Many Faces of Go

Go, called "baduk" in Korean and "wei-chi" in Chinese, is a 4,000 year-old game of strategy played by more than 100 million people. Go was considered one of the Four Great Accomplishments of ancient China, one of the worthy pursuits of a lifetime - along with poetry, archery, and calligraphy. It is both an art and a mental workout - ingeniously disguised as a game. Anyone, from children of five or six to people in their nineties, can play and enjoy Go!

The Many Faces of Go is the 1998 World Computer Go Champion, and ten time US Computer Go Champion. It is one of the strongest Computer Go opponents in the world, and has many other great features including an integrated IGS client so you can play on the internet. A sophisticated set of Go problems and a Joseki tutor help you improve your game.

Features:

• Great graphics. Beautiful and adjustable 3-D slate and clamshell stones with shadows, and realistic wood grain. You can rotate the board, or add coordinates. Won the "Best Design" award at the 1991 World Computer Go Championship.

• Sound. Realistic clicks and capture sounds, and sounds for pass, IGS match, etc.

• Strong go player. 10 levels of play, from about 20 kyu to about 8 kyu. 1998 World Computer Go Champion.

• Go tutorial. Over 100 screens of text, examples, and simple problems teach you the rules, elementary tactics and strategies.

• Go problems. Over 2,000 go problems for all levels of player. The program selects problems for you based on your strength, and tracks your strength as you solve them. Problems appear in different orientations and colors to aid learning. Go problems can be updated over the internet, and it is easy for you to add additional problems or problem sets.

• Play go on the Internet. An Internet Go Client is built in so you can play go on the internet with the familiar Many Faces interface, and use its powerful editing features to comment your games.

• Move suggestions. At each move it can show suggestions for next move, by category (such as attacking, invading, endgame, etc). Can also show liberty counts and/or group strengths for all groups. The computer can show its lookahead while it is thinking.

• Game Score Graph. Graph your score at each move. Click on a move to go to that position.
  Move hints. Suggests your best move.

• Move explanations. Can explain why it made a move or suggested a move for you.
  Computer solving of go problems. The computer can solve life and death problems in yor games to help you improve.

• Thousands of games to play through. Hundreds of professional games with commentary. About a thousand uncommented professional game records, organized by tournament. About a thousand commented amateur games from the Go Teaching Ladder. Over 4,000 uncommented very strong amateur games.

• Powerful Game Editor. Can present for review any game in the standard Ishi format (.go) or the popular Smart Game Format (.sgf). When reviewing a game you can try to guess the next move. A wide variety of marks are supported. You can add commentary or variations. Use ctrl-click to move directly to any move in the game. Insert, delete, or drag stones to new positions. Great for recording your own games for later study.

• Can play and score using all major rule sets (Japanese, Chinese, GOE, and American).

• Can play either color, or serve as an electronic go board for two people.

• Can give or receive a handicap.

• Fuseki Libraries. Libraries of opening sequences on the whole board from professional games. At each position, shows the popularity of each next move. Two libraries are included, one which includes all moves from about 5700 professional games, and one which includes an additional 29,000 strong amateur games.
  Joseki Tutor. Over 45,000 move library of standard corner sequences is available for browsing or testing. Includes joseki, near-joseki, trick plays, and responses to many bad moves. Use it to look up variations, or to test your joseki knowledge.

• Play by modem. Uses the Computer Go standard modem protocol for play with any other go program that supports this protocol. Either player can make moves for either color, allowing discussion or teaching games. Players can type messages to each other during the game.

• Printing of Go diagrams or full games with numbered moves.

• On-line manual with information on history, tournaments, professionals, etc.

System requirements: IBM-PC or compatible, Pentium or faster, Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, XP, or 2000, 64 MB main memory. 32 MB hard disk.

Here is an excellent overview to get you started:

Overview on How to Play Go

Igowin is a 9x9 free version of Many Faces of Go. Play go against the computer with great graphics. It keeps track of your record and playing strength and has an on-line manual with history of go, where to buy books and equipment, etc. It includes the Go Tutorial from The Many Faces of Go, so it is a good program to give a beginning Go player. It plays competitively from 25 Kyu though 6 Dan, so stronger players will enjoy it as well. It learns from its mistakes, so every game is different.

Click here to download Igowin.

This is a self-extracting archive and includes the igowin.exe executable, the grain.bmp wood grain bitmap, readme.txt, and two windows help files. It's about 800KB. After download, run it, and it will install the files in C:\Program Files\igowin. It does not automatically add itself to your start menu or make a shortcut on the desktop.