GoGoD Encyclopaedia and Database
Logo GoGoD DATABASE & ENCYCLOPAEDIA Latest CD: Summer 2011
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Games of Go on Disk is an informal partnership between T Mark Hall and John Fairbairn in London. With more than occasional help from many go friends, they produce a very large database of professional go games supported by an extensive fund of programs, data and articles to help existing players enjoy and benefit from these games. The whole package is available on a modestly priced single compact disk. New editions come out twice a year: summer (for European and US Congresses) and winter (for Christmas and London Open).

For a guided tour click on the bar above, on the headings below, or on any highlighted words. (On the sample pages some links have been disabled - those that work light up under the cursor, or are specially marked.)

If you are new to go (an originally Oriental game also called weiqi and baduk), the Links page above will offer some good ways to learn more. If you just want to know what is new in go try, er, New In Go.

 Tournaments and Matches

Already extensive but growing details of over 200 professional tournaments and matches past and present are included. The organisation of each event is presented, along with results tables and news reports. Just follow the page signs to keep abreast of the latest entries.

  Sample pages

 
 Groups and Associations

The history and organisation of professional groups and association such as Hoensha, Nihon Ki-in, Hiseikai, and Chung-am are summarised here. There are separate pages for Japan, China and Korea.

Sample entry

  
 Essays on Famous Players

Extended essays on major players past and present. These are in addition to the extensive biographical details found in John Fairbairn's quadrilingual Names Dictionary elsewhere on the CD.

  Current contents page

 
 History and Timelines

Apart from the wide ranging essays under players, other aspects of go history are gathered here, including a list of all the Castle Games, and Timelines to give quick access to the chronology of go events.

  Current contents page

  
 Classics in Translation

Ancient manuals such as the Classic of Go in Thirteen Chapters, Go Secrets, Gateway to All Marvels come in this category, along with extracts or summaries of more recent classics such as Yicui Guanzi.

  Extract

 
Special Features

A host of miscellaneous extra items, such as a collection of mottoes on fans and problems from the Xuanxuan Qiiing.

  Current contents page

  
Other Items on the GoGoD CD

Apart from the huge database of games in sgf format, the GoGoD Encyclopaedia CD includes many other items, some supplied by third parties. These include:

  • GoGoD95 - a clear and simple game-viewing program which has built-in:
    • GoScorer - play over a game by guessing the next move and keeping track of your score
    • Lunar converter - convert Japanese lunar dates to modern format.
    • a link to the Names Dictionary.
  • Books - complete translations of several books by ourselves, and original lengthy books and scholarly papers by authors such as Charles Matthews and Peter Shotwell mean you can get over a dozen full-length works at no extra cost!
  • The Names Dictionary with over 3,000 biographical entries covering players, patrons, reporters and famous go fans past and present. In printed form this comes to over 300 pages, but the electronic version includes a program to find the names written in Japanese, Chinese (old and modern) and Korean (characters and hangeul) almost instantly. Photos are included for many players. There is now an html version.
    • The same program (Onomasticon) also provides the ability to look up technical terms (diagrammed) and place names (maps included) in the same languages.
  • Commented games - a very large selection of games in CBase that can be viewed in GoGoD95.
  • A set of over one hundred 9x9 pro games.
  • PBase - a program to test yourself on tsumego, endgame and tesuji problems from over 20 classical collections.
  • Go Library - our own database manager, geared mainly to searching for data on names and events, but does include a position search facility. Games can easily be added to the GoGoD database.
  • Kombilo - an even better database manager kindly provided by Ulrich Goertz. Superfast when doing position searches, it has a host of other valuable features such as strict sgf parsing checks and duplicate checks.
  • Screensaver - a program that plays over your favourite games in screensaver mode. Offered by kind permission of Arnoud van der Loeff.
  • We also offer the Progor tables of go Elo-type ratings compiled by Ales Cieply from GoGoD data.
  • Smart Go Viewer - an advanced sgf viewer from the sgf guru himself, Anders Kierulf
  • Go World Index - a comprehensive and professional index to the world's premier English-language go magazine, compiled by Jochen Fassbender

... and much more!

We have to warn you that the GoGoD CD is intended for PCs running Windows95 upwards. However, some parts work do on other formats, and in particular the huge database of games in sgf format seems to work well with Macs. The bulk of the encyclopaedia is in HTML form and so can be viewed with any suitable browser. But programs are usually platform-dependent (Kombilo, however, works on various formats.)

All products and data are constantly subject to addition and improvement. The latest issue of the GoGoD CD is to be taken as our definitive version. All data on the CD and on this site is copyright and may not be reproduced elsewhere.