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BGA Software Catalogue

Programs that play Go;
internet clients and servers;
McMahon draw programs;
viewers and editors of Go game records;
databases for Go game records;
tools & fonts for Go diagrams;
text about Go;    miscellaneous

The items listed here are all freeware or shareware. Some are in the BGA's collection, and some are on other web sites.

If an item is in the BGA's collection, its size is given in green; if not, it is given in black, or omitted.

Those from the BGA's collection which are programs for Dos or Windows are ZIP files. You will need PKZip, WInZip, or a similar product to use these.

Some items from the BGA's collection are programs for Mac. These all have extension .sit.hqx. You will need Stuffit Expander to decompress these. There is another list of Mac Programs.

There is an increasing amount of software for the iPhone and iPod touch, including Igowin, SmartGo, Aya Go and various other tools listed below, and also Go, Go Go!, igo and TRUE Baduk.

Links that directly link to the software itself are labelled: *name*

Note that some of them are shareware, so if you decide to keep them you should pay for them.

The AGA's list of Go Software has some details of programs for other platforms (eg Linux).

The gobase.org site has a list of software sorted by platform.

Reviews of some of these programs are in the BGA Go Software Reviews

Another source of game-record viewing programs (SGF only) is Jan van der Steen's page.
 
Name OS File size Description

Go-playing Programs

AIGO Palm 3 171Kb By Atsushi Iizuka.
Shareware, $8.
Atari-Go Palm 10Kb Plays a form of atari-Go (first capture Go) on a 10x10 board.
By Tapani Raiko.
Free
Augos Dos 211Kb By Joachim Pimiskern.
Not strong. Uses AI techniques.
Version 6.0
Free
Windows 327Kb
Aya Go iPhone/iPod   Go playing program using GnuGo. Price $2.99. Also Aya Go Lite (free).
*CW* Dos 186Kb A Go program by Colin Walker.
version 2.0
$60
Dariush Windows 1.8Mb A Go program by Frdric Boissac and Eric Marchand. It’s interface can also be used to play against a number of other Go playing programs, study joseki or solve problems. The free version available for download only plays on a 13×13 board.
Explorer
 Mac 430Kb By Martin Müller.
Recommended Mac program
Described here.
Free since October 2001.
*EZ-Go* Dos 150Kb Cut-down version of Bruce Wilcox's EGO (described in BGJ 100). Go-playing program with personalities.
Recommended
Free; for $25 or £18 you can get the full EGO program.
*Fungo* Windows 3.9Mb By Yong-Goo Park.
Plays well (for a program), but slowly.
This is like the full commercial version of Fungo, except that you are restricted in the number of times you can play it.
Free.
Gnugo 3.6 Unix (and Mac OS X), Linux, Windows
   Current version of GnuGo for Unix, Linux and Windows, by the Free Software Foundation.
Version 3.6 (much stronger than previous versions)
Free, includes source code
*Gnugo 3.2* (Mac) and *source*. Mac (Classic) 950K By Hideyuku Fujiwara.
Official website.
C source available.
Version 3.2
Described here.
Gnugo Windows CE 3.0 24Kb (v1.2.0)
720Kb (v2.6.2) 		By Ivan Davtchev. Each version is available as source code, or compiled for StrongARM, MIPS, or SH3. Version 2.6.2 plays much better, but needs up to 4Mb of memory.
Goban Mac OS X 6.2Mb Version 42. Acts as a front end for GnuGo version 3.2. Uses SGF format. Can also be used as an internet Go client.
Recommended Mac OS X program. Described here.
Go game machine (Japanese)

*Go game machine* English-language version

Windows 832Kb From the Nihon Ki-in, and Tei Meikou 9p. Plays only on a 9x9 board. Reasonably strong. Very fast. Intended as an introduction to Go, particularly for children. Recommended

Use is free, the Nihon Ki-in retain the copyright.
GoKnot Windows 1.3Mb Acts as a front end for GnuGo. Also an SGF editor and internet Go client.
Go Touch iPhone/iPod   Go playing program using GnuGo. Price $0.99.
Go169 Palm OS 5 37.7Kb Go playing program from Tapani Reiko in Finland. Replaces Go81.
HandTalk
9*9 version 		Dos 1355Kb A version of Professor Chen Zhixing's HandTalk, the program which was 1997 FOST world computer Go champion. This version plays only on a 9-by-9 board.
iGo iPhone/iPod   Go playing program using GnuGo. Price $2.99.
*Igo* Dos 427Kb Free 9*9 version of David Fotland's Many Faces of Go.
Recommended as the best free introduction to Go for those who have Dos but not Windows. Includes an introductory tutorial about Go. Now includes the GOVIEW program for viewing games in Ishi format.
No version number. Dated 1995.
Free
Igowin Windows 786Kb Free 9*9 version of David Fotland's Many Faces of Go. Strongly recommended as the best free introduction to Go for those who have Windows. Includes an introductory tutorial about Go. Now available on iPhone and iPodTouch as Igowin, Igowin Tutor and also Igowin Joseki. Supersedes Igo, above.
Free/$2.99
Leela Windows ? Lite version is free. Full version 49.99 euro.
Adjustable board size. Strength 3 kyu (dan on 9x9 - tries to win by 0.5)
New 2008. Recommended.
*Lumpy* Mac 376Kb A simple Go-playing program, based on Wally.
Described here.
Many Faces of Go Windows - Version 11 of David Fotland's program
Version 12 now has Monte Carlo method ($89.95).
*Minimago* Java 156Kb Free 9*9 version of ImaGo by Robert Rehm
Described in BGJ 98
version 1.0
Moyoman Dos 650Kb An open source project aiming to develop a dan-strength program
*Peirson* Dos 153Kb Shareware Go-playing program by Steve Peirson
Version 1
£14.95 personal; £30 club
Peter's Go Windows 220Kb Shareware Go-playing program by Peter Raffelsberger
Version 3 is English
Different board-sizes and levels of difficulty
Quickie Go Mac 1.6Mb A nice 68k- and Power- mac interface to the Gnugo playing engine by Jeremy Harris.
Free (Open Source)
SmartGo Windows/Vista also iPhone/iPod touch 12Mb Free 15 day trial, then becomes Viewer only, version 2.8 of SmartGo. By Anders Kierulf. Also available on iPhone/iPodTouch as SmartGo 9x9 ($0.99), SmartGo ($2.99) and SmartGo Pro ($12.99).
*Star of Poland* Dos 108Kb Free version of Janusz Kraszek's Star of Poland. Only plays 50 moves
version 4.0
STOP Java   Go playing program that works best under graphical interfaces such as GoGui or GoBen. By Folkert van Heusten.
*SW1* Dos 20Kb Free, cheap-and-cheerful, go-playing program
Good if you want something small and simple
*TMW* Dos 239Kb Shareware go-playing program by Tristan Wooster.
version 5
$ 20
*TurboGo* Dos 318Kb
 Shareware Go-playing program by Arnoud van der Loeff. Includes an English-language tutorial.
Recommended
version 2.0
described in BGJ 94
25 guilders
Turbogo 32-bit Windows 1.14Mb Shareware Go-playing program by Arnoud van der Loeff. Includes an English-language tutorial.
Recommended
Version 5.0 (released 2000-08-20)
25 guilders
*Wally* Dos - any 39Kb A simple Go-playing program by W.H.Hewman, with C source.
described in BGJ94
Free
WinHonte Windows 229Kb By Fredril Dahl.
From JellyFish AS in Norway, publishers of the leading backgammon program, Jellyfish.
Free for download, but not re-distributable.
"WinHonte uses several different neural nets for different tasks. Some nets are trained from self-play, while others are trained from pro games. It also uses alpha-beta search to solve local well-defined problems like connectivity and life-and-death."
*Wulu* Windows 95,
98, NT. 		980Kb 13x13 Go-playing program by Jimmy Lu (Lu Jinqiang). Plays slowly.
ver 1.88.01.99E
Shareware Recommended

McMahon draw programs

GoDraw V6 Windows 1Mb The latest version of Geoff Kaniuk's program to run McMahon Tournaments.
Used in most UK tournaments.
Approved by the BGA
If you use it, please consider a donation to the Castledine-Barnes Trust.
GoDrawD Dos 192Kb Old version of GoDraw. Use the new version above instead. If you would like a copy of this version, please email Geoff Kaniuk.
MacMahon Windows 95 or better 172Kb Christoph Gerlach's program to run a McMahon draw.
You must notify Christoph if you use it.

Internet client programs

We no longer maintain detailed listings of Go clients.
You may find the listing of IGS clients on Jan van der Steen's gobase.org web site helpful.
It has links for downloading the clients listed.

Pandabridge offers an alternative to the IGS client program download. With Pandabridge you can observe Pandanet (IGS) games being played directly in your browser window. All up-to-date browser types are supported, even the "Internet Channel" browser for the Wii, allowing you to view games of Go on your television. An Pandanet (IGS) login account is required for access to Pandabridge.

iPhone/iPodTouch users can use Tetsuki to access Pandanet (IGS).

Internet server

For details of how to play on line see our Go Server page.
Dragon Go Server Apache webserver, PHP   See also its Sourceforge project.

Game-record viewing (and editing) programs

Cgoban 1 Unix, X11 336Kb An SGF viewer and editor by William M. Shubert.
Supports the Go Modem Protocol. It is also a client for some Go servers.
Free, includes source code.
Cgoban 3 Java Virtual Machine 6Mb Kiseido client only, by William M. Shubert.
It is also an SGF viewer and editor.
Free, replaced cgoban2.
CompoGo Windows 865Kb SGF viewer, editor and database.
Interfaces to GnuGo and Dragon Go Server.
Free.
Drago Windows 4 Mb SGF editor, problems and database interface, GnuGo client. Foreign language versions. Free.
gGo Java Virtual Machine   Full SGF editor and internet go client. By Peter Strempel. Free.
Go for PalmOS PalmOS 14Kb By Adorjan Kiss. An interface for playing and replaying Go on a Palm. Uses SGF format.
GoRilla Windows 561Kb By Dariusz Stachowski. Allows you to record and review Go and other games. Uses SGF format. Version 10. Freeware
Go2000 Windows 1844Kb By Changmei Hwung. Allows you to record games and positions, store them in a database, and index them on moves that you select. Uses SGF format. Shareware: $50 to register.
Goban770 Maemo
(Nokia N770/N800) 		62Kb Can be used to record and replay games. By Jarmo Ahosola.
GoBoard Psion series 3a/c/mx 11Kb An "intelligent go board" for 2 players by Austin Wilkinson. It supports: saving of games (own format only); indefinite undo; prevents illegal moves; replays games; automatic removal of dead stones; score counting.
GoGoD95 Windows 188Kb A game record reader by John Fairbairn. Reads and writes SGF and Ishi format.
Go-Heaven Windows 500Kb By Markus Stahlberg.
Supports SGF and Ishi forrmats. Available in English- and German-language versions.
*GoMax* Dos 153Kb Go Maximizer, by John Fairbairn. Views game records in its own format. Comments, but no variations. Only two game records included - others are charged for.
version 2.0d
Gome Java Mobile Phones and PDA. 100Kb Records and replays game records, Go library, IGS client. English, French and Japanese.
version 1.0
4.95 euro (7-day free trial).
Gomo Mac (old 68k machines, PPC, and OS-X). ? By Henk Eskes. Records and replays SGF-4 game records. Supports comments and variations.
version 0.95
Freeware
GoSuite Pocket Pc
Smartphone 		  Game recording/editing and GNUGo interface by Ashley Nathan Feniello.
GoView Dos   Handles Ishi format game records. [ now incorporated in Igo ]
Hibiscus Windows 1088Kb By Zjev Ambagts. Uses SGF version 4, also Ishi format. Can produce RTF diagrams.
Jago Java Virtual Machine.   By Rene Grothmann.
An SGF editor and internet go client.
JiGo Replayer Java Virtual Machine. 741Kb By Dave Jarvis. Displays SGF format games etc.
Source code (java) also available from the same site.
Version 2.0.82.
Joseki 1.2 iPhone/iPodTouch   Free sgf game recorder.
Miniban Pocket PC   By Sebastian Helm.
Record and replay Go games with a Pocket PC.
Free.
MultiGo Windows 2Mb By Rui Jiang.
MultiGo is designed to view/edit SGF records.
Free.
*My Go Tutor* Dos 70Kb Displays games, problems, etc. in SGF format: the data files normally supplied with MyGoTutor are not included, but supplied separately as MGT-W.
version 2.3
Described in BGJ 92
Free
PalmGo Palm 2 21Kb Can be used to record and replay games.
Also (formerly) known as GoBoard.
Shareware: $8
PilotGone Palm Pilot 31Kb By Brian Brunswick.
Can be used to record and replay SGF game records.
version 0.7.0
Free
PocketGo Pocket PC with StrongARM processor   Brian Dewey's SGF viewer and editor. You can now add/delete/edit variations and comments. Also has simple documentation in .LIT format.
Free.
*Pon Nuki* Mac 141Kb Pon Nuki Go Viewer
pyWeiQi PDA 9k (zipped) pdf viewer writen in Python by Pete Siedle.
qGo Linux, Windows, Mac OS X 2Mb Written in C++, using the Qt library, by Peter Strempel and Johannes Mesa. Free.
*RP* Dos & Windows 182Kb Robert Parker's Go Programs, with C source. These programs use Ishi-format data files.
version 4.0
*SGView* Dos 83Kb Torsten Harling's program for reading SGF format files.
version 1.12
Shodan Mac OS X   Interactive study of games and problems.
Smart Game Board Mac   Uses SGF format.
*Smart Go* Mac 464Kb Uses SGF format.
stmgt Atari ST   Available to members of gobase.org only.
TI-Go Texas Instruments TI-89 7Kb Two programs for the TI-89. One to record games in Ishi format, the other to read them back and display them. Available in English- and German-language versions files.
By Alexander Nittka
Went Psion-EPOC32, Series 5, 5mx and Ericsson MC218. 48Kb Reads and plays through games in SGF format. No comments or variations. Now allows save and load.
version 1.3.2.
Free. Source will also be free.
WinMGT Windows 1.09Mb Windows version of My Go Tutor, written by Hui Huang
Uses SGF format.
version 0.87
$30
*Yago* Windows 161Kb Windows program by Denis Lambot, to display game records.
Handles both Ishi and SGF format. Now handles comments and variations, but not the current version of the format.
version 0.9 beta.
Free

Game records

Go Player iPhone/iPodTouch   Review a random game from its 1000 game collection. $3.99.
*1739ch-i* requires any
Ishi-format reader 		61Kb Ten commented professional chinese games from 1739. Posted to usenet by jzy. (same games as 1739ch-m)
Free
*djgames* 605Kb 883 uncommented professional games, provided by Dave Jarvis
*japt-i* 148Kb About 100 uncommented Japanese title games (same games as japt-m)
Free
*Ishi* 141Kb Games etc. Described in BGJ92
Free
*Kyu-level games* 209Kb Commented games involving kyu players.
Free
*1739ch-m* requires any
SGF-format reader 		61Kb Ten commented professional chinese games from 1739. Posted to usenet by jzy. (same games as 1739ch-i)
Free
*japt-m* 99Kb About 100 uncommented Japanese title games (same games as japt-i)
Free
*various* 678Kb Games etc. normally distributed with "My Go Tutor". Described in BGJ 92
Free
*reviews* 755Kb More game records
Free

Databases for storing game records

Arnoud's joseki tutor Windows 95/98/NT + shockwave ? by Arnoud van der Loeff, the author of TurboGo above.
A joseki database and tutor.
BIgo Assistant Windows 35Mb A populated fuseki and joseki database, built from over 24,000 game records and 340,000 variations.
This "tiny" [sic] version is shareware, but disables itself after 50 runs unless you pay the fee of $35.
*GI Demo* Windows? 742Kb Demonstration version of a database of Go games. Contains 100 recent professional games, which you can use it to play through.
Jacoto any Java Virtual Machine 53Kb "Java Collection Tool"
Helps managing SGF-files. It displays their properties in a table and allows manipulating it in several ways.
By Steffen Glückselig
Free
Kogo's Joseki Dictionary Any system with an SGF browser 186Kb An SGF file containing a large variety of joseki.
Free
kombilo Any system with Python support.   A Go database program.
As supplied it is unpopulated (i.e. there are no game records in it), you populate it yourself with game records in SGF format.
By Ulrich Goertz.
Free.

Tools and fonts for presenting Go diagrams

*15x15* Windows 81Kb Andrew Grant's GIF images for constructing diagrams of go boards in html. Suitable for use with Simon Goss's GoFigs, below.

Each set includes 266 images of black and white stones numbered up to 100, empty points, lettered points, etc. The numbers 15x15 etc. refer to the size in pixels.

*19x19* 92Kb
*27x27* 113Kb
*39x39* 150Kb
*55x55* 191Kb
GoEdit Mac OS X   A diagram editor in ascii format with the Weiqi font.
*GoFigs* Windows 23Kb A simple and very useful program by Simon Goss. Version M2. It allows you to draw a Go position, and export the diagram as a bitmap (.BMP), as a Windows metafile (.WMF) or as HTML using small GIFs. The diagram may be full-board or any rectangular part of a board. Stones and points may be marked or numbered. Suitable for use with Andrew Grant's GIFs, above.
*GoFonts* Windows 82Kb Robert F. Nutter's five Windows fonts for drawing Go diagrams. With instructions for installation and use. See also here.
*GoType* Windows 27Kb Andrew Grant's Go font for Windows. Includes empty points, plain stones, marked stones, stones numbered up to 100, and lettered points. Also instructions on use.

New version, 2001-02-28.

SGF2DG
(was SGF2TEX) 		Unix or Dos   Daniel Bump and Reid Augustin's tool for converting SGF-format files to TeX.
Version 3.0.

Text

*intergo* any 11Kb C source files, and documentation, for interfacing to Ishi-format files.
Free
*text* any 328Kb Various text files from internet sources on Go, etc.
Described in BGJ 92
Free

Miscellaneous

Arnoud's screensaver Windows 95/98/NT 359Kb by Arnoud van der Loeff, the author of TurboGo above. When your PC is not in use, it plays through professional games on the screen. If the PC is in an office, this is a way of interesting your colleagues in Go.
*Bakaban* Windows 240Kb Bakaban is a free Windows program, which allows you to play Go on a variety of surfaces (for example a torus or a klein bottle). Produced by David Bofinger. Review from BGJ 135.
BIgo OCR ? 848Kb BIgo OCR is a program for scan and recognition of Go diagrams and fast manual input (linear input) of Go games.
BIgo OCR is info-donationware.
*flips* Windows 358Kb Reverses Ishi-format game records that have been recorded the wrong way up. Dos, Windows 32S, & Windows versions.
Described in BGJ 94
Free
GameClock iPhone/iPodTouch   Game timer. Free.
Game Timer iPhone/iPodTouch   Game timer. $0.99.
Goban Screensaver Linux 530Kb Go screensaver for Linux. Free and open source.
*GoBase* Dos 204Kb Utilities from Dieter Garling for converting file formats. E.g. converts from SGF (=MyGoTutor) format to Ishi format.
version 2
Described in BGJ 94
GoBen Java   Graphical interface to programs that play the game of Go and use the Go Text Protocol (GTP), such as GNU Go. Ver 0.1.1.
goDummy Unix?   Bill Shubert's user-interface to a Go-playing program. This is a complete Go-playing program, without the move-generating bit. So if you want to write your own Go-playing program for Unix, you can start with this and just write the interesting bit. It supports the Go Modem Protocol.
GoGameOnline Java phones, Symbian, Windows CE, Palm   Various problem collections for study on phones and hand held devices. Also available for Windows.
GoGui Java 15.6Mb Graphical interface to programs that play the game of Go and use the Go Text Protocol (GTP), such as GNU Go. GoGui has special features that are useful for Go program developers. Ver 1.1.10.
*Gomoku* Dos 29Kb Two programs to play gomoku
*Gomoku* Windows 45Kb Gomoku, by P.S.Neeley. Requires VBRUN300.DLL.
version 1.0
$ 10
*IGoNet* Windows 358Kb IgoNet, by David Atkinson, allows two players to play Go over the net.
version 2.0
JText2Sgfs any Java Virtual Machine 4Kb A utility to extract SGF game records from from a single text file.
By Steffen Glückselig
Free
OpenGo Windows, or Linux/Unix   By Jeffrey Greenberg. This is the source code for a Go-playing program, but without the actual Go-playing engine. Thus, it allows a would-be writer of a Go-playing program to get on with the interesting bit, the actual move-generating engine, while OpenGo handles the tedious stuff of displaying the board on the screen, collecting the user's mouseclick for where he wants to play, supporting the Go Modem Protocol, etc. It does in fact come with a few weak move-generating engines.
Version 5.0.
Free.
*Procishi* Windows 17Kb A program by Steve Bailey, for manipulating and rearranging game records in Ishi format.
Version 3.
SGFsaver Windows 161Kb By Francois Mizessyn. Screensaver for Windows that displays Go games.
Free.
uliGo Any system with Python support.   A program to practice solving Go problems.
By Ulrich Goertz.
Free.




Last updated Thu Jan 14 2010. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster.