Miscellaneous:
Poker, Shogi and Films
Poker
I like to play poker and to think about the connections between game theory and poker. For pokerstrategy.com, I produced a series of videos on the topic.
Favorite Poker Links
http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ (Website with a solution to Fixed-Limit Heads Up Poker)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyI7FNTudkyALBh9N7hwI9Q (Entertaining channel mostly about No-Limit Poker based on a Game-Theoretic Approach)
www.pokerstrategy.com (Content Site for which I produced Videos)
Shogi
Shogi is the Japanese variant of chess. It recently increased in popularity. The game is played with different pieces than normal chess on a 9x9 board. Similar to the chess variants crazyhorse and bughouse, it is allowed to reenter captured pieces. Try it out!
I was introduced to the game by a Japanese friend. In 2012, I became the German Shogi Champion. After many years of absence I reached the Quarterfinal of the First Online Shogi Blitz Championship in 2020 and started to make videos about it on my YouTube Channel. Fascinated by the recent rise of Souta Fujii!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0NjuaCHCtMt19y8U_eoO1g (Hidetchi's English Channel)
https://81dojo.com/en/ (English Website for Playing Shogi Online)
http://www.shogideutschland.de/ (Website of the German Shogi Federation)
My favorite films
12 Angry Men: A jury decides on a murder case. Beautiful character study of the jury members.
Amélie: A young women in pursuit of other's happiness. Between fairy tale and reality.
City of God: Adolescence in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Shot without professional actors. If you like it, watch Elite Squad 1+2.
Grave of the Fireflies: Unique anime film. Among the best war movies ever made.
La Jétee: Postapocalyptic short film.
Psycho: An intense psycho-thriller way ahead of its time.
Requiem For a Dream: Most influential movie and best drug movie I have seen.
The Godfather: Best mafia movie. (I didn't want to include this one, but I received an offer I could not refuse.)
Tokyo Story: Very simple and beautiful film with a deep humanistic message.
Wages of Fear: Poor villagers aim to improve their economic situation by accepting a dangerous task.
My favorite directors
Andrei Tarkovsky: A true artist who is unfortunately not too well-known in the Western World. His films often feature long and slow shots of beautiful scenery. As a viewer, it is advisable not to try to understand a message in the first view, but to get absorbed by the film. Good films to start watching Tarkovsky are Stalker and Ivan's Childhood.
Stanley Kubrick: Almost every of his films is great. What is even more impressive is the span of topics/genres he covers and the extreme love for details.
Akira Kurosawa: Best known for Samurai films such as Seven Samurai, Sanjuro or Yojimbo, which heavily influenced the Western genre. However, his work also includes impressive studies of humanity such as Ikiru, Red Beard and Dersu Uzala.