Features

What is SmartGo?

SmartGo™ is the complete tool for Go players. Compared to other Go programs, SmartGo is more powerful and easier to use. It's a tool to play, record, replay, analyze, annotate, and print Go games. If you ever deal with SGF files, you want SmartGo.

The dan-level Life & Death algorithm of GoTools (by Thomas Wolf) is integrated into SmartGo. It solves enclosed Life & Death problems as fast as many dan-level players can, and often faster.

SmartGo includes over 45,000 professional Go games. You can study openings (fuseki) and corner patterns (joseki) in the context of professional games.

Feature List

The following list is not intended to be complete. Also, a list of features doesn't show how easy they are to use, and how well they work together. But at least it can give you some idea of the capabilities of SmartGo.

Play and Replay Games

• Enter and take back moves. Add moves as next moves or as siblings. Add opponent moves. Add illegal moves.
• Keep track of a whole tree of moves (all the variations). Reorder branches.
• Full support for game collections (multiple games in one file).
• Replay the game in a variety of ways.
• Automatic replay at different speeds.
• Enter positions by adding black or white stones.
• Fix up game records by deleting moves from the middle of a game, or by easily inserting a move or move pair in the middle of the game.
• Find moves easily by searching for specific moves or annotations. Restrict search by move numbers or by main line/variations.
• View next or alternate moves. Various settings for numbering or marking previous moves.
• Guess Next Move mode.
• Problem solving mode.
• Partial support for Environmental Go.

Annotate Moves and Positions

• Show next moves based on matching professional games.
• Match positions in arbitrary corner, edge, and center areas.
• Enter comment and node name for each position.
• Mark moves as good, bad, interesting, or doubtful.
• Mark positions as good for black, good for white, or even.
• Mark positions with hotspots or checkmarks to easily find them again.
• Mark stones with triangles, squares, crosses, diamonds, or circles.
• Mark black and white territory.
• Mark points as dimmed or selected.
• Add text labels to any points.
• Right-click on any stone to directly mark that move as good or bad.
• Display partial board.
• Divide games into diagrams.
• Show matching games in the same orientation as the original game.

Computer Play

• Play against the computer (any board size up to 19x19, any time limit).
• Use GTP (Go Text Protocol) to play against GNU Go or other programs.
• Use the serial port connection to play against another computer.
• Compute ladder, capture, and connection problems.
• Compute life & death problems using GoTools.
• Analyze scores for whole game, show score graph.
• Play an automated series of games against another program.
• Hint. Analyze position. Compute score.
• Animated lookahead with subtle indications of territory and stability.
• Keep track of time left, including byo-yomi (overtime).
• Resign when computer is too far behind.

Graphics

• Anti-aliased stones (smooth round stones without jaggies) with 3D highlights.
• Customizable board color.
• Anti-aliased icons in toolbars.

Input/output

• High-quality diagram export as EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) or PDF (Portable Document Format).
• Read and write files in SGF file format, supporting the complete FF[4] standard. (This file format was originally developed by Anders Kierulf for the Smart Go Board on Macintosh. Arno Hollosi has done a great job of maintaining the standard.)
• Option to write SGF files using either FF[3] or FF[4] file format.
• Option to read and write SGF files with standard coordinates (A1-T19) for easy debugging or hand editing of SGF files.
• Read Ishi Press format.
• Read UGF and NGF format.
• Read GoTools format.
• Ability to handle thousands of games efficiently.
• Easily switch between different games in the same or in different collections.
• Copy/paste positions and games.

Other

• Switch user interface language on the fly.
• Automatic dialog layout when switching languages.
• Built-in translation facility for TMX files.