Block Frenzy

Block Frenzy: Click and hold the red square, then move it around so as not to touch the walls or the blue blocks.

Stratego Online

Interesting, so you can now play Stratego online.

Abstract Strategy Games

This wikipedia article on 'strategy games' has lots of interesting ones I've never heard of.

Kung Fu Chess

Wow, definitely one of the best chess variants I've played in a long time!

Pentago online

Pentago: Not as good as playing Five in a Row in your chemistry lab book with your lab partner when the teacher wasn't looking, but almost as good...

Owari Online

Play Awari online! (Mancala variants include Oware, Bao, Kalah, and Omweso)

Owari rules for newbies.

Best Poker Blogs

BestPokerBlogs.com: Lots of gems here.

Shorthanded Holdem

From Online-Poker-Insider.com:

Prior to the era of online poker shorthanded games were worthy of relatively minor analysis at best, simply because they were the exception. At your local card room a shorthanded game occurs by accident when several players leave the table at once, and it is usually temporary. In online poker six-handed limit hold'em games are very common, and some poker rooms are well known for the huge number of shorthanded games that they offer.

If you are a good poker player then it is logical that shorthanded games should provide you with a greater level of expected value than a full table game. Your profit increases for two basic reasons: One, you see more hands per hour, which allows you more opportunities to play well. Two, mistakes in shorthanded games are more serious (in terms of drawing to the wrong pot odds) than they are in a full game. For example: If some idiot is drawing to a gut-shot draw at a full table and enough players remain in the pot and bet it up, there is a good chance that he will get the necessary pot odds to justify that slim draw. In shorthanded games, however, where it is typical to see only three or two players taking the pot it is hardly ever justified to draw to those hands. Yet bad players have no understanding of pot odds and most of them will not alter their style of play when they face fewer opponents.

The majority of online shorthanded games present good players with profitable situations. Players have a dim understanding that they are meant to loosen up their game - fewer opponents mean that the value of a middling starting hand like KQ must be increased and played more regularly, and more aggressively. Unfortunately, most players use this reasoning to justify outrageously poor play, hanging around with bottom pair and very optimistic draws. It is easier to isolate players post-flop in a shorthanded game, as opposed to a full table of Limit Hold'em players, and once players are isolated a good player should be able to outplay them safe in the knowledge that there is no one waiting in the wings to ambush everyone.

If you intend to play shorthanded Limit Hold'em games you have to make some key alterations to your basic game. Suited connectors become far less valuable, because their real strength is in multi-way pots with lots of action. Most shorthanded games feature three or two players only taking the flop, and heavy betting action before the flop is not standard. Hands that can get you into trouble in a full game, such as KQ, AJ, AT, and Ax suited now have to be played and played aggressively.

Limping in with a huge hand is not recommended in this format of Hold'em. This is the type of game where raising with mediocre holdings is expected, and so raising with big pairs has to be the right play every time. The reason is that your opponents are less likely to put you on a big hand and will pay you off throughout the hand. If a big pair holds up it is far easier to extract maximum value in a shorthanded game than it is at a full ring game. Cold calling raises is also frowned upon by the experts when facing a thinned-out table. Selective aggression is rewarded with more frequency at these tables, and passive play is punished. If your pre-flop strategy is sound, and a little tighter than the rest of the table, your constant aggression when you are in a hand should lead to profits regardless of how the community cards treat you. A number of shorthanded players like to stick around until the turn when they commit to a hand, but once the bets double it is possible to bully them out of pots.

Differences Between Holdem and Omaha

Take from differences between Omaha and Holdem:

Some of the differences stem from logistics. When playing in a casino, approximately twice as many hands are dealt an hour in Holdem. Omaha is usually played HiLo. Holdem players usually have a wider variety of games to choose from. Omaha games have more regulars. Besides these things, there are many more complicated differences.

If your aim is to win, Holdem requires more risk-taking, more variance. Winning Holdem is all about exploiting tiny edges, and even more, creating tiny edges. Holdem skill often comes into play in turning 55/45 edges into 60/40 ones. Obviously that is a good, profitable thing to do, but just as obviously it takes something of a long run to make these small edges add up. Great Holdem players find nickels and dimes and dollars of value in hand after hand -- getting free cards, protecting (or not protecting) blinds, value betting, inducing bluffs, etc. Very good winning players don’t depend on showing down AK against KQ on a KJ742 board. Showing the best hand is the bedrock of winning, but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Omaha has quite a lot of differences. For very good players, Omaha edges are usually huge. Against weak Texas Hold'em opponents, a very good player can play a lot more hands. This is not the case in Omaha. While 76s can sometimes become playable in Holdem, 9764 is never playable in Omaha High Low (outside of maybe putting in one more chip in a two chip small blind) regardless of how lousy your opponents are. While the faster-paced Holdem is all about the application of many tiny edges time and again, glacier-paced Omaha is more about waiting for rare instances of enormous advantage. These huge advantages occur because most players simply do not "get" that when played properly Omaha has very little gamble to it, with less playable hands than Holdem -- especially "playable hands per hour". Loose-ish Omaha games mostly come down to simple math. A pot has so many chips in it, and you have so many outs to make the winning hand. You are either getting the right price, the wrong price, or the very, very right price.

Omaha is tortoise poker. Holdem is for the rabbits. Generally, winning Omaha players make more money per hour (with less variance) than their equally skilled Holdem counterparts. This occurs despite more Holdem hands being played simply because most Omaha players play far worse than the average Holdem player. If a weak player is taking the 40/60 worst of it in Holdem many times, that player is taking the worst of it fewer times against Omaha opponents but the worst of it now is more likely to be 10/90.

Your personal temperament might be better suited for one than the other, but one game is not "better" than the other. While Omaha remains easier money, these days Texas Hold'em offers a much wider array of opportunities to win. Omaha tournaments are still peopled with very weak Omaha players, but the sheer number of Holdem tournaments and the larger amount of people playing Holdem events offsets that. Smaller edges in more events with more people simply returns us to the basic difference between Omaha and Holdem -- you get to apply a small advantage much more often for larger bets. These days, being properly bankrolled is even more important in the past. If you can afford to every five seconds bet $990 on a coin flip to win $1000, soon you will have an awful lot of money. But if you only have $640 to your name, you aren't going to even be able to play, let alone play with an expectation of not going broke due to bad luck. If you are a Holdem player, especially a Holdem tournament player, keep your powder dry... take loving care of your bankroll.

Profit comes in different ways, and you have to be capable of catching it.

Schooling in Omaha

Taken from this article on Omaha strategy:

"Schooling" is a common phenomenon in loose-game Holdem. When several players play badly by calling with weak draws, like gutshot straights or backdoor flushes, these players partially protect each other by making the "price" on each of their calls better. If only one player calls with a gutshot draw, usually that is a significant mistake, but if several players make similar calls, now the pot is big enough to make the calls profitable, or at least much less bad. Properly understanding the strategy involved in schooling is a key skill in loose-game Holdem. (See article on Holdem Schooling here.)

There is no parallel schooling phenomenon in Omaha -- quite the contrary. In Omaha, schooling benefits the favorites, not the underdogs. This reverse schooling phenomenon is what makes Omaha often mindlessly profitable. Players with four outs or less call bets from players with twenty outs, and no matter how many people call, the twenty outs player continues to have twenty outs. Despite the definite reverse profitability of "schooling" in Omaha, poor players engage in it all the time. They look at a big pot and call bets hoping to get lucky, even though they may be drawing totally dead.

Suppose you flop a top set of three kings against seven opponents. The true enemies of your KKK (or any strong Omaha hand) are the first two callers (meaning the two opponents with the most outs). On a flop of KsQd7c for example, we are afraid of AJTx wrap-straight draws. That's the first caller or two. Then we have open-end straight draws. We are the favorite over those (and all the rest of the draws). Next are backdoor flush draws. Then we worry about the lame backdoor straight draws around the seven. Naturally, many of these longshot draws overlap each other. For instance, if the Ace-high spade flush draw calls us, we certainly love the five-high spade flush draw to call, drawing dead. Yes, they may win sometimes, but we love these sixth, seventh, and eighth callers!

With the KKK, if we assume we won't win unless we fill up, and we don't fill up on the turn, we will have ten outs of the forty-four possible cards, meaning we will fill up 23% of the time. Even if we lose to quads the 3% part of that, that's still a one out of five win percentage, for a scoop, while getting six, seven or eight way action. Additionally, we'll normally have our own backdoor draws. If we have two backdoor King-high flush draws, this will further destroy what little power the sixth, seventh and eight callers have, as their backdoor baby flush draws in our suits are contributing totally dead money on that aspect of their hands.

So, building a pot with a raise before the flop in Omaha does not benefit schooling opponents, it benefits players with the good hands. The flip side of this phenomenon exposes another key difference between Omaha and Holdem.

In loose Holdem games, there are a lot of hands you can profitably add to your arsenal, most obviously Ace-rag suited and suited connectors. This is not true in Omaha. Again, the difference in value of hands multiway in Omaha is much more dramatic than in Holdem. The majority of hands simply are never playable (outside the blinds). If you are on the button and everybody limps in, 3456 is still a worthless piece of garbage. It does not matter if you have three opponents or seven, the hand stinks. You can play a small number of additional hands, but for the most part, no matter how loose or weak your opponents are, you can't add too many more hands to your playable repertoire.

The thing to "loosen up" in such a game is to want to play for a raise most hands you play. In tight games, calling when someone limps in front of you is often the right play. In a loose game, raising is usually the correct play because you are playing a hand with way the best of it. You want dead money in the pot, and you want dead hands hopelessly chasing it! And they will.

Omaha Links

• Omaha strategy
• Point system for beginning Omaha hands
• Pot limit strategy
• Pot Limit HiLo

Freedom to Tinker: Online Poker and Unenforceable Rules

Original blog blerp:

Online Poker and Unenforceable Rules
Wednesday September 22, 2004 by Ed Felten

Computerized “bots” may be common in online poker games according to a Mike Brunker story at MSNBC.com. I have my doubts about the prevalence today of skillful, fully automated pokerbots, but there is an interesting story here nonetheless.

Most online casinos ban bots, but there is really no way to enforce such a rule. Already, many online players use electronic assistants that help them calculate odds, something that world-class players are adept at doing in their heads. Pokerbot technology will only advance, so that even if bots don’t outplay people now, they will eventually. (The claim, sometimes heard, that computers cannot understand bluffing in poker, is incorrect. Game theory can predict and explain bluffing behavior. A good pokerbot will bluff sometimes.)

Once bots are better than people, it’s hard to see why a rational person, with real money at stake, would fail to use a bot. Sure, watching your bot play is less fun than playing yourself; but losing to a bunch of bots isn’t much fun either. Old-fashioned human vs. human play will still be seen in very-low-stakes online games, where it’s not worth the trouble of deploying a bot, and in in-person games where the non-botness of players can be checked.

The online casinos are kidding themselves if they think they can enforce a no-bots rule. How can they tell what a player is doing in the privacy of his own home? Even if they can tell that a human’s hands are on the keyboard, how can they tell whether that human is getting advice from a bot?

The article discusses yet another unenforceable rule of online poker: the ban on collusion between players. If two or more players simply show each other their cards, they gain an advantage over the others at the table. There’s no way for an online casino to prevent players from conducting back-channel communications, so a ban on collusion is impossible to enforce.

By reiterating their anti-bot and anti-collusion rules, and by claiming to have mysterious enforcement mechanisms, online casinos may be able to stem the tide of cheating for a while. But eventually, bots and collusion will become the norm, and lone human players will be driven out of all but the lowest stakes games.

But there is another strategy. An online casino could encourage bots, and even set up bots-only games. The game would then become not a human vs. human card game but a human vs. human battle between bot designers for geekly mastery. I’ll bet there are plenty of programmers out there who would like to give it a try.

More on Post Flop Play

Post Flop Play:

General Concepts:
1) You very rarely want to cold call preflop, you are either going to reraise or fold. 9/9 and 10/10 with many players in are the only exceptions. Calling cold preflop is extremely weak, it is like saying "well my hand is good enough to play but I think yours is better so I'm not going to raise". You either believe you have the best hand or you don't, meaning you either raise or you fold. This attitude and playing style makes it much possible for hands like A/Q to beat A/K if you have position on them. Suppose someone raises preflop, you reraise and then neither of you hit the flop or turn. Are they really going to call your turn bet and the river bet they think you are going to make with A/K? If they do they are calling stations and you will make nice money off of them when you reraise them with 9/9 - A/A and they call you down with A/K.

2) If you are not sure whether to call preflop, err on the side of tightness and fold. (it is probably so close to a $0 estimated value hand that it doesn't matter)

3) An interesting situation is when the flop is entirely one suit. With any number of people you may confidently chase your king or ace high flush draw, but do not chase any lower flushes unless there are only 1 or 2 other players in, still play normal however if aggression is shown you can calm down and call down a little easier. If I am in position and the 4th flush card comes and they check it to me I probably will not bet and will check/call river, and maybe even bet if they check it on the river again. If I am out of position I will just check/call even if I was leading before, and if they check the turn possibly bet the river. Don't ever slow play flopped flushes unless they are queen high or better, then if you believe you can get more bets by slow playing do so.

4) Check-raising is often overated but is still a good tool in your arsenal if used correctly. You can do it in the early position when you have a good hand and want to get in as many bets as you can but don't think that you will get raised if you just bet out. Betting out, getting raised, and then reraising would be optimal but at lower levels players are not aggressive enough so you will have to settle for only 2 bets by check raising. Another time in which check-raising is important is when someone bets their position too much, they need to be check-raised. These plays are all on the flop, but if you hit a straight draw later in the hand and no flush draw has hit then it is also a good time to check-raise straights aren't as obvious. It is not usually good to check-raise when you hit flushes because people are often times scared and will check it through.

5) This is a move called the "flop raise trick". When you are in late position and it has been bet into you it is often good to raise with a 4-flush or an open-ended straight. It will then probably be checked to you on the turn because you have shown strength. This is advantageous because is disguises your hand and if many people are still in you can then check it and take a free card. By doing that you just saved yourself a small bet (raise on flop = 2 small bets < calling on flop and calling on turn = 3 small bets). If for some reason only 1 person is left in you may even be able to take down the pot just with another bet even without hitting your draw. It is also possible that your flop raise is even a value raise and is making you money, this is usually true when 3 or more players are calling it

6) A similar play to the one above is the "turn raise trick". Instead of getting a free turn this is used to get a free showdown. It costs the same amount as had you called them on the turn and called them on the river but doing this applies more pressure to them and may fold a better hand. It also makes draws playing too aggressively pay the maximum amount because if they do not hit on the river they will not call another bet. The last advantage is if for some reason your hand improves on the river you can bet again. The draw backs to this play is if they reraise, but in most cases you will then know that you are beat and can just fold, still costing the same amount as having called them down and losing. An example of this would be if you have 8/8 and the flop comes 2/5/7, there is only 1 other player in. Lets say he checks to you on the flop and you bet and he calls. Now on the river a jack comes and he bet's out, this would be a great place to raise him and then c! heck the river.

7) With only 2 other players in you need a much less powerful hand to win. That is why I will bet out my 4-flush draws, open-ended straights, and bottom/middle pair in this situation.

8) A similar concept applies to when there are more than 2 people in but it has been checked to you and you are in the last or 2nd last relative position. Here again I will bet out my 4-flush draws, open-ended straights, and very low pairs. Example: If the flop comes Q/10/5 and you have a pair of 10s/ 5's and it is checked to you in last position definately bet, you most likely have the best hand.

9) To raise for value on the river you must be correct more than 66% of the time, this is because if you are right you will win 1 extra bet, but if you are wrong they will reraise you and you lose 2 bets. (this happens 3 times: you are right 2 times and win 2 extra bets, you are wrong once but also lose 2 bets and this is why you need to be correct > 2/3rds of the time)

Poker Rules (atleast 90% of the time they will apply)
1) If you call preflop and then it gets raised only once you automatically call. Logic shows this:you payed that amount in the first place to see the flop, why would you not pay this same amount now when the pot you could win is even bigger. This rule does not always apply if you are in the small blind, as sometimes you will try and limp in without a real solid hand and if big blind then raises you should fold.

2) If you made the last raise preflop you will almost always bet on the flop. ALL 4 of the following need to be true to not bet the flop: you are in early position, there are 3 or more playes in, you completely missed the flop, and someone else probably hit the flop. This bet is the most common bluff that will be used and often enough it will win pots. It is not always a pure bluff as a nice portion of the time everyone will have missed the flop and you will still have the best hand. The last reason to bet the flop is so that the players will probably check to you on the turn so that you can get a free card if you want.

3) This rule is based off of the previous one. If you raised preflop, didn't hit, bet the flop, and now it is down to 1 other person automatically bet, you then can check the river after he checks to you to try to win with your high cards. This is a good play because you could get a better hand to fold or you might even be in the lead (a/k is a favorite versus a flush draw or open-ended straight draw who hasn't hit yet on the turn)

4) If you post a late blind in 9th position because you have just joined a table then automatically raise if you are the first one in. You want to do this because no matter how bad your cards are the combination of the chance that you will steal the blinds or win the pot by automatically betting the flop are good enough because the pot is bigger due to your extra blind.

5) You should very rarely slow play. Most players are aweful, they chase far too much, make them pay, give them chances to make mistakes. It is true that if you slow play pots you win will usually be bigger, but you will win less of them because you are letting people have free cards and sometimes they will hit miraculous outs. This chance of losing the pot dominates the extra bets you can win by slow playing. Another advantage of fast playing is that often times when you represent a monster hand people do not believe you because of their own logic, "if he really had that hand why isn't he slow playing it?". However, there are a few circumstances where slow play is beneficial. If you have flopped a king or ace high flush and are in late position it sometimes is better to let them bet into you with their weaker hands and raise them at the last minute. The same applies to a flopped full house as you have "drained" the deck, meaning since you hit the flop so much most other p! eople won't have. However, if I have flopped these hands in early position I will still play them fast in hopes of not being believed and being raised.

6) If it is checked to you in last position and there are 3 or less players in, bet. If only 1 player is still in on the turn bet again. If you do this bluff and feel like the remaining player is on a draw be prepared to bet all the way to the river.

7) Because of the above rule and how many people follow it I like to do its counter-play also and check-raise on the flop in a heads up situation instead of betting out. I even check-raise my 4-flush draws or open-ended straights instead of betting out, if they check and you aren't able to check-raise you then get a free chance at hitting your flush.

8) If the small blind is 2/3 of the big blind you have the implied odds to automatically call (even 2/7o). This occurs at the first level of Empire's tournaments and at their 15/30$ tables.

Online Bot Anecdote

Here is one person's experience with playing with a pokerbot.

"After about a dozen hands I started to notice some things about 'bumptious96', my erstwhile opponent. He was folding big and small blinds rapidly. He only raised in increments of twice the big blind, half his stack, or all in. He'd fold instantly on most hands when I'd raise or check-raise, and he checked a couple hands all the way to the river... rare for heads up at any level.

Jokingly, I chatted a couple of lines to bait him... and got no response. A one-hour break came up and I paused long enough to chat "Hey... please respond with anything so I know you're not a bot". (Insert paranoia joke here)

No response. And as soon as I clicked the 'Ready' button, the next round's first hand dealt immediately. More hands, more instant folds, more minimum raises, more calls to check raises & instant folds after the flop, a couple more all-ins. All happening at breakneck speed... actions happening as soon as action could be taken. This went on for about 25 hands, and I held my roughly 3-1 advantage until he caught a card on a called check/raise and suddenly we were even.

Then it hit me: was I really playing a bot or not? Probably not, of course, but with the way this guy was playing I was now actively considering it during play. I paused one more time to try to chat a response, and still got nothing. That did it... something snapped, and I was now Gary Casparov parked across from Deep Blue. I decided to start playing him as if he actually was a bot. Never called a single raise, and pounded every raise of my own bigger than usual. I instantly went all-in on a couple of flops I got no piece of, and he folded instantly. In short, it wasn't much of a contest anymore. He eventually called my 9-9 all-in with an A-9 offsuit, and when no ace came up... that was that in about 8 hands....

I was happy to win, but flabbergasted at the turn of events. As soon as his play was profiled as possibly being automated, he got crushed. And at that moment I knew how I felt about playing against bots: I did not care in the least. Because poker is much more than crunching odds and numbers even on the internet, where plenty of very good players find only punks, amateurs and frustration. You learn the value of getting good cards to win at poker, and after awhile your instincts start to give you an edge over any numbers crunching. Mix crunching and learned observation together and you get somebody like Chris Ferguson, complete with Ph.D in Game Theory. But take out the human element, and you get a marginal poker player at best."

On the Flop Play

Here is a good (albeit overly simplified) article on flop-play.

On the Flop

Flop play is very important in No-Limit Texas Hold'em. The key is to determine the relative strength of your holding. Over time, it is crucial that you develop the ability to release good hands when you suspect them to be second best. You must determine your relative strength and release hands that face a serious risk of being second-best. Betting is the natural move if you want to protect a good hand from being outdrawn or when you are presented with the opportunity to make your opponents fold their hands. You should usually "pump it or dump it" on the flop.

It is extremely important that you always evaluate the relative strength of your hand on the flop.

In order to decide the correct action it is very important to keep several factors in mind:

1. What did you flop and what is your relative strength (straight draws, flush draws, set, paired board, etc)?
2. Who, if anyone, raised before the flop (often expect another bet)? What kind of player is it?
3. What position do you have relative to the raiser's?
4. Number of players (it is hard to bluff facing 3 or more opponents and there is a greater chance of someone hitting a strong hand)?
5. Your and your opponents' stack size

When facing a bet you should fold unless you have good reason to doubt the strength of your opponent. As they are "setting the odds", it is crucial that you make the appropriate decision. Remember, your opponent can be holding anything from the stone cold nuts down to nothing - if your hand is decent it may very well be an underdog to a lot of likely holdings.

Of course, you will not always fold. In fact, every now and again you should play back with a raise when you have a good chance of taking the lead or if you think your opponent is weak. Consequently, you will be "setting the odds" and forcing your opponent to make a decision (and a possible mistake).

Try to save your calls unless you have very good reason not to (like slow-playing a monster or drawing to the nuts in a multi-way pot). You will rarely get the odds for chasing "outs" by calling in NL, unless your opponents bet too small or give free cards. By calling with mediocre holdings you will set yourself up for a "guessing game", in which it is necessary to read opponents well and "make moves" in order to be successful.


Typical Situations on the Flop

Here are four typical situations on the flop:

Very Strong Hand (top two-pair, set)

• Often slow-play on an uncoordinated board to lure opponents in, to induce bluffs or let them make second-best hands.
• However, if the board is coordinated and several players are in, you will need to over-bet the pot in order to make them pay for attempting to outdraw you. The bigger the bet they call, the greater their mistake. And that is how you make money in poker: letting other players pay to chase you.

Strong Hand (over-pair, top-pair with A kicker, etc.)

• Generally, bet about the size of the pot in order to protect it (for example, pushing out overcards and making draws pay).
• However, you might have to release this type of hand when facing an over-bet or a raise. In such cases, someone could hold a bigger overpair, a set or connectors that hit the flop for a two-pair. Usually you should not back top-pair with your whole stack!
• If you bet and are called in several spots you have to decide whether your hand is the best or not, as it is unlikely that all of your opponents are drawing.

Medium Hand (top-pair with a weak kicker, middle-pair with A kicker, second pocket- pair, etc.)

• Most of the time, you should avoid betting this hand when you are in early position, facing several opponents or facing tricky players who slow-play a lot. You want to get a free card to hit one of your pocket cards on the turn or maybe call/raise an opponent who bets from last position.
• However, if you are in late position and it is checked to you then you should bet.
• If you are facing a bet (or get raised) you should fold. You have no initiative and are probably chasing 2-5 outs.

Drawing Hands (nut flush or nut straight)

• If you have 11 outs or more and are drawing to the nut flush or straight, which requires at least one over-card (higher than any board card), you can mix up you game by betting/check-raising/raising in order to win the pot immediately or draw out on later rounds.
• If you are playing with "calling stations" this strategy has much lower equity as you will not be able to win a lot of pots with semi-bluffs. With this type of hand, one option is to check-raise/raise all-in if you have a short stack and the pot is fairly large. Then you have two ways to win, either by forcing your opponents to fold or by outdrawing them. You have between a 33-53% chance of doing so if the outs are between 8 and 14.
• Sometimes it is correct to call a bet on the flop because of the existing implicit odds. This play is directed by the size of your and your opponent's stacks and also by the size of the bet. If a weak player with a lot of money bets and you too have a large sum of money, a call would be good since you might double-up if you hit on the turn.

Card Class

Interested in writing a poker bot? Here's a card libary, complete with Card.cs, Deck.cs, Hand.cs, and PokerGame5Cards.cs.

Go Opening Theory

From the Wikipedia entry on 'Go Theory':

(Opening theory) is traditionally divided into the study of sequences that are whole board openings, and those that are corner openings....The Japanese word joseki (定石) (or Korean jungsuk) is often applied to such corner variations....The standard sequences for the corner plays in many cases come to a definite end, after which both players should move elsewhere.

As the saying goes, Don't learn joseki, learn from joseki..

glGo + GNU Go = lots of wasted time

Pandanet has a 3D and 2D Goban, SGF editor, client and interface for GNU Go (without which you have to use the command line).

download here

Monkey Jump

Need to reduce your opponents would-be territory in Go? Try a "monkey jump"; it's (proverbally) worth 8 or 9 points in sente.

Go Variants

Variants of the standard Go game.

New pieces include the ambassador, monk, bomb, wall, spy, tao, mercenary, samurai, and calvary.

Go Board Variations

Some board variations of Go boards.