Forum.Gomoku.pl

[zukole]

Denis poddał partię po 20. ruchach. Zagrał słabo i nie wyciągałbym z tego daleko idących wniosków.

Trwa druga partia - https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en

[sandra113]

Here is the outcome of the experiment: Denis quickly lost his game because of a calculation mistake, resigning when 19 stones were on the board, and agreed to play a second game under the same conditions as the first one. He lost his second game, too. In the latter game, however, he achieved a highly advantageous position, which Yixin evaluates as about 200 in Denis' favour, which means a very high probability of Denis having a sure win, but such a high score is achieved only starting at depth 16, so the position is not easy to convert to a victory, especially against a program. Being on his way to a victory but having less than half an hour left and still a huge amount of calculation work ahead, Denis again made a calculation mistake, giving Yixin a few-moves-long win, and resigned after Yixin's response.

The games have been copied to playok.com so that everyone can conveniently have a look at them. The links are below.

First game: https://www.playok.com/en...m&pid=124991056

Second game: https://www.playok.com/en...m&pid=124991104

A couple of conclusions from this experiment:

1. Strategic, positional play is a real thing. Denis calculated considerably less deeply than the program, but built a huge advantage admitted by Yixin.

2. Such positional play requires reliable calculation because the player often has to choose moves that almost give a win to the opponent. It is like walking at the edge of an abyss. And it is not easy to play that flawlessly - Denis, who occupies the 11th line on the world ranking list, made a calculation mistake in both games. Without reliable calculation at each step, an attempt to positionally outplay the opponent will likely result in giving him a local, tactical win. The opponent will just have to pick the fruit.

Any opinions about the games and conclusions?

P.S. As the games will disappear from playok.com in 6 months, here is the record:

First game: Yixin - Osipov 1. b14 c13 2. c11 white 3. - e9 4. d11 f11 5. e12 d12 6. e11 b11 7. f13 g14 8. e10 c10 9. h10 d9 10. e8 f9 11. g9 1-0

Second game: Yixin - Osipov 1. c14 b13 2. d14 white 3. - e12 4. e10 g11 5. f10 d10 6. e11 f9 7. c11 c13 8. d9 e8 9. h11 i10 10. d12 f14 11. c8 b7 12. d7 i9 13. c9 c7 14. e6 f5 15. h10 h8 16. f6 d8 17. h9 i7 18. i8 j7 19. f13 e13 20. d13 1-0

[sandra113]

Today the experiment "human vs program" will be continued - Gergő will play against Yixin at 21:00 Warsaw time on https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en The time control will be 60+30.

Gergő is the current champion of Hungary and won the silver medal of the last World Championship. He is second on the world ranking list, having 1912 points. Last season he showed the highest efficiency in the Euroleague (counting only those who played more than 20 games) - 83.3%. He is also the current leader of the IRP championship.

Will one of the very best players in the world beat the program? How will Gergő's approach differ from Nirvana's? Come watch

Everyone is also invited to join the chat at https://vk.com/app5747634_-19499145 to discuss the game in real time with experts. Last time this chat was joined by many strong players such as Dmitry Epifanov and Ilya Muratov. To join the chat, registration on vk.com or membership of vk.com/gomoku may be technically required.

Rules: swap2 gomoku, overlines not counting as wins. The operator (who will be me) will put a corner opening on behalf of Yixin, and Gergő will not know in advance exactly which corner opening will be put. All subsequent moves against Gergő will be made by Yixin, and the operator will not interfere with its work in any way. In Yixin's options, the operator will set the restriction of 60 minutes per game, so Yixin itself will manage its time. The laptop on which Yixin will be run is quite standard (Lenovo Thinkpad T510). Gergő is allowed to use only his brain, i.e., he is allowed only to look at the board shown on the screen and click. He is not allowed to use programs to analyse a position, use libraries, written notes, literature, analyse a position on a real or virtual board by placing stones, get hints from other people, etc.

Here is how you can watch the game:

1. Go to https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en

A menu with four options will pop up.

2. In the menu, under "Welcome," click on the right button ("Play as a guest"), unless you want to register or use an existing account. After you click on that button, a short non-translated Russian text will appear below it. Click on the button just below that text. (This button just means that you understand the limitations of using a guest account and agree to proceed.)

3. To make the board look like on playok.com, click on "Options" below the board. Then, under "Marks," select "Stones" and then click on "OK" below.

4. To avoid highly distracting invitations to play, click on "Options" (under the board), select "Do not invite me to the game," and click on "OK."

5. In the upper left corner, click on "In Game" and find the game being played by Gergő. He will be on the nickname vessago, and the nickname he will play against is Yix.

Come watch

[sandra113]

He did it! Gergő beat Yixin! Gergő played safely and accurately, not sharpening the position and not giving the program any chance, and positionally outplayed Yixin, accumulating resources on the right flank and letting the program dig its own grave on the left one. And Gergő was able to convert his huge positional advantage to a win - in the end, he played a nice VCT consisting of 10 stones of his colour to the winning fork!

This inspiring victory is a perfect demonstration of the existence of strategic, positional play. The program calculated deeper in terms of local tactics, but was soundly outplayed strategically.

The game has been copied to playok.com, and here is the link, enjoy: https://www.playok.com/en...m&pid=125040722

And this perfectly demonstrates why "ultimate gomoku," i.e., games with a long time control in which both players are allowed to use everything, including programs, makes sense - a pure program, not supported by a human player's strategic thinking, will always lose, as Gergő demonstrated that a pure program can be beaten even with bare hands! So ultimate gomoku may become one of important genres of online gomoku in the future. Half a year ago, Dmitry Epifanov and Alex Popiel played such a game with the time control 120+30, attracting about five dozens of spectators and showing exceptionally high quality of play. The game eventually ended in Alex Popiel's favour.

Strategic, positional play is an Achilles heel of gomoku programs!

P.S. As the playok copy of the game between Gergő and Yixin will disappear in 6 months, here is the record:

Yixin - Gergő 1. c12 d13 2. e13 black 3. e10 f10 4. g11 f11 5. f9 g8 6. e8 d7 7. g9 h9 8. f7 e7 9. g5 h5 10. g10 i12 11. h6 i7 12. f6 f5 13. g6 i6 14. g4 g3 15. i5 g12 16. j4 k3 17. f4 d4 18. d6 e6 19. c8 c10 20. f12 f8 21. k5 i3 22. j5 j3 23. h3 k6 24. j7 j8 25. c9 e9 26. i10 k10 27. d10 e11 28. e3 d2 29. l6 j11 30. l9 j9 31. l11 j12 32. j10 k12 33. h12 k9 34. i4 h4 35. k11 l12 36. m12 h13 37. g14 j15 38. i14 j14 39. j13 m11 40. l10 k13 41. n10 i15 0-1

[zukole]

W trakcie mistrzostw świata, ówczesny obrońca tytułu Rudolf Dupszki (dupsky) rozegrał dwie partie z programem Yixin. Czas na grę wynosił 120 minut + 30 sekund za ruch. Zapis wygranego przez Yixin meczu (2-0) możecie obejrzeć tutaj.

Na gomokuworld z kolei znajdziecie artykuł Bano o tym pojedynku

[sandra113]

Today at 20:00 Warsaw time Roman Berezin and Márk Horváth will play a gomoku match of two games with the time control 60+30 on https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en.

Roman Berezin is a strong Russian renju player with a renju rating of 2104 and is particularly known for his bright personality, fighting spirit, and being an excellent team captain. He captained Russia 2 in the last world team renju championship, leading the team to a quite successful result – a draw 2-2 against Russia 1 in the direct encounter and the total fourth place, below only China, Estonia 1, and Russia 1. Roman plays renju since his teens and has a very strong passion for the game.

Márk Horváth is a Hungarian gomoku player who is best known for his one-minute gomoku skills. In the WBC, he was placed by the experts to Pot 1 (top 16) and has already won his group. So far, Márk has played only in one live gomoku tournament, the Hungarian Autumn Tournament held last year, and did not allow anyone except Zoli, Dupsky, and Gergő to earn more points than him in that tournament. Márk possesses a strong fighting spirit and does not hesitate to let others know about it - have a look at his T-shirt in the match poster above.

Rules of the match: gomoku, exactly five-in-a-row (overlines do not count as wins), swap2. The players are allowed to use only their brains, i.e., they are allowed only to look at the board shown on the screen and click. It is not allowed to use programs to analyse a position, use libraries, written notes, literature, analyse a position on a real or virtual board by placing stones, get hints from other people, etc.

Here is how you can watch the match:

1. Go to https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en

A menu with four options will pop up.

2. In the menu, under "Welcome," click on the right button ("Play as a guest"), unless you want to register or use an existing account. Then click on "Continue."

3. Click on "Options" below the board and choose the following options:

- Under "Marks," select "Stones" to make the board look like on playok.com.

- Under "Disable invites," select "Do not invite me to the game" to avoid highly distracting invitations to play.

Then click on "OK" below.

4. In the upper left corner, click on "In Game" and find the game being played by Roman and Márk. Click on the game and enjoy

[sandra113]

They played 1-1 and, following Márk's suggestion, decided to play a decisive game with the same time control, which was eventually won by Roman.

Game 1. Márk put an opening, and Roman chose white.


Game 2. Roman put an opening, and Márk chose white.


Game 3. Márk put an opening, Roman added two stones, and Márk chose black.


My detailed comments on the games (in Russian) are here: https://vk.com/topic-19499145_35656613?post=41194

Short version: In Game 1, Roman played very solid and outplayed his opponent. Especially worth mentioning is Roman's aggressive move 8-h9, which was obviously well-calculated and created a strategically favourable position. Márk's combination 9, 11, 13, 15, played pretty quickly, only further improved Roman's position from the strategic standpoint. Game 2 was decided by Roman's blunder - he missed Márk's VCT. In Game 3, Márk got an advantageous position by choosing the right colour after Roman added two stones, and pressured Roman for quite long, but Roman was able to survive and, when the game was developing towards an inevitable draw, exploited a sudden mistake by Márk.

Ilya Katsev, who is likely to face Márk in the upcoming Hungarian Meijin tournament, commented that as a result of the match, he would consider Márk a more serious opponent than before .

Here is what Roman Berezin said about the match:

Cytat:

На мой взгляд, есть кое-какие аспекты игры, над которыми Марку надо поработать для достижения серьёзных результатов. Тем более полагаю, что с контролем <20 мин на партию я едва ли выиграл бы хоть 1, а с контролем 2 часа на партию, и за доской, разумеется я не зевнул бы паузу во второй партии, да и вообще - усилений по ходу игры за черных там - предостаточно. Но как игрока я бы характеризовал его одним словом - компетентный. В целом мне понравился отчет Сандры, неплохой анализ. Ну и вообще эти шлеп-шлеп 9-15 ходами в первой партии... Такого не должно быть на серьёзном контроле в принципе, такое не приносит плодов на некотором уровне. К тому же все знают, что в реальном серьёзном турнире каждая партия - это маленькая жизнь и мало кто оступается просто так даром, на ровном месте. Надо стараться играть (или хотя бы подмиксовывать) серьёзные контроли и вырабатывать более качественный и целостный план на игру. У меня все)

My translation:

- begin of the translation -

I think there are some game aspects that Márk has to work on in order to achieve serious results. Furthermore, I think I would be unlikely to win even a game if the time control was less than 20 min, but if the time control was 2 hours, I would not blunder in the second game, and, overall, there are many ways to strengthen black's play there. I would characterise Márk as a player by one word - competent.

Overall I like Sandra's analysis, it is quite good. And, well, this combo 9-15 in the first game... This should not happen at a serious time control in principle. This does not bring any fruits. Everyone knows that in a serious live tournament, each game is like a small life, and almost no one makes a misstep out of the blue, for free. One should try to play at serious time controls, or at least to mix them with short ones, and to develop self-consistent game plans of better quality. That's all I want to say

- end of the translation -

I congratulate Roman with the victory and wish Márk good luck in the upcoming Hungarian Meijin tournament to be played this weekend

[sandra113]

Today at 17:00 Warsaw time Łukasz Majksner (also known as Usiek) and Anatoly Smirnov (also known as Barbos) will play the first game of their online match in advanced gomoku with the time control 120+30! Advanced gomoku is a term analogous to advanced chess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess) and means that the players are allowed to use programs to analyse positions. A similar match was played about two years ago between Dmitry Epifanov (also known as Owen) and Alex Popiel (also known as Lamaza) and was a total success as more than 50 spectators came to watch.

Łukasz and Anatoly are very decent players both in live and correspondence gomoku and have a vast experience of playing on Playok and in online tournaments such as the Euroleague, WBC, and IRP. Both of them played in the International Correspondence Gomoku Tournament 2018 (ICGT 2018) and qualified to the High League to be played next season. In the ICGT 2018, they were in the same group and played two games against each other, which ended as draws.

Anatoly is from Pervouralsk, a small city in the Ural mountains. He started participating in live tournaments when the USSR was still alive, and became the gomoku champion of Russia in 2008 (http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/78). Anatoly began playing correspondence games in the era when moves were mailed in envelopes, and later played correspondence gomoku on littlegolem.net, where he was one of the very best players. Anatoly is well known for his passion for schemes, traps, and home analysis, and by means of a scheme he was able to beat Rudolf Dupszki in the A-tournament of the world gomoku championship 2018 (http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/160/10510), where the latter player became the world champion.

Łukasz became the gomoku champion of Poland in 2016 (http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/178), and he also won the world team championship title as a member of the Polish national team in 2016 (http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/197) as well as the silver medal of the Fishparty in Hradec Kralove in 2018 (http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/216). Like Anatoly, Łukasz is known for his passion for home analysis, and it is Łukasz who is the only player not from a former Soviet Union country who qualified to the High League of the ICGT.

It is going to be a really interesting match as both players were the champions of their respective countries, understand the game very deeply, have a great experience and skills of playing correspondence games, and have a passion for home analysis of gomoku positions.

The match is a continuation of series of matches in advanced gomoku organised in the Russian gomoku community. Fourteen matches were played so far and involved, in particular, Denis Osipov, Dmitry Epifanov, Alex Popiel, Alexander Miroshnichenko (also known as Fudjin), Gasan Babaev, and Łukasz Majksner. More information about these matches as well as the game records are provided in the special thread of the Russian gomoku discussion forum: https://vk.com/topic-19499145_39125646

The rules of the match allow everything - any programs, move databases, help by any people, etc.

The match will be played on Logic, a Russian website, and here is how you can watch the match:

1. Go to https://logic-games.spb.ru/gomoku/?lang=en

A menu with four options will pop up.

2. In the menu, choose "Play as a guest", unless you want to register or use an existing account on Logic or VK, and then click on "Continue."

3. Click on "Options" below the board. Select "Stones" under "Marks" to make the board look like on playok.com, and select "Do not invite me to the game" under "Disable invites" to avoid highly distracting invitations to play. Then click on "OK" below.

4. In the upper left corner, click on "In Game" and find the game being played by Łukasz and Anatoly. Łukasz will be under the nickname coinciding with his full name, Łukasz Majksner.

Please note that on Logic, the players' clocks show only minutes and seconds, but not hours, i.e., 28:54 means that the player has either 28 minutes and 54 seconds or 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 54 seconds.

Come to watch the battle!

[sandra113]

Usiek won the game against Barbos by showing excellent positional play! Congratulations to Usiek and all his fans and friends

Here is the game record: k8j11l12j10l9j9j12k12j7m10l11l10i10i6h6k7g9i11k9j6g7g11h11i5h4j8l6g8f9h5i8i4i3j3k2g5f5m7m8k4j5l5m6n8m9n9n10f7g6g10e4h7e9h9d6d10d3c2d4d5e6f6g4f4h3h2d7

The line above is the sequence of the moves. To see the game in Yixin, all you need is to copy the above line to Yixin's command line after the command putpos followed by a space and then to press Enter.

The opening was put by Łukasz, and Barbos chose white, not adding two stones.

You can read a brief review of the game in Russian here: https://vk.com/topic-19499145_39125646?post=53905

Have a look at this high-quality game

[sandra113]

Today at 18:00 Warsaw time Łukasz Majksner (also known as Usiek) and Štěpán Tesařík (also known as Peroxid) will play the first game of their online match in advanced gomoku with the time control 120+30!

The match is a continuation of the series of matches in advanced gomoku organised in the Russian gomoku community. In this series, there is a title - "king of the hill," and the current king of the hill is Łukasz. If he wins the match against Štěpán, or if the match ends 1-1, then Łukasz retains the title, otherwise the new king of the hill will be Štěpán.

The rules of the match allow everything - any programs, move databases, help by any people, etc.

The match will be played on the excellent Czech playing server piskvorky.net. Come watch this high-quality game

[sandra113]

About three weeks ago, on Fri 28 Sep, a historic gomoku battle took place - the current Czech champion Štěpán Tesařík, also known as Peroxid, faced the Polish champion of 2016 Łukasz Majksner, also known as Usiek, in the first game of their match in advanced gomoku.

Advanced gomoku is a term analogous to advanced chess and means that the players can use any programs to analyse positions. This results in games of exceptional quality, which are devoid both of tactical blunders common to games in live tournaments and of obvious strategic mistakes characteristic of program competitions. What decides in advanced gomoku is strategic planning, the ability to focus on important branches, systematic thinking, skills of computer analysis, and deep understanding of gomoku.

The time control was 120+30, meaning that each of the contenders had a plenty of time for analysis. The players were also allowed to use any other kind of help, such as move databases and hints by other people.

The game was played on the Czech server piskvorky.net and attracted a dozen of spectators including, e.g., Pavel Laube, Anatoly Smirnov, Valery Kondratyev, and Miroslav Fontán, who is the developer of Embryo, the gomoku engine that beat Yixin in one of the nominations of the last Gomocup.

Peroxid emerged victorious, building a five on move 123, and now Usiek must win the remaining game of the match in order to keep his title in advanced gomoku, otherwise the new title holder will be Peroxid.

Usiek characterised the first game of the match as the best advanced gomoku game that had ever been played with such a time control.

So what happened in the first game of the match?

The game record is attached to this post as a PDF file. Inside is simply the move sequence, which you can use to conveniently load the game in Yixin as follows: In Yixin's command line, type the command putpos, add a space, insert the move sequence from the file, and press Enter.

You can also have a look at the game here: http://www.piskvorky.net/...xid&value=20341

The players had agreed that it was Peroxid who was to put an opening in the first game, and he put a very interesting opening: The first two stones were near a corner, and the third stone was in the opposite quarter of the board. The opening looked entirely new and very non-obvious.

According to Usiek, he deemed the opening requiring at least two days of analysis as there were "two many branches to check."

Considering how to add two stones, he eventually decided to use an elegant trick analogous to the one he had used against Monika Kolouchová at the Fish Party 2018. Here is that game: http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/216/13730 . In that game, Usiek added two stones so as to basically convert Monika's opening to a scheme known to him, and achieved a nice victory.

The third stone of Peroxid's opening looked so lonely and asking for a nice company that Usiek could not withstand the temptation to build on it a scheme known to him. The "opening" added by Usiek does not seem very sharp at the first glance, but, according to him, actually is "a way sharper than many obviously sharp positions." Thus Usiek turned the tables: Peroxid, who had put a tricky opening, found himself facing an unknown scheme!

While Peroxid was thinking what to do, Usiek realised that he had overlooked 6-e9, a move potentially connecting the position with stone 2. The move immediately seemed to Usiek to be very strong and even to give a win to white, but then he proved that 6-e9 is actually a "crazy" black win.

Peroxid chose black, and then the contenders played a very sharp branch and reached the middlegame with an apparent considerable advantage of Peroxid.

Usiek says Peroxid could have chosen a different seventh move, which would have brought more troubles to Usiek in the middlegame, but adds that Peroxid was probably afraid of possible "hardcore wins" and for this reason opted for a more secure variant.

The ensuing course of the game was very eventful and rich of nuances, and in the end Usiek overlooked a thing and lost.

The erroneous move by Usiek, 108-c10, loses in a tricky way. By playing this move, white creates a VCF threat, but black can block that threat by playing a combo of four fours near the lower edge of the board and then can win by a VCT near the upper edge. And this is exactly what Peroxid did.

Usiek had enough time, about 8 min, and simply made a too hasty decision. If he had played a proper 108th move, he would have been able to achieve a draw. He says that his first instinct was to play 108-g14 and that he instead blindly followed Renju Solver's suggestion made after a short calculation. A quick VCT test in Yixin would have sufficed to avoid the error, as Yixin in the VCT search regime on my pretty average laptop finds the black win after 108-c10 in just about 3 seconds.

But interestingly, if I use Yixin in the normal regime, "Play," to analyse the position before move 108, I see that Yixin chooses the same losing move, 108-c10, at depths 7, 8, and 9. At depth 10, Yixin chooses a different move, 108-e6, but it takes about one minute on my laptop to reach that depth in that position. So positions even with more than 100 stones can have nasty pitfalls.

Did any of the players have a win before move 108?

Peroxid says that his post-game analysis revealed his win in the position after move 54, but adds that his program needed as much as 6 hours to prove the win. He showed me one of its branches - interestingly, black starts there with blocking the white pair 34-44, located in the lower half of the board, by playing the combo 55-d4 56-d6 57-c5, and later wins near the upper edge by creating a 4x3 on move 83.

Thus it is wrong to say that the game was always rolling on a draw road before move 108. A win was there well before that move, but, like a pearl, not easy to find.

Anyway, congratulations to Peroxid. He proved to be an excellent analyst as he was able to come up with a new excellent opening, choose the better colour in Usiek's addition of two stones, dominate the game, and win it. The Czech champion showed his power.

But the second game is coming. Usiek is eager to do his best and utmost to level the score and retain the title. Will he succeed? Stay tuned

---

game-record-1.pdf

Pobierz Plik ściągnięto 900 raz(y) 10,66 KB

[sandra113]

Tonight at 19:00 Warsaw time Usiek and Peroxid will play the final game of their match in advanced gomoku on piskvorky.net.

As Peroxid won the first game, Usiek must win tonight's game to defend his title. If he fails to win tonight's game, the new holder of the title in advanced gomoku will be Peroxid.

Before this match, Usiek won the title by winning 2-0 against Sery Cardinal, a Russian player whose computer analysis skills and powerful hardware had allowed to achieve a draw against Denis Osipov, and defended the title by winning 1.5-0.5 against Barbos, a well-known Russian player who played in many live, online, and correspondence tournaments. Will Usiek succeed in defending his title for a second time in a row?

Do not miss the climax of this epic match! You will see a great strategic battle whose quality far exceeds that of the games of the A-tournament of the world championship. And note that last night the clocks in Poland were turned back by an hour

[zukole]

Usiek wygrał drugą grę.

[sandra113]

On Sun 28 Oct the second, final game of the historic gomoku battle took place - the Polish champion of 2016 Łukasz Majksner, also known as Usiek, played against the current Czech champion Štěpán Tesařík, also known as Peroxid, in advanced gomoku with the time control 120+30. Advanced gomoku is a term analogous to advanced chess and means that the players can use any programs to analyse positions.

As Usiek had lost the first game of the match, he had to win the remaining game in order to retain his title of the king of the hill in advanced gomoku, and he did it. It was an incredibly fierce fight on the board, with the contenders exhausting almost all time they had, and Usiek went across almost the entire board from the corner where he had put his opening, to win the game near an opposite edge. The king defended his throne. Congratulations to Usiek!

The match was a continuation of a series of advanced gomoku matches originally organised in the Russian gomoku community (see the thread https://vk.com/topic-19499145_39125646 for the history). Usiek had won the title by confidently beating 2-0 Sery Cardinal, the very powerful Russian advanced gomoku player who had proved his strength in previous advanced gomoku matches including his 0.5-0.5 draw in a 120+30 advanced gomoku game against Denis Osipov, whose program and gomoku skills had been enough only to barely escape a defeat in that game. After winning the title, Usiek defended it against Anatoly Smirnov, the extremely experienced Russian player who is known as Barbos and started playing gomoku in the Soviet era. The match between Usiek and Barbos consisted of two games with the time control 120+30 and ended 1.5-0.5 in Usiek's favour. And now Usiek has defended his title against Peroxid, the current Czech champion.

Such a great performance by Usiek is absolutely no surprise to me. He has a great passion for analysis and, in particular, is the only non-Russian speaking player who was able to qualify to the High League of the ICGT, the International Correspondence Gomoku Tournament. His deep understanding of positional play, incredible computer analysis skills, devotion to gomoku, and serious professional approach are what makes him so great in advanced gomoku.

The record of the final game between Usiek and Peroxid is attached to this post as a PDF file. Inside is simply the move sequence, which you can use to conveniently load the game in Yixin as follows: In Yixin's command line, type the command putpos, add a space, insert the move sequence from the file, and press Enter.

Usiek put an interesting corner opening that did not look very peaceful at all. The opening had been first put in a live tournament by the current world champion Zoltán László from Hungary in the recent Polish championship against his compatriot Gábor Gyenes. Here is the link to the game: http://gomokuworld.com/tournaments/217/14426 . It was nice to see Usiek putting an opening of his good friend.

After about 10 min of thinking, Peroxid came up with an addition of two stones.

Usiek then spent about half an hour thinking what to do. He says he was unable to find any considerable advantage of any of the colours but slightly favoured black, which he finally chose.

The perception of the players of what happened next is different: Usiek says they fought for the initiative pretty long, many moves, while Peroxid says that he was defending during the whole game.

Both players also differently evaluate the addition of two stones put by Peroxid. Usiek finds it nice, while Peroxid thinks that the addition is better for black and that the addition predetermined the course and outcome of the game.

According to Usiek, the key moment of the game was move 16-d13 by Peroxid, at least this is how it seemed to Usiek during the game. The move instantly creates an impression of a positional death of white.

However, Peroxid says that he was simply unable to find a better move. According to him, all other options were worse.

After that move, Usiek's initiative and advantage became visible by the naked eye, and he started to press his opponent.

Yet, according to Usiek, Peroxid fought like a lion, so it took 28 more black stones to win the game. The game ended when there were 71 stones on the board. Technically, Peroxid lost on time as his time expired, but at that moment Usiek had his win already proven in his program and 10 minutes 16 seconds left. In the final position, Yixin gives up at depth 10, showing -10000.

The game illustrates the cruelty of advanced gomoku. Apparently even a slight imbalance or a slight mistake visible only in a very deep analysis can result in a long-lasting positional torture and inevitable loss. Advanced gomoku games are often basically decided in the very beginning, and then it takes many moves to face the inevitable. Spending only 10 minutes to find an addition of two stones may have been a too hasty decision that costed Peroxid the game and the title.

I recall that once the world champion of 2015 Rudolf Dupszki told me something like, "The earlier in the game you make a mistake, the larger impact on the game it has." He is known for spending a lot of time thinking on the very first moves. Advanced gomoku games, where the quality of play is a way higher than in live tournaments, seem to confirm his philosophy.

Usiek owes thanks to his friend Zoltán László, who had invented and studied the opening that prompted Peroxid to add two stones.

But at the same time, converting an imbalance to a win requires skills. Simply following a program's suggestion is not enough, as evidenced by some past advanced gomoku matches. Human strategy and understanding of positional play are needed.

Who is the next challenger?

Hungary, the homeland of three different world gomoku champions, comes into play - Márk Horváth, a close friend of the current world champion, will try to overthrow the current king of the hill in advanced gomoku!

As the rules of advanced gomoku matches allow using any help including hints by other people, the contenders well may be already forming their support teams.

In gomoku, the Hungarians are known to be highly result-oriented and motivated to be the very best, so I already cannot wait for the upcoming epic battle between Márk and Usiek.

Stay tuned

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[sandra113]

Today is a historic day for advanced gomoku: Hungary, the homeland of three world gomoku champions, comes into play as Márk Horváth steps in to challenge the current title holder Łukasz Majksner from Poland, also known as Usiek!

They will play the first game of their title match tonight at 22:00 Warsaw time on the Czech server piskvorky.net. The match consists of two games with the time control 120+30.

Advanced gomoku is a term analogous to advanced chess and means that the players can use any programs to analyse positions. The players are also allowed to use any other kind of help, such as move databases and hints by other people.

The challenger, Márk, is a player well-known for his fighting spirit, aggressive play, and attacking skills. He shared places 9-12 in the WBC 2018, took the 3rd place in the Hungarian Spring Tournament 2018, and earned a silver medal of the last world team championship as a member of the Hungarian national team. Márk has been extensively trained and mentored by his good friend Zoli, the current world champion and WBC holder, and has the honour to be a member of Inner Strength, Zoli's team in the Euroleague.

The title holder, Usiek, became the gomoku champion of Poland in 2016 and also won the world team championship title as a member of the Polish national team in 2016 as well as the silver medal of the Fishparty in Hradec Kralove in 2018. Usiek is known for his passion for home analysis and is the only player not from a former Soviet Union country who qualified to the High League of the International Correspondence Gomoku Tournament. His deep understanding of positional play, incredible computer analysis skills, devotion to gomoku, and serious professional approach are what makes him incredibly strong in advanced gomoku.

After Usiek won the title of the king of the hill in advanced gomoku, he defended his title against Anatoly Smirnov and Štěpán Tesařík, and now Márk comes as the third challenger. If the match ends 1-1 or in Usiek's favour, Usiek retains his title, otherwise Márk will be the new title holder.

Come watch tonight's game, which surely will be of exceptional quality far exceeding the quality of live games.