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Subject: Re: Semi-OT Go programming

Author: Vasik Rajlich

Date: 06:10:36 05/25/05

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On May 25, 2005 at 06:13:54, Tord Romstad wrote:

>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.
>

I think that which game you prefer is a sort of basic personality test, for
whether you like

1) short-term or long-term thinking
2) clear-cut or open-ended problems
3) clear or vague feedback
4) to move from one micro-problem to another or to stick to one persistent theme

etc ..

Apparently it's been shown that chess players use only one half of their brains
during play (the half responsible for logical thinking), while go players use
both halves.

Vas

>>GnuGo is pretty strong.
>
>Yes, compared to other computer go programs, GnuGo is not bad at all.
>
>Tord



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