SmartGo help

[bleep]

Hi there,

This morning I downloaded the trial version of SmartGo, and it looks great. The problem is, I can't seem to do anything! I've loaded up a couple of games, and run various analyses and such, but nothing seems to tell me anything. If I ask it to work out a kill, for example, it says that yes, white can kill, but I struggling to find out how. Lot's of examples like that. The web based help is sparse, I was hoping there is a manual somewhere that I'm missing out on?

There's a 15 day trial, and I don't want to spend the next two weeks hunting for features. At the same time, this looks like it could be very helpful.

What do people mostly use this for?

Many thanks.

[smartgo]

Are you using Tools > Life & Death Tactics? If so, note that it works best for isolated problems, not full-board positions. Make sure View > Panes > Move Tree is turned on, so you can see the results of the analysis, and if you click on the answers there for black and white playing first, it should show you the sequence of moves for that solution.

One definite feature to check out: Tools > Joseki Matching.

You can look through the Common Tasks page (http://www.smartgo.com/common.htm) to get more clues on what you can do. The Features page (http://www.smartgo.com/features.htm) should also be helpful.

[bleep]

Thanks for the swift response!

I'd just used that as a particular example, there are a couple of things that are baffling me. I've decided to just jump in and use it, and if I'm still battling in a week, I'll come back with some specifics.

Cheers.

[Cassandra]

Are you using Tools > Life & Death Tactics? If so, note that it works best for isolated problems, not full-board positions. Make sure View > Panes > Move Tree is turned on, so you can see the results of the analysis, and if you click on the answers there for black and white playing first, it should show you the sequence of moves for that solution.

If you get no result, it sometimes helps to "fix" the borders. This means to make the surrounding position more solid, or more connected, so that the program does not "want" to look for moves to escape.

And be aware that there will remain positions, in which the program will not find a solution. This may be true especially in positions, which are very "open", i. e. have many potential starting points to begin with.

[bleep]

Great, thanks. More fiddling is obviously required!