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

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   From: engels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Andre Engels)
   Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 11:06:24 +0200 (MET DST)
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   Sam Sloan wrote:

   > 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.

   I disagree with that. The number is certainly higher than that of chess,
   but 'almost every move' is much overdoing it. I think the 6 or 7 moves
   in chess would correspond with 20 or 30 in Go.

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

   The estimate I have heared most is 3 to 4 stones, rather than 13.



All  of this is   of course extremely subjective.   I  believe that we
shouldn't  be  talking about  what   is "reasonable" without  defining
reasonable.

I would define reasonable as any move which doesn't change the result.
If the position  is   a win, only a    move that maintains  a  win  is
reasonable and  if the position  is a draw,  no losing moves should be
considered reasonable.

In chess, I don't believe that 6 or 7 moves are reasonable on average,
at least by my definition.   I would say more  like 2 or 3.  There are
way too  many positions where  only 1 move is   playable but of course
this varies considerably from game to game.

Even though these are all just guesses, I am quite sure that 6 or 7 is
too many.   This is of course difficult to prove!


Don