Re: computer-go: Why Ko

[Erik van der Werf <E.vanderWerf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Wedd wrote:
> 
> In message <3B334311.3105284B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Erik van der Werf
> <E.vanderWerf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
> >I think that if a player plays more than N^2 moves in one game on an NxN
> >board, you can safely conclude that he plays badly.
> >
> >Therefore you could limit the number of moves to (possibly even a
> >fraction of) N^2. If a player makes more moves he should then
> >automatically loose the game. (I believe something like this is called
> >T-truncated Go)
> 
> For this purpose, would "pass" count as a move?
> 

For this purpose I would not count "pass" as a move. The reason is
obvious; If both sides always play the same amount of moves it is harder
to discriminate which side played badly. (i.e. black would always be the
first to have played N^2 moves). Maybe I should have typed: "I think
that if one player places more than N^2 stones in one game on an NxN
board, you can safely conclude that he plays badly". 

One other thing I forgot to mention is the cyclic case where both black
and white keep placing stones (usually one side is passing). In a normal
ko-fight 50% of the moves remain elsewhere, however in some exceptional
cases with multiple ko fights both players may be forced to keep
capturing stones all the time. This means that at some point both
players would have played more then N^2 stones. In this case it might be
better to consider the game a draw. 

Erik