QuickBASIC realtime SGF replayer. 囲碁: Redrose [1p] vs. Tartrate [PART 1/3]

2003年の囲碁回戦。対局者：白― ロシヤからの初段のプロシクシナ・スヴェトラナ、黒―タルトレートと呼ばれる不思議な挑戦者(負けなし)。場所：ＫＧＳ。批評は英語。リプレイ：私が作ったのＢＡＳＩＣプ­ログラム。Somehow, Youtube revoked my privilege to upload longer than 15 minute movies, without warning, without message, after already granting me that once, similarly without any announcement or rationale. Oh well. Back to multipart videos then :(
Due to this unexpected constraint however, I will not publish here the video in which I create the program (for it is considerably longer than 15 minutes); I will just link to the source code, here: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/kuvat/programming_examples/qbsgf.html

Anyway, in this video, I showcase a QuickBASIC program that I just created. It reads and parses a SGF file, which is a file that can store a recording of a number of board game sessions, including my favourite, the game of Go. The SGF file encodes a tree in ASCII format with branches and where each branch has a lists of moves, where each move can have a number of arbitrary attributes attached to it, such as comments. The different branches convey variations in the game.
The SGF file replayer not only parses the SGF file, but replays it as if it happened in real time, displaying spectators' comments along with the moves.

To demonstrate the program, I chose one of my favourite games from KGS archives. Tartrate is a legendary Go player, whose identity is still a mystery, who appeared on the KGS Go Server in the 2003. He has been sometimes likened to Sai from the Hikaru no Go anime. When this game was played, he had already established a lossless track record against many of the strongest amateurs on the KGS. He had never been defeated. This one time I happened to be lucky and observe him play a professional Go player, Svetlana Šikšina from Russia. They are both incredibly strong players. In this game, Tartrate begins the game using a very inconventional opening. These factors gave this game truly an instant classic status.
Note: Players commenting on this game have obviously become often a lot stronger and often a lot smarter since this game was played (2003). Their comments are only shown here as citations, as part of the back-then original game observing performance, replayed by this program of mine.

There are some people who think that the audience should be completely silent (even going as far as hiding the kibitz window) while the game is in progress, and of course I am not fan of the "what's in your fridge" style chat that goes on during the game, but I think in general, the kibitz is an integral part of the entertainment of watching the match, and often provides useful insight to the game, as long as the topic is about the game. The suspense and waiting for what's coming next (though one can only guess) is a significant factor in the entertainment. It is not nearly as entertaining to watch the game if you can simply click forward one move at time at your own pace. This is why I made this program play the game at its original pace. Apologies for the fact that ko are not indicated; I fixed that in the next version.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• go
• replay
• quickbasic
• programming
• board games
• 囲碁
• 対局
• 圍棋
• 围棋

[BadPotat0]

Well done, I didn't know you could set the time for a reply in the kibitz with the .sgf format??

Windmill is definitly one of the must hardest way to play go. Thanks for showing this to us... oh and I like your highlight feature for P4 and Q17 :)

[Bisqwit]

I highlighted a few other moves as well, heh.

The SGF does not indicate timestamps for kibitz lines. My program simply counts how many kibitz occurred during the move, and knowing how long time the move took, assigns random delays for each comment, with a constant average pace. Most of the time it looks natural, though a few times people seem to react supernaturally fast.