computer-go: Grading Go Problems

["Pierce T. Wetter III" <pierce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Ok, we know that we want them to be graded. We would really like them 
to be graded in terms of computer go knowledge needed to complete them, 
such that as you add knowledge to your program, you can complete the 
next set of problems. This is subtly different then human go knowledge...

  That is, the problems should be broken down into: Elementary School, 
High School, College, Graduate School, and Nobel Prize. :-)

  Here is my initial pass of some starting level:

  1. The first level should be the basic eye shapes in three versions: 
corner, edge, center. If you have a program that recognizes eye shapes 
already perhaps you could tweak it to pull relevant problems out of the 
database.

  There's no reason why I can't include other problems that people want 
to contribute. If you already have a set of files for the basic eye 
shapes, its probably worth contributing.

 2. The next level is "making good eye shape". These would be a set of 
problems that are "one move away" from a living eye shape. If your 
program can already recognize eye shapes, perhaps you could tweak it to 
recognize these while its trying to solve them.

 We can probably generalize this to 2, 3 moves away to fill in some 
levels?

3. The level after this would be tesuji. Not sure how we would recognize 
these. Perhaps if you have a set of tesuji patterns you could report 
ones that fired during the solution of the problem, and then we could 
sort the problems such that we get a distribution of the tesuji.

4. Connecting? Problems that involve connecting or breaking connections?

5. Ko. Problems that involve Ko.

6. Ko Threats. Go Tools distinguishes between life/death and life 
assuming some number of successful ko threats. In my experience most go 
programs aren't this smart, but it seems like someday they will have to 
become that smart!

Grades past that:  Problems that involve more types of go knowledge 
together, such that a program has to choose its moves more appropriately

Next to Final grade:  Really tough, "interesting" problems.

Final grade: "weird" problems. Problems that programs tend to have great 
difficulty with.

Pierce