American Go E-Journal

The latest version of SmartGo Kifu includes the GoGoD game collection of more than 73,000 professional games. It also sports a “clean new look and icons,” reports SmartGo author Anders Kierulf. An immediate benefit of adding John Fairbairn and T Mark Hall’s GoGoD collection “is better player name translations,” says Kierulf, who promises that “there’s more to come.” Scott Jensen’s new modern look streamlines the user interface, “and there’s more to do for iOS 7,” Kierulf says, “but this takes a big step towards the future.” Kierulf plans to offer the GoGoD collection with the Windows version of SmartGo, but says that SmartGo for Windows will be temporarily unavailable until that work is complete. “The recent additions of joseki analysis and tree view have pushed SmartGo Kifu way beyond what I imagined five years ago,” Kierulf says. In other SmartGo news, Kierulf tells the E-Journal that SmartGo Books will be releasing “some very interesting books soon.” One is a book on a single 300-year old problem, “The most difficult problem ever: Igo Hatsuyôron 120” as well as John Fairbairn’s book on 466 problems from 1347, “Gateway to All Marvels: The Xuanxuan Qijing of 1347.” Kierulf expects that both books should be released before the upcoming US Go Congress.