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Subject: Re: Semi-OT Go programming

Author: Tord Romstad

Date: 03:13:54 05/25/05

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On May 25, 2005 at 01:21:18, Dann Corbit wrote:

>On May 25, 2005 at 00:54:06, Joshua Shriver wrote:
>
>>Just curious has any engine developers here tried or have an interest in Go
>>engine programming?
>
>My main difficulty is that I would hate to labor ten years to produce something
>that does not play as well as a good five year old Go player.

I have the same problem.  I am very interested in Go programming, but
currently the tremendous difficulties scare me.

On the other hand, computer chess is rapidly becoming too easy as the CPU
speeds increase.  Straightforward, unoptimised implementations of a handful
of simple and well-known algorithms is sufficient to beat all but a tiny
fraction of the world's chess players.  No creativity and nothing more than
the most basic programming skills is really needed.  I find this rather
depressing, and my interest in chess programming is slowly waning.

Shogi looks like it has the perfect balance.  It is sufficiently difficult
to be a very interesting programming challenge, but does not look impossibly
difficult (like go).  At the moment there is an equivalent to the UCI or
xboard protocol for Shogi and a few nice GUIs for the major operating
systems, I will probably instantly abandon chess programming and start
writing a shogi program instead.

>I have nosed around in it.  My other problem is that I don't play Go myself, so
>it does not have the same fascination in that direction.

If you have a go club in your neighborhood, I would very much recommend
trying it.  The game is much more fun to play than chess, IMHO.

>GnuGo is pretty strong.

Yes, compared to other computer go programs, GnuGo is not bad at all.

Tord



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