Re: On Game Space Size

["P.J.Leonard" <P.J.Leonard@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave Dyer wrote:
> 
> I fail to see the point of trying to count the illegal positions.
> It's clear that the number is vanishingly small compared to the
> total.  What more do we need to know? 3^361 is a good enough estimate
> for any practical purpose.

 I agree. In fact  . . .

 Why are we wanting to know the number of board states ?
I agree that it is a very interesting problem but fail to
see it's direct application to computer GO.
(I have not paid too much attention to this thread so I apologise
if I have missed something.)

I do recall a claim about estimating the effort for a brute
force search ? But the branching of a search is the number
of moves from a given state which is not directly related 
to the total number of legal states. 

 I suppose you could build a map from all possible board states
to the best move ?  Good luck :-)

-- 
 Cheers Paul.                                        

         ``Reality is for people who lack imagination''