBin/cgoban.jar
3. jar xvf cgoban.jar
4. rm META-INF/KGS2007.*
5. cp /archive/misc/multigo_stone_fsf.wav org/igoweb/go/sounds/stone.wav
6. jar cvmf META-INF/MANIFEST.MF cgoban.jar .
   
7. sudo cp cgoban.jar /usr/local/cgoban3/cgoban.jar

That's it! Beautiful sound yet again. :)

By the way, I am not a java developer so I'd appreciate any comments on a better and/or easier method.

Update 2008-01-15: Added the . parameter to the end of step six.

New Dominoes from Domino Depot

I've recently purchased a few domino sets and have had some difficulty in finding exactly what I want from a reputable and responsive online vendor. Now that I've found one, I figured I'd make this post to help out anyone else in this situation.



Having already owned a set of regular ivory colored double six dominoes, I wanted to pick up a nice two tone jumbo set with spinners (as pictured). Google searches never quite turned up what I was looking for, so I turned to eBay. After a search and lots of browsing, I found what I was looking for from a seller named col.mustard. While I would have preferred a common vinyl snap case, this set was packaged with a wood box...a small detail that I could easily overlook. I ended up paying $14 plus $9 shipping and prepared to wait.

I did not have to wait long, however, and my family was soon playing with these big snazzy dominoes. :) I also own a similar set of double nines and these new dominoes (while perhaps manufactured from the same company in China?) are slightly nicer in that they seem more uniform in shape and have a darker black backside. It's quite possible that's it was just the luck of the draw. There was one flaw...the five-ace's spinner was not driven in fully or straight and, as a result, was hanging out. I emailed col.mustard he immediately responded, saying that he'll send me out a replacement right away. Great service!

In the paperwork accompanying the domino set was a flyer promoting col.mustard's website, Domino Depot. There you can find this set and others at excellent prices. In fact, the set I purchased is actually only $11.95 (plus the $9 shipping cost) direct from the site. The URL is:

http://dominodepot.com

I am in no way affiliated with the site...just a customer and fan.

Have fun!

Decent Sound on KGS with cgoban2

The two things that have bothered me most about KGS are both related to the cgoban2 java client program: sound and graphics. Considering that go is such a beautiful game played on equipment unmatched (IMO, of course!) by any other game for its aesthetic value, it always stuck me as odd that I'd be clicking down virtual stones on a drab lifeless board with dull thunks.

For reasons unfathomable to me as a programmer (considering that there is such a broad user support base around the application), the author of KGS has decided that there will be no graphical or sound-related options. So, I decided to take a closer look at the jar file in hopes of finding a simple structure of sounds and graphics which I could then replace at will.

Well, one fix is better than none...sounds are clearly to be seen inside the jar structure. Board and stone graphics are not, so I am guessing that they are embedded xpm code inside the class files. :( Oh, well. At any rate, after a bit of trial and error, I have changed the stone placement sound! If you are interested, here is a brief step-by-step.

Prework:

• Find a stone sound you like. Personally, I love the stone click sound from MultiGo (beware, Windows only). Any wav file (or 8-bit u-law sun audio file, I think) should do just fine.
  
• Make a copy of your cgoban.jar file for safe keeping. If you break anything, you can simply copy it back. For unix people, I assume you know where you installed the cgoban directory. For Windows users, check out C:\Program Files\kiseido\cgoban. The cgoban.jar is right in there.
  
• Make a temporary directory and copy cgoban.jar into it.
  

Steps:

• Open up a terminal window (or command prompt for Windows users) and navigate to your temp directory.
  
• "unjar" the cgoban.jar file with the command:
  

  
  jar xvf cgoban.jar
  

  
  This will extract the contents of the jar file.
  
• From there, copy your good sound file as:
  

  
  org/igoweb/client/swing/sounds/stone.au
  

  
  Don't worry if your file is .wav...changing the extension to .au will not hurt anything as java will still be able to open it.
  
• Update your cgoban.jar file:
  

  
  jar uvf cgoban.jar org/igoweb/client/swing/sounds/stone.au
  

  
  This will replace the existing stone.au in the jar file with your new stone.au file.
  
• Copy the new cgoban.jar file into place in your cgoban installation directory (where you found it in the first place).
  

That's it! Hopefully, when you run the app your dull thunk sounds will now be melodious. :)

PS: I would love to simply place an updated jar file here that you could download, but that would probably go against both the cgoban and MultiGo distribution terms. :(

UPDATE:

The BETA of version 3.0 has been released. Unfortunately, it includes no improvements to the graphics or sound. Fortunately, though, this procedure will still work. The only change is that, now, the path for the sound file is:

org/igoweb/igoweb/client/swing/sounds/stone.au

Note the extra "igoweb" directory.

Bubble Breaker Game High Scores

I've been asked a few times about Bubble Breaker high scores...unfortunately, the game shipped with Pocket PCs and smartphones does not have a convenient means to share high scores. The Bubblet version does, though, so you can easily compare:

Bubblets for Pocket PC High Scores

I do question a few of the top scores, but most look reasonable.

Bubblet Confusion

On a completely unrelated note,

There seems to be a lot of confusion around Bubblet, Bubblets, Jawbreaker, and Bubble Breaker. Namely, because some people have copied the game and not even had the common decency to change the name. One developer/copier even refused to change the name of his clone after repeated requests based on documented customer confusion. I suppose it's always easier to trick customers into buying fakes of a well-known brand than to legitimately interest them with a new product. Sigh.

The original version of the game and all other legitimate versions of the game come ONLY from oopdreams software. This includes Bubblet for Palm OS, Bubblets for Windows CE, Jawbreaker for Pocket PC and Smartphones, and Bubble Breaker for Pocket PC and Smartphones. The latter 2 ship built-in to all recent Windows-powered handhelds and smartphones.

Here are links to the "real deal":

Bubblet for Palm OS

Bubblets for Windows CE Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs

Bubblet for Windows Desktop

Update: August 2008

Our game has been ripped off a few times already by bad fakes on the Apple iTunes App Store! They try (and have succeeded in their own way) to capitalize on all the work I've done over the years by cloning the app and stealing the name. Some people have gone so far as to clone our new tilt functionality. I'm amazed and disgusted at how dishonest and thieving these scumbags are. Some people will stoop incredibly low to make some money. They don't care who they hurt along the way.

Our game is called Bubblets Tilt:

Bubblets Tilt for iPhone

JawBreaker for iPhone

Bubble Breaker for iPhone

Please do not purchase or support the fakes!

Techno Go

While reading a review of some software that I'll never use, written for an OS that I will probably never use again, I came across an image of a dog who had apparently appeared on the cover of a techno album (music I never listen to). Reckoning that a dog on the cover of a music album is funny stuff indeed, I clicked the link to check it out. Lo and behold, dogs are playing go!

The Mole - One Foot On Either Side of The Ladder

New Goban

ChiyoDad has been doing a lot of goban research and has, after quite some time, made a decision on a really nice-looking table goban set from chinese importer Yellow Mountain Imports. While doing this research he came across a reasonably priced auction from the same vendor for a floor goban. Knowing that I have been in the market for one, he left a message on KGS and the rest is history. :)

Here is a link to the eBay auction:

Kaya 5.9" 15cm Go Board and Yunzi Stones Game Set

And here is an image which I will augment as I take shipment and shoot my own photos:



The yunzi stones are biconvex which I have mixed feelings about. I really like the idea of having a single flat side based on the images I've seen of chinese pros using those flat sides to denote special meaning during a review. At the same time, I think biconvex probably feel better and look better. So, in the end, I am happy about the stones but have conveniently left myself something to complain about. :)

More info to come...

Metropolis Redline Espresso

Well, I had planned to try Vivace's espresso blend but quickly remembered that there's another local well-respected roaster / coffee shop whose beans I've never tried. Metropolis Coffee, who have a nice photo-laden website, produces Redline espresso. I believe the name is a reference to the Chicago (DA BEARS!) "El" train red line.

At any rate, running low on Black Cat, I placed my order online for a pound each of Redline and Redline Decaf on Tuesday morning. Wednesday evening, a package arrived with the 2 pounds (or more -- the bags seem larger) of coffee with a Tuesday roasting date. Ahh, the benefits of a local roaster! Included with those bags came a smaller sample size of their Schweik's blend (roasted 11/25) and a nice hand-written thank-you note.

Since I had already drunk a couple soy lattes that night (which is somewhat rare for me) I decided to wait until morning to try the Redline on a clean palate. First up, a double shot of espresso. I figured I'd try the Code Brown grinder settings (11 on my Rocky) and, first attempt, pulled a beautiful 28-second double shot, pictured below in the beautiful Intelligentsia demitasse (photo taken about a minute after). I don't quite have the vocabulary to describe the shot since there were some unique tastes but it was an excellent shot and I think it may be one of the best I've had anywhere! No bitterness, lots of body, and some interesting sweetness which is what I'm having trouble putting a word to.

Judging by the straight espresso, I thought this blend would make for a great soy latte. I was not disappointed. As with the shot, this was one of the best soy lattes I've ever had. Redline is most definitely a keeper and I can certainly imagine myself regularly drinking it. I look forward to tasting what the rest of the week has in store for these beans.

Code Brown Wrapup

The Code Brown espresso I blogged about earlier has run its course and the ballots are in...it's good coffee! Once I managed to tune the grind and dosing to create the 25-28 second pull, a stronger body stood out and it wasn't so citrusy or tart as before. This espresso blend is also great in my soy lattes because it doesn't get overpowered by the soy milk and it manages to push its own flavors through. My wife, who normally drinks Decaf Black Cat, tried Code Brown in her latte (regular milk) and liked the taste, too.

Now, would I buy Code Brown again? Well, right now I am back to Black Cat with plans on next testing Espresso Vivace's famous espresso blend. Once I complete the rounds of testing popular blends such as this, I can easily see myself coming back to Code Brown as an occasional change in my Black Cat routine. Time will tell. In the meanwhile, here's a shot of my last soy latte art with the Code Brown.

Iron Man Results

The KGS November Iron Man Tournament has wrapped up and, I must say, it was a lot of fun. Every match was interesting, I improved as a player, Zero9090 came in 2nd place, and I met some new friends. On the downside, I could only play 9 out of the 20 games due to not-quite-unexpected-but-unexpected-anyway problems on the homefront and I merely finished in 29th place. Of those 9 games, I won 4 but would have won 2 of the remainining 5 if it were not for monumental boneheaded errors, including one on what should have been the last move of the game. :( Oh, well, I think it's those kind of errors that both discourage me and challenge me to improve.

The tournament format itself is interesting, but I leave it feeling that, somehow, it's flawed in that the ranking used as a base for the handicaps is determined at registration time --- not actual game time. So, the winner turned out to be some 16k player (no, I'm not going to say sandbagger even if you make me say sandbagger!) who signed up as a 20k. Although I'm sure there are holes in any system, perhaps there is room for improvement here. What I take out of all this is that, if I want a crown, I need to improve enough to play in the open tournament where every game is played on even terms.

Special thanks go out to both NannyOgg and yoyoma, who helped tremendously with multiple reviews and learning sessions. It is because of them that I was able to get so much out of these games and improve from them. Next month's tournament should be fun!

Code Brown Espresso

I have been a loyal drinker of Intelligentsia's Black Cat Espresso for a good year or so. On the business side, the company is great...they're a local Chicago roaster, they're extremely communicative, and they always manage to get the beans to me a day after roasting. On the coffee side, Black Cat is very forgiving to my lackluster barista skills and equipment. It possesses what I consider to be a very rich and deep taste that's perfect both in the shot glass and in a soy latte. My experience with other beans, namely Terroir's single origin espressos and Paradise Roaster's Espresso Classico, has not been very good and has kept me coming back to Intelligentsia.

Since I have a great new Expobar Brewtus espresso machine now (which makes me the single point of failure), I thought I'd test the waters with a few espresso blends that have been getting praise on coffeegeek. First on the bill is Coffee Emergency's Code Brown. Straight away, the company impressed me by sending out a personal email explaining when the coffee would roast and ship. Next, when the coffee did arrive, it was accompanied by a selection of 4 Baker's chocolates. Nice touch. Now for the actual coffee.

I ended up producing 2 double shots and 1 soy latte. So far, the results are promising. I have not quite dialed in the grind for a 28 second shot, but the espresso was still tasty with abundant thick crema. As a side note, the last shot I pulled used 11 on my Rancilio Rocky grinder where I'd normally be at 13 or 14 with the Black Cat...I still don't understand why I have to grind the BC so coarse. Anyway, back to Code Brown, it certainly tends more (in my opinion) toward the Daterra side than the Black Cat side since it's lighter and fruitier rather than heavy and earthy. Surprisingly, it stood up very well in soy milk and its nice dark reddish crema provided an appealing backdrop for latte art. We'll see how everything works out once I nail the grind and experiment with brewing temps. Coffee is always exciting!

KGS Hiatus

I've suddenly decided to take another small step in my young go journey and declare a minor KGS hiatus. While I love the site and, heck, even subscribed as a KGS Plus member, something that Zero9090 said in jest about lurkers has hit home. All I've been doing lately on KGS has been lurking - that is, chatting, beating up on some hapless bots, and throwing in an occasional game or two with my new KGS friends and fellow go students. Part of the problem has certainly been due to family matters out of my control (which will probably make me withdraw from the ironman tournament I was so excited about earlier) but most of it has been that, when I could actually play, I'd only login and begin chatting or observing. Also, there have been times when I simply want to play and NOT chat, but I dread logging in and having people observe the game and then later review it. While I love reviews and appreciate really good reviews like yoyoma has provided, there are times when I just want to sit down and play, score it up, and play again.

So, I'll be on IGS for a while. It's not the nice club atmosphere of KGS, the client programs are not quite as clean and reliable as cgoban2, and I still think it's much more tedious to find a game for someone of my rank with their challenge system. But it's almost all go, almost all the time. :) Maybe I'll see you there. But if we meet, let's play!

Latte Art

Nothing much new to report. Studying lots of go problems, both from goproblems.com and my Graded Go Problems books, in preparation for the KGS November Iron Man Handicap Tournament. The two goals of the tournament, as far as I can tell, are to play as many of your scheduled games as possible and to win as many as possible. Games are scheduled every 6 hours over a 5 day span for a total of 20 games per player. With my timezone being US/Central, I am scheduled to play at 2am, 8am, 2pm, and 8pm. I do plan on making an effort to play every game, which would tack on an additional 7 days of KGS Plus to my year subscription. I have been meaning for some time to subscribe and I actually registered this week, so I'm pleased about that.

Being a handicap tournament, obviously rating plays a large role in determining how your games will play out. The way KGS handles this is to lock your effective rating for the tournament at entry time. For me, that was 18k. Right now, though, I'm 17k and, if things go as planned, I will be 16k by next week when the tournament begins on the 20th. So, perhaps that will help me out a bit. :) With 4k players in the tournament, I'll certainly need all the help I can get!

Aside from go, I'm still learning the ins and outs of my new espresso machine, the Expobar Brewtus. I've been extremely pleased with everything about the machine, but actually right now I'm a bit ticked...as I looked for a URL I found that the Brewtus II has been released and there was no indication of that when I bought the original a few weeks ago. Oh, well.

At any rate, while I am still working on my steaming and latte art, I have produced a couple near decent rosettas using soy milk. Here is an example.

Why, hello!

Again, it's been way too long. After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back and playing go with a vengeance. The past few days have seen me playing around 10 games per day online in addition to studying the game with the help of some books I recently purchased from Kiseido. The two I'm reading now are:

Basic Techniques of Go

Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 2

After reading the first chapter of BTOG and studying the first 100 problems or so in GGPFB, I played what I feel are probably the two best games I've come up with so far. I still have problems in the endgame where my mind shuts off, thinking the game is over and won, only to watch my opponent flail around and grab a seki or fill in all dame and then kill a large group that had no business dying as I pass away my moves. I actually lost 3 games this week where I was up by more than 25 points but turned my brain off within the last 5 moves to lose. Perhaps if I lose a few more like this I'll pay more attention. :)

On a fun note, last night yoyoma goaded me into playing ChiyoDad (22k at the time vs my 18k) in a 4 stone handicap match and it was a blast. I have never played with so many observers (the ChiyoMob) and the game was definitely tense, with many long thoughtful pauses. In the end, despite the fact that I think I played pretty well, he ended up winning by a nice 20+ point margin due to the fact that I just did not make headway into a large territory he built up on the left side of the board. I think I may try to play more handicap games as white in the coming days because it certainly makes me think harder about big points and territory values.




On another fun note, I won two auctions on eBay for Hikaru No Go toys. :) As I was explaining to ChiyoDad the other day, these are ostensibly for my kids, but I really wanted to play with them, myself!




My daughter enjoys watching Hikaru and perhaps these toys will help her and my infant son get more interested in playing go. I need someone to play with me on a real board!

Been a while...

It's been a while since the last update. Things have been hectic around here and I have not been able to play much go. I have, on the other hand, been playing quite a bit of High Stakes Poker (tm) and it's been an excellent experience. :) Mostly, this update is to mention a new (?) blog I found over at Sensei's:

MrOoijer Blogs

Very interesting, if only for the remodeling photos. :) His blog also reminds me that I need to find a way to quickly convert SGF files to nice diagram images under unix.

Marathon Go Championship Complete

The 5th Cho Chikun Judan Cup 42.195 Marathon Go Championship is over. I didn't play anywhere near as much as I had hoped and I finished up in 68th place with 72 games played. The top player actually managed to play 652 games in 42 days. Yikes! High-kyu buddy Zero9090 did us all proud by finishing in 16th place with 207 games. If he had not played so often on KGS during the same time he certainly would have placed higher.

I look forward to next year's event!

Downtime

While running some late-night jobs for a project I'm working on, I played a couple games of go and watched a few games of ChiyoDad's, as well. Despite the fact that a silly endgame mistake cost me a 2 stone handicap game against a 17k player, I learned quite a bit. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact that NannyOgg stopped by to watch and review the game with us. I need a virtual NannyOgg bot to always review games afterwards!

Alas, the go server picked a horrible time to go down so we could not finish. :( I waited probably 20 minutes or so before giving up, and since the jobs were finishing I decided to head off to bed. Maybe again some other time.

Thanks again, nanny!!

cgoban2 unplugged

This entry isn't so much a blog as it is a way to document something I found useful in the event that it might be useful for others. When playing on KGS this weekend on my unplugged laptop, performance was abysmally slow. Window redraws took at least 10 seconds, switching room tabs took at least that much time, and observing a game was impossible. All other applications ran fine, CPU utilization was less than 5% at all times, and I saw that the CPU speed was throttled down to 600MHz - still a reasonable speed.

A quick google found others with similar problems. The situation looked a bit grim and I began to wonder if the holy grail of go playing - wireless internet bathroom go - was out of reach for KGS players. I had such a great time playing wirelessly on IGS at Panera that I knew I had to take that next step and I wanted to be able to do it on as many servers as possible.

Now, stepping back, I know java's slow, but it cannot be THAT slow, can it? Well, I still don't have an answer for that. But another post finally did get a response that pointed to a solution.

It would appear that ATI video adapters (mine included!) include configurable functionality called "PowerPlay". This is intended to decrease battery usage by allowing you to throttle video performance in order to conserve power. Honestly, I don't really notice much of a difference with all my other applications, but for some reason it just brutalizes java apps, cgoban2 included. Disabling PowerPlay or simply configuring it toward more performance while on battery power is the simple fix.

10th PandaNet Cup

IGS seems to be having lots of events lately, and that's really great. The Cho Chikun Judan Cup Marathon is still running and, even though I'm out of the running, I continue to enjoy it. Their latest event is the PandaNet Cup, which are a couple tournaments (even and handicapped) with cash and and "original goods" prizes. This is apparently the "10th Internet World Amateur Go Championship".


Even though I'd have absolutely no chance, I'd love to play in the handicap tournament. Any opportunity to get in a number of matches against better players is not to be missed. The only problem is that I really cannot in good faith make a commitment to play the required matches since I will have a number of outside influences directing my free time for the next few months.

Maybe next year.