Re: computer-go: unmake move?

[Heikki Levanto <heikki@xxxxxx>]

David Fotland <fotland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I can't imagine a strong program that doesn't do tactical
> search during full board evaluation.  I've seen many
> programs that tried to avoid tactical search, but they were
> all very weak.

Yes, my gut feeling agrees with you that there will have to be tactical
reading. But I can imagine (if I try hard enough) that a program might do
all its tactical reading when analyzing the "current" position, and not do
any of that in the middle of serious full-board strategic look-ahead. You
may be right that such program would be weak, of course.

Another idea that I have been speculating on is if we need any global
read-ahead at all, or if the predicting of the future game could be done on
a higher level. If we have a very abstract representation of the board, we
could in principle make our plans in the same abstract terms, like in
"extend here in sente, defend this group in gote, if the opponent attacks
here, ignore it and take sente to attack that group) 

Has anyone  seen any such "high-level" thinking actually working in GO ?

Is there any good argument why go programs "have to" be based on reading, or
is it "just" that the most successfull ones have been so far? 

- Heikki


-- 
Heikki Levanto     LSD Levanto Software Development   heikki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               "In Murphy we Turst"