RE: computer-go: Good Play (was FPGA)

[Sam Sloan <sloan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:21 AM 9/6/00 -0500, jliu wrote:

>Questions:
>Is Go inherently more difficult than Chess?
>If so, is there a way to quantify the degree of difficulty?
>Do expert Go players really play near perfectly?
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Matt
>

Go is more difficult than chess because the board is bigger and there are
far more reasonable moves in any position.

The average chess position has 27 possible legal moves of which no more
than 6 or 7 are reasonable.

Almost every move is reasonable in the early stages of a game of go, except
for moves on the edge.

No. Experts do not play go nearly perfectly. Nobody has any idea what
prefect play at go would be. Probably grandmasters at chess do play nearly
perfectly.

I have heard estimates that God, if he exists, could give the top go
players in the world 13 stones and beat them easily.

Sam Sloan