Alejo's Tenuki

The Barcelona Go Tournament will be held during the days 23rd and 24th of February. The tournament system is MacMahon 5 rounds, with the following time settings: 60 min main + byoyomi 5 min / 20 stones, based on EGF rating. Last year there were 99 players, ranging from 3d to 19k, with some players coming from France and Germany. Though I think that this year we'll see the 6d from Korea playing there, so we all know where the prizes will go

The inscription fee is 20€, and there are 1300 euros in cash for the top classified players, go books for the players with most or less wins (I might fit in this last category) and a small souvenir for all the participants.

I'm not used to play such long games and I might have some trouble adapting to it, even more if we consider playing 3 games in the first day, lasting for about 2 hours each... I think I might even bring my palm with me, with such time settings I might be able to record my games.

In case you want to know more about it: Barcelona 2008

The first (and only) time I've been in a Go club a game between me and a 3d was set. He gave me 9 stones of handicap (for obvious reasons) and he ended up winning anyway. But there was a sequence where he was able to invade my corner, a corner which was 4x3, no more space available. I've kept that sequence in my mind in order to play it someday against my opponents.

Since noone wants to play ranked games against an unranked player, I was forced to use KGS' automatch feature, which game me a 3 stones handicap game against a 12k player. It's not that I'm not used to give stone handicap, but I can tell you I hadn't played Go this year, so I wasn't too confident about my reading ability.

Finally, at the end of the middlegame - beginning of the yose, my opponent happened to make a double-hane in the "right" place for me to try that sequence. See what happened here:

It is important to see that during the whole sequence everything is made on an atari basis or a major killing threat. The two first white moves are direct ataris, though sacrificing one single stone, while the third one (209) is a threat for the four black stones...

If you either have a shop or a go-related business or a go-related site, I think you might be interested in this post.

During the last weeks I've been working on a system to handle banners through the Go community. It was called GoAds and it was something similar to Adsense, though it didn't have any anti-fraud system, so the announcers would be easily tricked and noone would participate after realising the trick.

After talking for a while with potential participants and buyers, it seems like we found a possible solution: create an auction system for a monthly fixed amount. This means that shop-admins will be able to buy banners on the sites they want for a fixed amount each month, while bloggers/webmasters will be earning some money.

For example, if any important website (let's say Godiscussions, as everyone knows it, receives lots of daily visits) offered his bannerspace for a few euros, lots of potential buyers would be interested in bidding for having their ads placed on the top and bottom of that site. This can also be applied to a smaller scale, like when we talk about small bloggers (like me); obviously, we wouldn't receive a big amount of money for showing their ads, as it should be proportional to the quantity of visits and the quality of the posts. However, if you happened to receive a few euros monthly, the site would be able to maintain itself.

Webmaster - What does this mean to you?
If you are tired of Google Adsense showing some strange ads, you can sell some bannerspace for a fixed monthly income and be sure you'll get some Go-related ads. Setting up an Ad is totally free, unless you want to put some special conditions like minimum amounts, highlights on the homepage for your product and such.

Announcer - What does this mean to you?
Finally you'll be showing your banners on Go-related sites. In fact, you'll be able to bid for having banners on the sites you want, not just some randomization like in Google Adsense; here you'll be sure to reach your audience. Obviously, the ones with most visits and content quality will be harder to win, and the price will rise higher, but, as the system is handled by auctions, you are the one to set the price.

The standard payment processor will be paypal. Paying through credit card will be available as soon as we conclude the tests with the SSL certificate, so that security is granted.

Here you have the link: Go Auctions

I hope to see you there