[HN Gopher] Dragon Go Server
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Dragon Go Server
Author : Tomte
Score : 63 points
Date : 2021-05-31 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dragongoserver.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dragongoserver.net)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If you are a beginner, try the Color Go Server (CGS).
| https://www.colorgoserver.com/
|
| CGS "enhances" Go by coloring the board, giving you a visual way
| to estimate your territory. It also can count liberties so you
| know how you are doing in a capture race or when a group is about
| to die.
|
| It's a great way to build an intuition around the game. It came
| out just a couple of months ago.
|
| If you want to practice puzzles, try https://blacktoplay.com/ or
| https://badukpop.com/
| HuShifang wrote:
| Does anyone have recommendations for educational Go software,
| akin to the various quasi-gamified chess learning and training
| platforms emerging lately (PlayMagnus et al)? I'm not sure I have
| the mental bandwidth right now to work through books
| independently, but would love an app or other service I could
| spend a free minute or two on here and there.
|
| I'm aware of Baduk Pop (https://badukpop.com/) but haven't tried
| it yet; there's also SmartGo (https://www.smartgo.com/) but it's
| Windows/iOS (with a MacOS version in the works) and I'm mainly
| using Linux and Android.
| ameminator wrote:
| I use Leela with the Lizzie frontend [0]. Leela is just the
| "engine" and Lizzie, the gui, does make it shine. It does
| pretty well on my end with a budget GPU and midrange CPU.
| Strongly recommend playing against it and using it to analyze
| games.
|
| [0] https://github.com/featurecat/lizzie/releases
| meiji163 wrote:
| The strongest open source engine right now is KataGo
| (https://github.com/lightvector/KataGo)
| beermonster wrote:
| Many Faces of Go by David Fotland is good for learning but
| there are stronger opponent bots out there these days for
| playing against thanks to community efforts such as Leela Zero
| and KataGo.
|
| However if you're going to play a bot it helps if it's
| sufficiently strong even if it doesn't teach you, since you
| won't end up copying it's potentially questionable moves.
| mNovak wrote:
| There's lots of sites hosting Go problems that rank you up into
| harder problems as you progress [1,2]; though mostly life and
| death type problems. Lately I've been seeing commentary on "The
| Conquest of Go" (never played it), which looks more like
| gamified full matches.
|
| [1] blacktoplay.com [2] goproblems.com
| ameminator wrote:
| Man, this brings back memories. When I first learned I used the
| playgo.to[0] tutorials and then followed up to play at the "No
| Name Go Server" which had a consistent 20 people on at any one
| time. (Now it's completely gone). Sadly, there has been a rapid
| consolidation in the space - that server along with Yahoo, MSN
| games have been deprecated. Even KGS [1], once the largest
| English go server, has been losing players and is dying a slow
| death. I moved to WINGS and Dragon later, but it was always so-
| so.
|
| Probably my favourite place to play now is either on Pandanet [2]
| or the online go server [3] but it isn't quite the same, and (for
| me) there isn't the same sense of community that I had, even on
| MSN games.
|
| [0] http://playgo.to/index-e.html
|
| [1] https://www.gokgs.com
|
| [2] https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet
|
| [3] https://online-go.com
| tomtomtom777 wrote:
| KGS was a special place where I've spent many hours not just
| playing but also kibitzing the pros (and TheCaptain).
|
| This doesn't really happen in the same way on the currently
| popular Go or Chess servers.
|
| I am not sure whether its closed "Java Applet" form has been
| its strength, its downlfall or both but it does seem unmatched
| in its community.
| ameminator wrote:
| Oh wow! I used to love TheCaptain and his wacky, aggressive
| style. Players like Carmel were always a pleasure to watch
| too (since I wasn't 6D+ myself).
|
| I do think the Java Applet (which used to give virus
| warnings) and the fact that other go servers (like Tygem) had
| stronger/more exciting games caused the decline. Maybe
| splitting the userbase into "Rooms" was too much? I also
| think the move to their "Shin KGS" web player came too slowly
| and OGS ate Kiseido's lunch.
| cambel wrote:
| This takes me back. I lived on KGS for three years from when I
| learned to 2K.
|
| Now it always feels like I'm rolling the dice if I can get the
| java app running on my Mac.
| brundolf wrote:
| This is not what I expected to see when I clicked the link
| marclave wrote:
| I remember first discovering the game of Go, after watching the
| AlphaGo Documentary [1]. I highly recommend it, will definitely
| be signing up for this, I usually play on mobile :)
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
| beermonster wrote:
| The Surrounding Game and the Alpha Go documentary on Netflix
| are well worth a watch.
| kroltan wrote:
| > The Dragon Go Server (DGS) is a place where you can play turn-
| based Go with other players from around the world. It functions
| more or less the same way as playing Go via email would, but the
| Dragon Go Server provides a graphical representation of the board
| and handles things such as time limits, scoring and ratings.
|
| https://www.dragongoserver.net/faq.php?read=t&cat=48#Entry49
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| I'd strongly recommend OGS if you would like to play Go online
| (no affiliation,just a happy user). https://online-go.com/
|
| r/baduk also has some good resource for learning more about Go :)
| faitswulff wrote:
| Is this the lichess of the Go world?
| 613style wrote:
| Sort of. OGS is the Lichess of the English-speaking world
| certainly. There are several much larger servers if you speak
| Korean/Japanese/Chinese, but they also have less in common
| with Lichess.
| Tomte wrote:
| Back when I was playing, KGS was where everybody was
| playing. What happened? Just normal competition?
| 613style wrote:
| KGS is still huge, but OGS has been consistently adding
| feature after feature for years. At some point, my
| impression is that most English people just realized it
| has a nicer interface and better analysis and cheat-
| detecting tools. The main downside is a lack of high-dan
| players.
|
| (I don't have data to back this up, just my experience as
| a roughly 1-dan player who hangs out with a lot of U.S.
| Go folks)
| ameminator wrote:
| In my experience, KGS is nowhere near as popular as it
| used to be, sadly. Tournaments dried up, player base
| dwindled and it's not the same
| tinco wrote:
| How do you cheat at Go? The only thing I can think of is
| cheating by self-playing thus gaining illegitimate rank?
| reblws wrote:
| Main way is using an AI to tell you what the next best
| move is.
| beermonster wrote:
| You could cheat in many ways.
|
| One way might be to use a Go engine to analyse the best
| moves for you as you play. Even for non online play this
| is already a problem with Chess games and hidden
| smartphones. Everyone has a 9d bot at their disposal
| these days. And of course one could make use of cloud
| TensorFlow if that's not enough.
|
| There are ways of detecting cheating.
| 613style wrote:
| Just like with chess, when AI engines got very strong a
| few years ago, people started using them to find
| superhuman moves and win games. Now OGS will tell you how
| similar your game's moves are to what a computer would
| have played. Even professionals don't get above something
| like 75-80%, but I've lost a dozen games to people
| getting 95%+ on that metric.
| ameminator wrote:
| Yup, KGS is dying a slow death and was turned over to the
| American Go Association to be managed. KGS Plus is free
| now, which is a nice Plus, I suppose.
| beermonster wrote:
| KGS is still going but still Java client only?
|
| These days there are lots of great alternatives :
|
| OGS, Fox, Tygem, Panda Net to name but a few.
|
| All of them have their pros and cons but OGS is great for
| western players.
|
| Also can highly recommend lifein19x19.com
| apetresc wrote:
| Small correction: KGS is no longer Java-client-only. The
| protocol was opened up a few years ago and there are
| several web-based clients now, most notably
| https://shin.gokgs.com/
|
| Also thank you for the lifein19x19.com shoutout :)
| BerSerKer wrote:
| Would you mind giving examples of these much larger
| servers? Japanese, preferably...
| loarabia wrote:
| For Japanese go server, I'd suggest IGS aka PandaNet.
|
| It's hard to say how much larger it is than OGS. OGS has
| an enormous population of correspondence players but
| generally smaller for live play maybe by 3x?
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(page generated 2021-05-31 23:00 UTC)