I was a subscriber for some time. It was good. The last edition was on June 15, 2018:
It was plain text email twice a month with 3 commented games each time and some information about upcoming title matches. The emails describe it in these words
Quote:
Pandanet mail magazine is a service where professional Go players analyze strategies for Pandanet subscribers.
It was mostly kyu games and the commentaries had different flavors or recurrent themes and that made it interesting even when it was some DDK game. Usually there was not much commentary for each game, never this strange move-by-move commentary that is all too common. Most of the commentary was for moments when one player appeared to drift but there were also some small and easy to understand improvements over the game moves here and there. It was not much of the "this is the tesuji/joseki/answer" commentary, it depends but often the commentary is a suggestion and especially for the lower level games there are hardly any variations.
Some typical style of commentary:
Quote:
Let's confirm which groups are strong and which are weak.
The top right white group has no eyes, so the group is insecure. The single black stone at the top is, of course, weak.
The centre white group is also insecure. The top left white group is strong.
The way Black should think about this is that there's no problem with solidifying the top left white group, as it was strong to begin with, but he doesn't want to help White solidify his top right and centre groups.
In this kind of position, you set your group in motion by leaning on Black with A-Black B-White C. Next, Black F would make good shape, so White wants to play D-Black E-White F.
If Black plays G, separating the centre and top white groups, the roles of attacker and defender are reversed.
Quote:
Black has the move of A next, so the top left white group is not alive.
Settling the shape immediately with White B would be safer.Black has the move of A next, so the top left white group is not alive.
Settling the shape immediately with White B would be safer.
Quote:
This was a hard-fought game with many highlights. White played cleverly in the endgame.
The diagram shows the position after White played the marked stone. In the game, Black played at A, but in this position I would have liked to counterattack with Black 1.
If White 2 and 4, Black 5 is a tesuji. The move may be high-dan level. Black sacrifices a few stones on the left side and takes control of the corner up to 9.
Black's corner profit is big, so he would take the lead.
Quote:
This move is too tight. This is a position in which you want to race ahead.
Quote:
The two marked white stones show a magnificent understanding of the whole board that is unbelievable for a 10-kyu. This is a splendid strategy.
It was pity that the magazine stopped. I don't know if it had a large following, I was quite surprised how good the commentary was when I subscribed, I had not heard anything about that.
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