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Subject: Re: Go programming

Author: Angrim

Date: 02:39:54 02/13/04

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On February 12, 2004 at 15:12:18, Roy Eassa wrote:

>In December, I sort of got into the game of Go.  Part of its fascination for me
>is how it differs from chess with regard to creating a strong program.  Methods
>based primarily on tree searching apparently do not work in Go, for 2 main
>reasons: first, the branching factor is much, much higher than in chess, and
>second, once you've arrived at an  end-node (position) to evaluate, there's no
>known method of coming up with a reasonable evaluation.

I took a look at GO a few years ago, my conclusion was that once everyone
agrees on what the rules of GO are, it will be an interesting project.

>
>Some people say that no Go program will be stronger than the best humans for at
>least another century, if ever!  Today's best Go programs are far weaker than
>any Go professional.

Some people say funny things.  A century ago computers were the stuff of
science fiction.

<big snip>
>Two additional points:
>
>First, I think it's quite a bit easier to create an engine that plays Go legally
>than it is to create one that plays chess legally.  Even doing the GUI yourself
>isn't too hard, since it's mainly just black & white stones on a grid.  That
>should encourage more people to try.

There are multiple rulesets for GO, not only national rule sets, but even
between different tournaments.  Tromp-Taylor helps with this, but last I
checked that ruleset wasn't universally accepted.

>Second, I realize that the market for Go products is pretty tiny in the Americas
>and only medium-sized in Europe.  But I think there's a HUGE market in Asia,
>which can only grow as Asia's economies continue to grow quickly.  Thus I think
>that any product created would have to be marketed to Asia (primarily?) for big
>financial success.

So to make money at GO, I would almost certainly need to learn at least
one of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?

>Bottom line: I think there's a huge gap in the market that SOMEBODY will get
>rich from at some point in the not-too-distant future.  And Go is a pretty
>interesting game, even though "chess" is considered a dirty word to many serious
>Go players.

I expect that someone will make lots of money at it, and I expect that
they will live in Asia.

Angrim



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