D3Publisher released a collection of games called “The table game”, as the first volume of the Simple 2000 series. This volume includes 11 games electable from the menu below these lines:

Vertically, from left to right: shogi, go, Othello (aka reversi), gomoku, mahjong, unknown flower-cards game, unknown flower-cards game 2, something similar to bridge, sevens (aka Fan Tan), memory and solitaire – Klondike style. Once you enter the Go section you’re prompted with the next screen where you can choose the board size, handicap, time settings, and a few other fields which I still haven’t managed to decipher. As fas I have explored, I still couldn’t find an online mode or a 2 player mode… but this may require further investigation.

If there is anyone able to read Japanese, please let me know the meaning of the options, specially the ones below, since I suspect they are quite relevant.

When it comes to the AI strenght, I can’t really rate it better than a 10k, I think it falls somewhere between 10k and 15k, but, obvious as it may seem this bot is very  bot-ish: Some important moves which a human would never allow you to do are ignored by this bot, thus losing entire groups or losing the chance to kill groups. Sincerely, the artificial intelligence of this bot is way below what we are used to on computers: Mogobot and Gnugo are much stronger. The life and death status of the groups are very hard to establish for this bot, so he usually tries to survive till you place the final killing stone, waiting for you to make a nonsense move.  On the picture below, you’ll see there are two white groups which weren’t given up till I had placed the final killing stone; in fact, white still tried to make the left group live… which only ended up in giving me some extra points. The bot isn’t actually reading the sequence where it dies. On the other hand, the life and death status of groups in the scoring phase has always been perfect.

The musical section, while being too short, is just adequate and calm enough to allow you to focus on the game while creating some sort of oriental atmosphere. The Wii controller must be held horizontally, placing the stones with button 2 and pressing A for the pause menu. By the way, the first option of the “pause” menu is to “pass”, the second one is “undo last move”, the third is “resign” and the last one is to resume the game. Guess I saved you a bunch of minutes with this.

As for the other games, I can’t really tell you its strength or options, since I lack enough knowledge of them to be trustworthy. I’ve only played a game of shogi against the AI and he defeated me so badly I had to play a few Go games more… guess I’ll have to know more shogi other than just the rules.

Update: this game is available through Amazon.co.jp and through other media, please don’t ask me how to download it, try google.

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Those days you’ll hear about Kisei 2007, for those who don’t know about it and in order to make it clearer, I’ll explain some of the biggest championships that are going on in the professional world.
Those of you who have seen “Hikaru no Go” might have some knowledge about professional Go titles.

Part of this is extracted from the Sensei’s Library:

International Tournaments:1. Ing Cup:
this is the one with the biggest prize, and it takes place once every 4 years. It is based on a knockout tournament, with 24 players and played to the best of three matches on the semifinals and best of five at the final.
2. Toyota & Denso Cup: Takes place once every 2 years. 32-player knockout tournament, leading up to a best of three final match.
3. LG Cup: 32-player knockout tournament, a best of five final match.
4. Samsung Cup: Takes place every year, 32-player knockout tournament, leading up to best of three semifinals and finals.
5. Chunlan Cup: 32-player knockout tournament, a best of three match.
6. Fujitsu Cup: First World Go tournament, 32-player knockout. Even the final is disputed on a single game.

Japanese domestic tournaments:
Most traditional Japanese tournaments work in a different way than the previous. The champion of the last edition plays against a challenger, selected from a league made between preliminary tournaments.

1. Kisei: one of the most important titles (with the biggest prize), along with the two following ones. The final of this title is currently being played.
2. Meijin.
3. Honinbo: the oldest Go tournament and, though it isn’t the one with the biggest prize, it retains most of the prestige of the past, so some players regard it as the most important one.
4. NEC Cup: single knockout tournament of fast games with sixteen participants. The sixteen players invited include the seven big Japanese title holders (Kisei, Meijin, Honinbo, Judan, Tengen, Oza, and Gosei), the NHK Cup and JAL Fast Game champions, NEC Cup New Pro champion, and top finishers in the previous year’s NEC Cup.
5. Judan:
This is where you can get the famous 10-dan category, though it is only a title and you are considered a 9 dan player. This one is based on a double knockout tournament instead of the robin league. At the end, the winner of the winners and the winner of the losers play against each other to see who will challenge the title holder.
6. Tengen.
7. Oza.
8. Gosei.

If you are interested on viewing Kisei games on real time, there are several options available:
-Cyberoro server
-Nihon Ki in client

If you are interested on the past games and comments about them, they can be found here: Kisei 2007 at 361points

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