Re: computer-go: Evaluating positions

["Vlad Dumitrescu" <vladdu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> As I see it, the purpose of the game is to obtiain as much influence as possible, while keeping an enough amount of strength to assure life at the end of the game. Of course, at the same time one has to try to prevent the other player to do the same for himself.

To continue my own reply, the value of a move is then it's potential to increase one's compound influence (while decreasing the opponent's). One could rate it between 0.0="don't play here under any circumstances" to 1.0="play here for a sure win".

It might be interesting to speculate about the compound influences of the stones on the board, mixing and interacting in strange ways in order to generate the map of the values of the possible moves. It must be a very non-linear interaction, easy to see by for example looking at aji. A group's influence interacts with another one's behind it, and only some of the moves get high values while neighboring points are very bad. Or what about ladders?

I don't claim this is new. I just never thought of everything just hanging on together this way.

/Vlad