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From: rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: The meaning of 'Atari'
Message-ID: <1884@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 89 20:53:31 GMT
References: <890404-063300-6253@Xerox> <3382@nunki.usc.edu>
Sender: news@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu
Reply-To: rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Organization: Ohio State Univ, College of Engineering
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In article <3382@nunki.usc.edu> rjung@sal22.usc.edu (Robert  allen Jung) 
writes:
>In Go, the player says "Atari" when he is in a position to almost completely
>conquer his opponent; The Western analogy is "check" in chess.

Not quite.  Atari is used to indicate that a (group of) stone(s) can
be taken on the next move if the oponent doesn't do something.  The
appropriate analogy in chess is ``threatened''.  This is much weaker
than check, which indicates that the king is threatened, which will
end the game if no action is taken.  A (by no means the only) analogy
to check in Go would be an atari worth, say, 40 points.

>What does "Sente" mean? "Checkmate".

Wrong.  Sente (as opposed to gote) is a move that leaves you with the
intiative (ie your oponent has to react to it, and can't just wander
off on a tangent like with a gote move).

>>Just think of all the other possibilities that they must have rejected
>>before picking this one. 

Like Aji Keshi?

SR