Author: Laurence Chen
Date: 13:14:06 06/07/02
Go up one level in this thread
On June 07, 2002 at 15:57:05, Uri Blass wrote: >On June 07, 2002 at 15:37:59, Russell Reagan wrote: > >>Go programs have the potential to make more money I suppose, but currently I >>don't think anyone would buy a go program because currently go programs are a >>joke. An amateur novice level go player can beat current go programs. > >How much time do you think that I need to learn to play better than the best go >program(I know nothing about go)? > I would say at least 1 to 2 years of studying the game of Go will allow you to beat the best Go program. I play Go and I find it more difficult to than chess because the variation tree is very long most of the time, and there are some many branches which requires to be analyzed compared to chess, Go is much more difficult to master. There was an offer of U.S. $10 million dollars for someone to write a Go program to beat a 1-Dan Go master. That offer was proposed by a wealthy Taiwanese businessman, and the deadline has already passed, therefore it is no longer valid. However, Go is very popular in East Asia, China, Japan, and Korea. In Korea and Japan, a Go professional makes very good living, just like a PGA Golfer. > They are >>very weak. >> >>From the opening position of a game of chess, there are 20 options for white. >>Using alpha-beta and good pruning techniques, maybe you can get a good branching >>factor. For a go program, there are 361 options from the opening position. Using >>alpha-beta and whatever pruning techniques you'd like, you aren't going to get >>any kind of managable branching factor. >> >>What irritates me when discussing this topic with go players is that go players >>seem to think that there is something innately more difficult about their game. >>In other words, they seem to hold the attitude that their game takes more mental >>capacity, or one has to be more intelligent to play go or something, when the >>reality is that go is a much simpler game and the only thing making it hard is >>it's incredibly high branching factor when trying to analyze variations. >> >>I think it is very likely that even the best go players in the world play >>horrible when compared to a program that could solve go. I think in chess it is >>not so. I think that the best chess players in the world would not make complete >>fools of themselves when playing a perfect playing chess program. > > >If you are right then it means that the assumption of go players is right. > >There is something innately more difficult about their game otherwise thsy would >not make themsleves complete fools when playing a perfect go program. > > >> >>In any case, I would never buy a go program unless it was at least master level, >>which no program currently is or has any hopes of being any time in the near >>future. >> >>Russell > >We can know only about today and not about the near future. > >It is possible that tomorrow a genius is going to find some simple idea to make >a program at master level. > >It is possible that the only reason that it did not happen is that the >programmers that wrote go programs were not smart enough to think about the >simple idea. > >Uri
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