Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Go vs Chess

Author: Paul Clarke

Date: 06:04:03 08/11/04

Go up one level in this thread


On August 11, 2004 at 06:23:32, Derek Paquette wrote:

>On August 10, 2004 at 16:59:55, Ricardo Rego wrote:
>
>>Hi
>>
>>I heard from a plenty number of guys at Go schools (Nihon Ki-in) & Go Forums
>>that "chess has been more or less 'solved' as a programming problem". Indeed,
>>they provided me the following link, where a gentlemen explains why computers
>>can't play Go: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~mechner/compgo/sciences/
>>
>>Someone says "Go is totally intuition, on the other hand, chess is totally
>>tactics"... and so on and so for.

This is a considerable exaggeration. Calculation is less important in Go than in
chess, but it's still important.

>>Ok, I am a Chess lover and I like to play Go, as well, but I cannot see how
>>programming Go programs can be more dificult than Chess.
>>

There are two main problems (1) As someone has already mentioned, it's hard to
write even half-decent evaluation function for Go. At least with chess you can
start with material and piece-square tables, and go on from there. (2) The
branching factor for Go on the full-size (19x19) board is large: over 300 in the
opening and still 100 or so in typical endgame. You can get round (2) by playing
9x9 Go, but that still leaves (1).

>>What is your opinion about that ?


>>TIA, Ricardo
>
>When I think about this question,
>how long has someone or some people's really trying to code a really good Go
>program compared to the amount of time people have been playing and studying it
>over in asia and around the world.
>
>Now consider how long they have been programming for it, and look at the
>programs, already master level,

Go programs aren't at master level: they're not even at my level (amateur 2-dan
- at a very rough guess that might correspond to about an 1800 chess rating).

>give it another 10 years, and you'll see the same affect the programs are having
>in chess
>
>masters running scared :)

If programmers make good progress I might be running scared in 10 years time,
but I think the professional players will be safe for a while.




This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.