The Game of Go

[spiritmech]

Does anyone here know how to play the ancient game of go? Are you any good? I've played for about 3 years, am about 7 kyu (from what I've gathered). I usually play go on yahoo games, but I haven't played in a while.

Thanks,
Steve

[Trout]

I believe sylas plays go, perhaps you might PM him?

[sylas]

I play Go. I have not played regularly since about ten years ago, when I was about 14 or 15 kyu. Now I manage to play a game every year or so. For those unfamiliar with ranking schemes, this means spiritmech can be expected to wipe the floor with me. I've never played on-line.

Go is an awesome game; without any peer. The rules are simple and elegant; the complexity of the rule system is about that of draughts. You can learn the rules in about five minutes.

The complexity of play and strategy is far and away more deep and subtle than for any other game (IMO).

I look at it this way... in Chess, a computer program can defeat the world champion. Just. The famous "Man vs Machine" match last year, with world champion Kasparov and world computer chess champion "Deep Junior", was a draw at 3 matches all.

In Go, the challenge is to write a computer program that is able to play at the bottom level of Japanese professional rankings. This has not yet been achieved.

Part of the problem is that in Go, the number of alternatives, and the subtle effects of widely separated groups of stones, conspire to make ineffective the primary methods used in computer game play. Computers in chess can use enormous databases of opening moves; and then they use a search of possible moves to explore subsequent possibilities. In Go, the openings (Joseki) are a major study (as in chess) but the openings in Go really only apply for a single corner or side of the playing field. In a game, you have four corners and sides all in play at once, and that multiplies the possible openings to an enormous number far beyond a simple database. Similarly, in play there will be large numbers of possible moves in any position, and many more moves to complete a game; this kills the simple tree search algorithms used by computers.

Cheers -- Sylas

[spiritmech]

Yeah, that's part of why I love go. Chess is hierarchical. Go isn't. All the stones are the same value. I find it much more mathematically satisfying.

[anthrogirl]

I am dying to learn to play Go. Xue Laoshi (a former professor of mine) has promised to teach me. He says that in China, prior to computers, it was not uncommon for a game to last for days and days. He says it is 100 times more difficult than chess. I never really learned how to play chess though...

ag

[spiritmech]

anthrogirl,

Chess is for losers. If you want to get on yahoo sometime, I can teach you (or anyone else) the basics. Go is a truly beautiful game. I'm not that good, but I've played thousands of games, and it is a game one can practice over one's entire lifetime (similar to chess, but better).

Steve

[sylas]

I am dying to learn to play Go. Xue Laoshi (a former professor of mine) has promised to teach me. He says that in China, prior to computers, it was not uncommon for a game to last for days and days. He says it is 100 times more difficult than chess. I never really learned how to play chess though...

It is much easier to learn how to play Go than to learn how to play Chess. In Chess you need to remember all the different moves for each piece, along with special cases like en passant, or castling, or queening. Go is far simpler. But the skills! Ah, grasshopper, that is another thing entirely.

Here is my description of the rules.

1. The game is played on a 19 by 19 grid. Each player has a box of stones, black for one player and white for the other. The object is to map out a territory for yourself on this grid.

2. On each move, you can play a single stone on any vacant position on the board. (There are two exceptions. We'll get to that.) You are also permitted to "pass", and place no stones at all.

3. A collection of stones of a single colour is "dead" if every position one step horizontally or vertically from any stone in the group is occupied either by another stone of the group, or by a stone of the opposite colour. That is, a dead group is a group completely surrounded inside and out by the other player.

4. After playing a stone, you can remove from the board any groups of the other player that have been "killed". This occurs when you fill up the last remaining empty space connected to a group of your opponent's stones.

5. You may not play a stone that kills a group of your own stones, by filling up its own last vacant position; unless the play makes space by killing stones of the other player.

6. You may not play a stone the restores the whole 19 by 19 grid to a position that has existed previously in the game. (This rule is normally explained in terms of "Ko", which is the only way in which it can actually occur. In practice it is a simple easy to identify pattern; but I prefer giving this more concise definition. If I was really teaching you, we'd have to spend a minute or two on this matter to see how it can occur and how it affects play.)

7. The game ends when both players pass on two successive turns of play.

Determining the winner of the game is a bit more subtle. After the game is over, groups of stones that have not surrounded some empty space for themselves are considered to be dead, and can be removed as if killed. Basically, these are stones where it is obvious that you cannot prevent the other player from killing them. If a player has passed without ensuring that the group controls (surrounds) some empty space, then they are abandoning those stones. After removing these dead stones, we then count up the empty spaces (territory) that have been surrounded by each player, and subtract the stones that they have lost. The player with the highest count wins.

To understand these rules sufficiently well to actually play out a game (very badly, of course) would take ten minutes with a board and stones to illustrate the rules. In practice, a teacher will also illustrate some very simple patterns that frequently show up in play, and shows how they play out according to these rules.

Cheers – Sylas

[Thedonhopeless]

this game sounds cool! i can't really picture it though from the rules stated..i'd have to try it

[guacamole]

Go!