computer-go: board reduction

[Dave Dyer <ddyer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Board size reduction, in the manner you are discussing it, is futile. It
cannot possibly work. The idea of "reducing" in some way has merit, but
it can't be just to start making the board smaller and leaving out stones.

 I've always though that a multi-level reresentation of the board
could be useful, where the next level up from the physical stones
would be strings of stones, next level above that wold be live and dead 
groups, etc.  I'm sure all programs contain structures like this already,
but the trick would be to explicitly reason about higher level constructs,
and devolve to looking at the stones only when necessary.

 The internal activity might be something like" black has territories
totaling 100 points, white has territories totaling 95 points, therefore
black must reduce whites terrories;;;; White territories have weaknesses
....

 The point would be to reason and plan and reason top-down, and only
pay attention to individual stones at the very end of the process.