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Subject: Re: Application of Chess Programming Techniques to Other Games

Author: Dave Gomboc

Date: 21:19:41 04/07/99

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On April 07, 1999 at 18:03:50, Ren Wu wrote:

>On April 07, 1999 at 17:09:52, David Eppstein wrote:
>
>>> I think the same techniques that have proved themselves in computer chess are
>>> applicable to several other games, such as Shogi, Go and of course checkers
>>> too.
>>
>>Historically alpha-beta hasn't worked for go, but it does seem to work for many
>>other games.  The usual explanation is go's high branching factor, but I don't
>>believe that because gomoku has the same branching factor and alpha-beta works
>>ok for that game.
>
>I've done engines for most board games except Go. Even though I'd like to write
>one also, when i have time.
>
>In Gomoku, most move post a strong threat, and the opponent has to respond
>immediately. This give you very good clue to cut the useless moves. In other
>words, it is easy to control the tree size, and so reduce the brench factor.
>
>In Go however, most the move's value only show after many moves, or they are
>strategy moves. It is very hard to evaluate a move without at least a local
>search. There are ways to prune the 'bad' moves, based on human knowledge, but
>i've seen none works error free, or close. In other words, there is no easy ways
>to control the tree size.
>
>Even though most current Go program are knowledge driven, I am still interested
>to see a Go program based on the techniques found in computer chess. Maybe we
>will see a Chess 4.x type Go program in near future.
>
>Will the computer chess history repeat in computer Go?
>
>We will see.

I think it will, once they can assess a static position well.  The search takes
care of the dynamics.  I think that the problem in go is that programs aren't as
good at knowing how good a position is.  I know this is an oversimplification,
please, no flames.

Dave Gomboc



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