computer-go: Perfect play

[Roland <goprog@xxxxxxx>]

Hello computer-go,

  As I was thinking again about the issue of perfect play some
  interesting thoughts occurred to me. I believe that there is a
  fundamental difference between chess and Go that hasn't be thought
  about when trying to translate stones to elo-ratings.

  Here is the difference:
  In chess you either lose a game or win it(or draw it). In Go you
  also win or lose or draw, BUT, if you lose, the question is, by how
  much did you lose, and according to that amount you can adjust
  handicap stones to try to make the score equal in the next game.
  And in addition to that, in Go we have a kind of stability which we
  don't have in chess, which means you can build up a strategically
  safe position and guarantee a certain amount of territory to you
  without having to know the full game tree.

  In other words, in chess no matter how close to perfect play you
  are, you will still lose any game, because the one little mistake is
  enough to make you lose. This means 100% loss to the perfect player.
  How does this translate into ELO rating? What ElO rating does a
  player with 100% win over you have?

  In Go the closer you come to perfect play
  by the lesser points you will lose, so you can eventually guarantee
  that you will win if you get one or two stones handicap.
  

-- 
Best regards,
 Roland                          mailto:goprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx