External links
- Official website (in Japanese)
- Official Website (in English)
- List of internet Go servers on Sensei's Library
- List of internet Go servers on Free Internet Correspondence Games Server (FICGS)
Pandanet (originally and sometimes called IGS, [1] short for Internet Go Server), located in Tokyo, Japan, is a server that allows players of the game of Go to observe and play against others over the Internet. Started February 2, 1992, by Tim Casey, Chris Chisolm, and Mark Okada, working out of the University of New Mexico, and until April 5, 1993, continued at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco (with an additional server at The Pasteur Institute, France), it was the first server of its kind. [2] [3] [4] After its initial inception some of its members helped to improve the server by writing software with a graphical interface; and thus IGS was born. [5] Pandanet hosts up to 3,000 players at a time, depending on the time of day.[ citation needed ] Its PC client's name is GoPanda.
IGS was first opened to the public in February 1992. The first server was located at the University of New Mexico. Within the first year, two more servers were deployed, one at the University of California at Berkeley and one at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Leaving the UC servers in 1993, it continued at the University of Pennsylvania for a year until being bought by the Korean ISP nuri.net in 1994. In 1995, the Japanese company NKB Inc., a partner of nuri.net, acquired IGS, and created the division "Pandanet" in 1996, which has managed IGS since.
The first professional player to sign-on to IGS was Jiang Zhujiu -9 dan-, on April 24, 1992, which started the trend of high level dan player membership that continues to this very day. Through the months of July and August of that year the first professional tournament was hosted, with over 300 games played.
In September of that year Japan's famous Meijin Sen tournament was displayed live on IGS to an audience from many nations. Played in an Amsterdam hotel room by Kobayashi Koichi and Otake Hideo, the game was typed play-by-play by users jansteen and AshaiRey respectively, while watching the game on TV. It was witnessed by over 100 observers on IGS and took 16 hours to complete.
A translation command was added to the server in December 1992, allowing users to better communicate with one another, and to translate the long list of commands required to run the early versions of the software. [6]
Besides being a Go server, Pandanet also hosts several art galleries. The main gallery [7] contains Japanese and Chinese art that has a Go-related theme. Other galleries deal with vintage Go photographs [8] and photography from the 19th and early 20th century, related to San Francisco [9] and Chinatown. [10]
Pandanet broadcasts live championship matches for top professional events, including the Meijin, Honinbo, and Judan titles, and the Ricoh Cup professional Pairs tournament.
The Nihon Ki-in (日本棋院), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go association in Japan is Kansai Ki-in. Its innovations include the Oteai system of promotion, time limits in professional games, and the introduction of issuing diplomas to strong amateur players, to affirm their ranks.
IGS may stand for:
There are various systems of Go ranks and ratings that measure the skill in the traditional board game Go. Traditionally, Go rankings have been measured using a system of dan and kyu ranks. Especially in amateur play, these ranks facilitate the handicapping system, with a difference of one rank roughly corresponding to one free move at the beginning of the game. This system is also commonly used in many East Asian martial arts, where it often corresponds with a belt color. With the ready availability of calculators and computers, rating systems have been introduced. In such systems, a rating is rigorously calculated on the basis of game results.
The American Go Association (AGA) was founded in 1935, to promote the board game of Go in the United States. Founded by chess master Edward Lasker and some friends at Chumley's restaurant in New York City, the AGA is one of the oldest Western Go associations.
Cho U is a Taiwanese professional Go player. He currently ranks 6th in the most titles won by a Japanese professional; his NEC Cup win in 2011 put him past his teacher Rin Kaiho and Norimoto Yoda. Cho is the first player in history to have held five of the top seven major titles simultaneously with Iyama Yuta being the second. Cho U, Naoki Hane, Keigo Yamashita and Shinji Takao make up the group of players in Japan called the "Four Heavenly Kings". His wife is one of Japan's best female go professionals, Izumi Kobayashi, the great Kitani's granddaughter and daughter of Kobayashi Koichi.
Yuta Iyama Kisei, Honinbo, Meijin is a Japanese professional Go player. In April 2016, he became the first player in Japanese history to hold all seven major titles simultaneously. In January 2018, Iyama became the first professional Go player to be awarded Japan's People's Honour Award.
The Jūdan is a Go competition in Japan. It is one of the seven major professional titles.
Yoshiharu Habu is a professional shogi player and a chess FIDE Master. His master is Tatsuya Futakami. He is the only person to simultaneously hold seven major professional shogi titles at the same time and is also the only person to qualify as a lifetime title holder for seven major titles. In January 2018, Habu became the first professional shogi player to be awarded Japan's People's Honour Award.
The Pandanet Go European Cup was a Go competition played across Europe. The now defunct European Cup and European Go Tour merged to form this cup after Toyota's support of the Tour ended. Many of the games played during the Cup are broadcast on Pandanet's Internet Go Server (IGS) and the KGS Go Server. Since 2011, Pandanet decided to end the support of this competition and wanted to take care of the European Go Teams Championship. This competition is called now European Go Cup as previously.
There is an abundance of go software available to support players of the game of Go. This includes software programs that play Go themselves, programs that can be used to view and/or edit game records and diagrams, programs that allow the user to search for patterns in the games of strong players and programs that allow users to play against each other over the Internet.
An Internet Go server is a server that allows players of the game of Go to play against opponents online. The two fundamental types of Go server are real-time servers and turn-based servers.
This article details the history of shogi. Shogi is a two-player strategy board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan.
Kōji Tanigawa is a Japanese professional shogi player ranked 9-dan. He is the 17th Lifetime Meijin and also a former president of the Japan Shogi Association (JSA).
Amahiko Satō is a Japanese professional shogi player, ranked 9-dan. He is a former Meijin title holder.
Toshiyuki Moriuchi is a Japanese professional shogi player, ranked 9-dan. He is a Lifetime Meijin who won the title eight times, and also a former Ryūō, Kiō and Ōshō title holder. He is also a former senior managing director of the Japan Shogi Association.
Yasumitsu Satō is a Japanese professional shogi player from Yawata City in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. He is currently the president of the Japan Shogi Association. He became a professional in 1987 and is ranked 9-dan. He has won 13 major titles, is a former Meijin title holder, and has qualified for the Lifetime Kisei title.
A professional shogi player is a shogi player who is usually a member of a professional guild of shogi players.
Shibano Toramaru is a Japanese Go professional who won the prestigious Meijin tournament in 2019 at age 19, becoming the first teenager to achieve one of the seven major Japanese titles.
The Eiō (叡王) is one of the eight major titles of professional shogi cosponsored by Fujiya Co. and the Japan Shogi Association (JSA). The tournament initially started out as a non-title tournament in 2015, but was upgraded to major title status in May 2017. The current Eiō title holder is Sōta Fujii.
Jan Šimara is a Czech Go player. He placed first in the European Go Championship in 2012.
