John Fairbairn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John T Fairbairn, born Newcastle upon Tyne, lives in London where he works as a political journalist, author and translator. His hobby is board games, particularly Go and Shogi, and as a specialist in Oriental Languages, he has translated and written many books about these games. He is also a developer and vendor of Go and Shogi software.
He spent 11 years writing for the Shogi Association's magazine[1], providing translations and original research on the shogi variants. During this period he also worked on developing a shogi program, and also a xiangqi program.
He has also been a Go player for over 30 years, holds the rank of amateur 3dan[2], and has written many original features in Go World, including the first substantial expositions of ancient Chinese, ancient Korean and Tibetan Go in English.
Prior to moving to London, he taught (at Newcastle University) a Japanese course based on computer research.
Contents |
[edit] Publications
Translations:
- Appreciating Famous Games (1977) by Shuzo Ohira, translated by John Fairbairn
- The Direction of Play (1979) by Takeo Kajiwara, translated by John Fairbairn
- Guide to Shogi openings: Shogi problems in Japanese and English (1983) by Aono Teruichi, translated by John Fairbairn
- Better Moves for Better Shogi (1983) by Aono Teruichi, translated by John Fairbairn
- He has translated over a dozen Go books for Ishi Press, Kiseido and Yutopian.
Author:
- The Dictionary of Go Names.
- Invitation to Go. Oxford; 1977. Republished by Dover in 2003.
- How to play Shogi (1979)
- Shogi for Beginners (1984)
Articles:
- "Go on the Roof of the World", Go World, No. 58, Spring 1990, pp. 10-15 (Ishi Press, Tokyo)
- "Go in Ancient China" (1995) http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/essay/goancientchina.html
- "Origin of Go in Korea" (2000) http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/history/origin_korea.html
- "Honinbo Jowa - Sage or Scoundrel" (2000) http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/history/jowa.html
- "History of Newspaper Go" (2000) http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/history/newspaper.html
[edit] Software
Fairbairn writes Go software and collects games with friend Mark Hall[3] for an informal partnership called "Games of Go on Disk" (GoGoD).[4]
[edit] Bibliography
- http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/jf.html Short biography of John Fairbairn - Mind Sports Online Worldwide
- http://senseis.xmp.net Sensei's Library
- http://senseis.xmp.net/?JohnFairbairn
- http://senseis.xmp.net/?Gogod "Games of Go on Disk" (GoGoD)
- http://senseis.xmp.net/?InvitationToGo
- http://gobooks.info/fairbairn.html Review of Invitation to Go
- http://www.britgo.org British Go Association
- Go (board game)
- Sensei's Library
- Shogi and Shogi#Shogi books in English
[edit] References
- ^ SHOGI Magazine (70 issues, January 1976 - November 1987) by The Shogi Association (edited by George Hodges)
- ^ http://www.britgo.org/rating/dans.html BGA Dan diploma awards. British Go Association.
- ^ http://senseis.xmp.net/?TMarkHall Mark Hall - short biography.
- ^ http://www.gogod.co.uk/ "Games of Go on Disk" (GoGoD)
