Author Topic: Go! (Read 5080 times)

UncleBob · « **on:** June 10, 2006, 07:14:09 PM »

After reading about half of the book "Game Over" and looking up some basic infomation on the game Go!, I think I'd like to try it out... it seems like one of those games I'd like.

Anyone know any good websites for online Go!? Anyone care to give it a Go sometime?

mantidor · « **Reply #1 on:** June 10, 2006, 09:30:31 PM »

go as in the chinese/japanese board game? or is there a go! game I havent heard about? Ive never seen it spelled with a "!".

wandering · « **Reply #2 on:** June 10, 2006, 09:31:23 PM »

Coincidently, I'm just starting out at Go myself. Dragongoserver.net, username wandering_oojah. I'd be happy to play anytime.

I haven't been playing long enough to judge fully, but my early impression is that Go is the greatest game ever.

TMW · « **Reply #3 on:** June 12, 2006, 11:29:02 AM »

I suck at go.

Like, hardcore.

My logic center is faulty, I think. Its also why I suck at chess and checkers.

UncleBob · « **Reply #4 on:** June 12, 2006, 06:23:54 PM »

wandering and I have started a game. If I win, I get a date with wandering's mom. If he wins, he gets a date with his mom.

IceCold · « **Reply #5 on:** June 12, 2006, 07:00:26 PM »

Sounds like a good deal!

wandering · « **Reply #6 on:** June 12, 2006, 08:13:28 PM »

Hey, anything is preferable to dating UncleBob's mom!

UncleBob · « **Reply #7 on:** June 13, 2006, 03:08:43 AM »

My mother is dead...

UncleBob · « **Reply #8 on:** June 13, 2006, 03:54:35 AM »

Wow. That horrible joke is made even worse on a message board when you don't get the chance to correct it immediately.

No, my mother isn't dead - in spite of my best efforts.

vudu · « **Reply #9 on:** June 13, 2006, 08:58:27 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: UncleBob
My mother is dead...

So that's why she didn't move around a lot.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #10 on:** June 13, 2006, 11:01:21 PM »

Baseketball?

Spak-Spang · « **Reply #11 on:** June 15, 2006, 06:53:05 AM »

GO is one of the most challenging games ever created. It is said that unlike Chess you actually can't program a computer to play good/great GO strategy. (The reason being is that GO is very abstract and has too many options of play for a computer to predict.)

The game is very organic in nature. I love the game, and the entire concept of the game.

Unfortunately, I discovered the game late in life, and I have few friends that actually want to learn to play the game. So I know about the game.

When I play, I suck horrible at it. My strategy is defunct, and I can't predict opponents moves into the future...or even plan mine out.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #12 on:** June 15, 2006, 08:57:31 AM »

It is said that unlike Chess you actually can't program a computer to play good/great GO strategy.

Go is a finite problem and as such can be solved by a finite state machine. Of course practical implementations would require a more sophisticated approach but since I don't see why computers couldn't reach a performance and ability comparable to that of the human brain in the future I don't see why a computer should not be capable of playing at least as good as a human player.

Spak-Spang · « **Reply #13 on:** June 15, 2006, 09:31:52 AM »

KDR: It is a finite problem. Yet. There is no one solution. The goal of chess is very simple. Capture the King. It can be done in very many ways, but it has its limitations. Chess is built around the limitations of the pieces and the board, which have a realitively small number of moves per piece.

Go is built upon very simple rules with a board and concept designed to open the game into world of possibilities.

At the start of each game you have many, many several places to play. There is no limitation except for the board's borders.

As such you could teach basic logic of the game and principles to good defense and offensive gameplay. However, you could never teach the computer how to look at the board from an abstract perspective. In Go a huge sacrifice could actually lead to a victory.

I don't see being able to program a computer to look and antcipate all the potential strategies and outcomes a human player of any skill can come up with.

This isn't just my opinion. It is the opinion of several GO associations around the world, who have been working on computer programs designing GO games.

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #14 on:** June 15, 2006, 10:08:55 AM »

If I understand it correctly, the major problem with programming a Go playing alogrithm is the huge number of branching possibilities. There are simply too many to keep track of. Chess is probably easier to develop algorithms for because there are more rules to constrain the scope of possibility. I found some numbers. There are 2.1×10^170 legal positions in Go, and less than 10^50 in chess.

Hmm. I just read a bit on it to refresh my memory, and it mentioned that one of the problems with computers and Go is the high degree of pattern matching required. That makes a lot of sense. The human brain is so good at pattern matching that it can find them where they don't exist. That's why

looks like a face. No computer yet developed can match the human capacity for pattern recognition. On the other hand, few humans can stand up to a computer's capacity for crunching numbers, so when the number of branching possibilities is reduced, computers can beat humans at games nearly every time.

Spak-Spang · « **Reply #15 on:** June 15, 2006, 03:02:33 PM »

PartyBear: Great summary. You explained it much better than me.

Though I think it is funny that your : ) example failed, because the a simple computer program now turns that symbol into an actual smiley face.

wandering · « **Reply #16 on:** June 15, 2006, 11:48:20 PM »

Computers will be able to play a good game of Go when they can write a good book on their own.

Incidentally, I think the reason computers are so bad at the game is why I like it so much. The invisible rules that govern chess makes it hard for me to play. I have to figure out what my opponent can do, not just in this turn, but future turns as well, by looking at their different piece positions and how they can move? Screw that. With Go, you know your opponent can put a piece down on any empty space on the board, and it's as simple as that.

Quote
No, my mother isn't dead - in spite of my best efforts.

Hmm. You want your mother dead, I want my wife dead....you know, I think we could work out an arrangement here that would be beneficial to everyone....

KDR_11k · « **Reply #17 on:** June 16, 2006, 02:43:02 AM »

True AI (which CAN learn) should be able to cope with Go as well as a human player.

Obviously a computer cannot recognize abstract patterns yet, a newborn wouldn't know what to look for either. A human has a lot of experience behind him. If you had an AI that existed long enough to learn that much it'd be perfectly capable of doing many things humans do. Perhaps when we finally get our androids we'd have AIs that gathered enough experience to play a game at least as good as a human.

UltimatePartyBear · « **Reply #18 on:** June 16, 2006, 05:55:11 AM »

No, my

example didn't fail. That doesn't actually look like a face. If you saw a human who looked like that, you'd be repulsed. And the forum software didn't recognize it as a face; it recognized it as a sequence of characters to replace with an img tag according to a set of predetermined rules.

I think pattern matching is the key to true AI. Building chess-playing supercomputers is more about corporate bragging rights.

wandering · « **Reply #19 on:** June 25, 2006, 06:35:09 AM »

Now if you'll excuse me, me and my mother have a date to see "What About Bob?"

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Author Topic: Go! (Read 5080 times)