Re: Re: computer-go: minimax and go

[Rong Zeng <rodneyzeng@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, everyone:

Here I'd like to talk some of my idea about the mathematical modeling of Go game.

I have read some articles in Chinese about this problem and have some experience with the popular game programs. Most of them adopted the force-field theory when considering the influence of stones. But this theory has some basic shortcomings when two sides fight closely together and made programs confused. This is not a perfect theory about Go modeling.

I think Go game is some geometry. Two sides play discretly but would build up continuous boundaries; stones groups would be disconnected or connected to each other in various ways; the shapes of any stones group would effcet its surviving and its easiness to build up eyes. One must consider force field and geometry together to make a good model.

There are bulk of questions in the dynamic precess of playing go. But there's still basic problem of static modeling when we make a program. This is relatively simple and we can make it precisely and close to exact way of human's thinking when we play. The goal of static modeling is to hash the trees greatly and make selective points as few as possible, like human do. 

I think the OOP technique can be used here and build up an engine on which the dynamic processes can be built. It's a geometry with force-field. And this static model engine would not take much time as most of the CPU time is spent on searching. According to my understanding of those excellent game engines nowdays such as STARCRAFT of Blizzard and some of EA SPORTS,  I think a such kind of engine is not a big problem to them.

I don't agree that advanced AI techniques are the most important factors in Go game programming. As we all know AI techniques applied very well to Chess. So it's the Go game itself that becomes the bottleneck. If we cannot make a good model for it, little progress will we make.

Welcome any opinions to my idea above.

Regards,
 Rong Zeng
 rodneyzeng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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