Re: computer-go: What makes a ladder

[Heikki Levanto <heikki@xxxxxx>]

Njoroge <Njoroge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have been trying to gather rules about what makes a ladder and have
> determined the following. (This can be in 1 of 8 orientations - rotated,
> flipped and mirrored)

I am afraid that in the end you need to read your ladder out. Kageyama
starts his book Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go with ladders, pointing out
that there may be funny shortcuts that work many times, but learning them
will only hurt your game, becasue reading them out is the only way that
works every time, and learning to read is needed to improve your game
anyway.

So, a stone can be captured in a ladder if it is in atari, and no matter how
it struggles, can never get more than 2 liberties. Read it out. After all,
the running part will always only have one move, and the attacking part will
only have two to choose from, one of them obviously wrong most of the time.
You need to check that the attacking stones do not end in atari themselves,
but even that ought to be simple, it can only happen near the last played
move (of any color).

Probably you should be willing to extend more advanced reading routines with
ladders where ever you meet them, ignoring any depth limitations...

-- 
Heikki Levanto     LSD Levanto Software Development   heikki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
               "In Murphy we Turst"