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Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv From: adrian@bsdserver.ucsf.edu (Adrian Mariano) Newsgroups: rec.games.go,rec.answers,news.answers Subject: The Game Go -- Frequently Asked Questions Supersedes: <games/go-faq_764427171@rtfm.mit.edu> Followup-To: rec.games.go Date: 9 Apr 1994 10:09:02 GMT Organization: Go Group Lines: 859 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: 9 May 1994 10:08:23 GMT Message-ID: <games/go-faq_765886103@rtfm.mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu X-Last-Updated: 1994/04/08 Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu rec.games.go:6806 rec.answers:4822 news.answers:17848 Archive-name: games/go-faq rec.games.go Frequently Asked Questions by Adrian Mariano adrian@bsdserver.ucsf.edu Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of the article. This FAQ is archived as games/go-faq. Note that FAQs are available at this site, but NOTHING ELSE. This is not the general Go archive site which is described below. FAQs are also available by WWW using http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html. If you do not have ftp, you can request messages from rtfm by using the local mail server. Send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing the line "send usenet/news.answers/games/go-faq" to get this file. Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the mail server. The rtfm mail server can ONLY be used to obtain FAQs. It cannot be used to get files from the go archive site. This FAQ is also available on the go archive site: bsdserver.ucsf.edu (128.218.80.68) The go archive site (bsdserver.ucsf.edu) has several megabytes of go releated materials, some of which are mentioned below. You can log into the archive site with the username 'ftp' and any password using the 'ftp' command. The files are in various subdirectories under Go. The file Go/README (posted on the first of each month to rec.games.go) contains a description of all files. Filenames which appear below are relative to the Go directory. If you don't have ftp, send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com containing the single line "help" to get information about ftping by mail. This server allows you to connect to any ftp site and request files by mail. Be sure to tell it to connect to bsdserver.ucsf.edu if you want to get go files. If you absolutely cannot get the mail server to work, send an email request to adrian@bsdserver.ucsf.edu and I will mail you the files. When making such a request, be sure to explain why you can't use the mailserver or you will receive a form letter. The go archive site is mirrorred on ftp.pasteur.fr in the pub/Go directory. This mirror site is maintained by fmc@cnam.cnam.fr. The archive site is also mirrorred at rzserv3.rz.tu-bs.de in the directory pub/go. Gopher is an alternative to ftp. If you have gopher installed, you can connect to philosophy.cwis.uci.edu 7016, possibly by typing gopher philosophy.cwis.uci.edu 7016 at a prompt. This is the UCI Philosophy Gopher. If you follow the menus The World of Philosophy Recreation Games by wire Go you will reach the go options, which include access to this FAQ, as well as access to the archive site. The FAQ and archive site can be accessed through WWW using the URL http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~orb/go (maintained by orb@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu). Other go related materials are available from the experimental page http://ltisun.epfl.ch/~warkent/go/go_intro.html which is operated by warkent@ltisun.epfl.ch. Questions, comments, and corrections should be sent to adrian@bsdserver.ucsf.edu. What has changed in the FAQ since the last posting: I note availability of a WWW version of the FAQ above. I have reordered the questions in what I hope is a more natural order. I have completely rewritten the section on different rule sets (now section 11). Minor changes to section 3. Section 7 updated. Comments anyone? 0. Table of Contents 1. What is go? 2. What do those words mean? 3. What books should I read? 4. Where can I get go equipment, books, etc? How do I contact Ishi Press? 5. How does the ranking system work? 6. Is there a go club in...? 7. What is the IGS? How do I use it? 8. How do I play games by computer? 9. What are the different game record formats and how can I display them? 10. What programs can I get to display go game records? 11. What are the differences between different rules? 12. What public domain programs can I get to play go? 13. What commercial programs can I get to play go? 14. How strong are the commercial programs? 15. What computer go tournaments exist? What are the prizes? 16. What are the dimensions of a go board? How do I make my own board? 1. What is go? Go is a two player strategy board game. Players take turns putting black and white pieces (called stones) on a board. Stones are placed on the intersection of the lines on the board, and can be placed on the edge or in the corner. Once played a stone can not be moved, but may be captured by the other player. A player can pass at any time. Go is generally played on a 19 by 19 board, but smaller boards such as 9 by 9 or 13 by 13 are used by beginners or for shorter games. The object of the game is to surround territory and/or your opponent's stones. The game ends when both players pass. Under Japanese rules, each intersection surrounded and each prisoner counts as a point. The player with the most points wins. An empty intersection adjacent to a stone (orthogonally) is called a liberty. For example, a single stone in the middle of the board has 4 liberties. Stones that are adjacent form groups. Every group must have at least one liberty. When a group's last liberty is filled it is captured and removed from the board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O . . . . . . O O . . . . . # # . . . . O # # O . . . . O . . O . . . . . # . . . . . . # O . . . . . O . O . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The stones in Now the black (#) With one move, this group have group has only white captures the seven liberties. one liberty. black stones. It is illegal to make a move which recreates a preceding board position (to prevent loops). The simplest repeating position is called a ko. . . . . . . . . . . . . This is an example of a ko. One of the White (O) stones . . # O . . can be captured by black. When a stone can be captured . # O . O . it is said to be 'in atari'. If we didn't have the ko . . # O . . rule, then Black and White could repeatedly capture one . . . . . . stone in this situation, creating a loop. When a group of stones can never be captured, it is 'alive'. Stones can live either with two eyes or in seki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . # # # # # # # . . . . O O O O O O O O O . . . . # O O O O O # . . . . O # # # # # # # O . . . . # O . O . O # . . . . O # . O O O . # O . . The white (O) group in This is a seki situation. this diagram is at the If either Black (#) or white (O) edge of the board. It plays in one of the two open has two holes or 'eyes' spaces, then the other player can inside, and therefore capture. Therefore, neither cannot be captured. player will play here. It is advantageous to make the first move in a game. To offset this advantage, extra points are usually added to white's score. These extra points are called the 'komi'. The komi is often set at 5.5 points, which makes tie games impossible. More detailed introductions to the game are available from the archive site in postscript (RULES.PS.Z) and in Smart-Go format (RULES.SG). Beginners can also get comp/igo.zip from the archive site. This is a stripped down version of Many Faces of Go for the IBM PC which includes play on the 9 by 9 board and some instructional material. 2. What do those words mean? Go discussion in English typically uses many japanese go terms. The most common ones are: joseki: An established, or standard, sequence that ends in a more or less even result locally. Usually appears in a corner, but occasionally on a side or in the center. Literal translation is "established stone(s)" tesuji: A particularily clever local move. Usually makes possible something no other move would accomplish. Literally "strong hand". sente: Initiative, ability to go elsewhere. Opposite of gote. gote: Forced to answer. Opposite of sente. atari: A group which has one liberty left and hence is about to be captured is in atari. aji: Potential. Something that does not work, but may come to work in the course of the game. Literally "taste". A much longer list can be found on the archive site in info/definitions.Z. A massive dictionary which translates between Japanese, English, Chinese (pinyin), Korean, Dutch, German, French, Swedish and Italian can also be found on the archive site in prog/intergo-1.11.tar.Z. 3. What books should I read? Beginners may want to start with "Go for Beginners" or "The Second Book of Go". The four book series "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" is good as is the Elementary Go Series. A lengthy list of books is on the archive site: info/books.Z 4. Where can I get go equipment, books, etc? How do I contact Ishi Press? Ishi Press International Ishi Press International 76 Bonaventura Drive 20 Bruges Place San Jose, CA 95134 London England NW1 OTE Tel: (408)944-9900 Tel: 071 284 4898 FAX: (408)944-9110 FAX: 071 284 4899 Toll Free: (800)859-2086 e-mail: ishius@ishius.com e-mail: ishi@cix.compulink.co.uk Ishi Press 1301-5 Yabata Chigasaki-Shi Kanagawa-ken 253 (0467)83-4369 (0467)83-4710 (fax) Japan Anton Dovydaitis operates a mailing list for information about Ishi Press. Mail to ishius@ishius.com to be added to the list. Interested people both inside and outside of the US should join this list. When joining, specify that you are interested in go. Another source for go equipment is Yutopian Enterprises 4964 Adagio Court Fremont, CA 94538 USA Tel: (510)659-0138 FAX: (510)770-8913 E-mail: yutopian@netcom.com Yutopian carries boards, stones, English video tapes, computer programs and books in Chinese and English. 5. How does the ranking system work? The ranks are "kyu" and "dan". Kyu means pupil and dan means master, but there is no qualitative difference. The ranks are like positive and negative numbers (with no zero). A beginner starts out with a high kyu rank (20-30 kyu) and advances to the strongest kyu rank of 1 kyu. The next rank above 1 kyu is 1 dan (shodan), and the dan ranks proceed upward to 7 dan. On the 19x19 board, the number of handicap stones is the difference between the ranks. A 3 kyu gives seven stones to a 10 kyu. A 2 dan gives 2 stones to a 1 kyu. The professional go players have a separate dan scale which goes from 1 dan to 9 dan. The professional scale has finer gradations than the amateur scale: the difference between 9 dan and 1 dan is about 2 stones. You can determine your strength only by playing aginast others with known strength. There are books like "Test Your Rating", but those tests are very unreliable. On a 13x13 board, if the rank difference is "diff", then the following table gives the handicap and komi: diff Handicap Komi diff Handicap Komi diff Handicap Komi 0 0 8.5 7 3 5.5 14 5 2.5 1 0 5.5 8 3 2.5 15 5 -0.5 2 0 2.5 9 3 -0.5 16 6 5.5 3 0 -0.5 10 4 5.5 17 6 2.5 4 2 5.5 11 4 2.5 18 6 -0.5 5 2 2.5 12 4 -0.5 19 6 -3.5 6 2 -0.5 13 5 5.5 20 6 -6.5 On a full sized board, a handicap of 2 stones is about 15 points. The third stone is worth 11 more, and each additional stone is worth one point more than the last. A 9 stone handicap is thus worth 113 points. This is a chart showing the number of handicap Amateur | Professional Rank stones needed for a rank |------------------------------------ real (non-teaching) (dan) | 1 - 3 dan 4 - 6 dan 7 - 9 dan game between amateur --------------------------------------------- dan players and 1 | 8 - 9 - - professionals. Max 2 | 7 - 8 8 - 9 - Golem who posted this 3 | 6 - 7 7 - 8 8 - 9 chart to rec.games.go 4 | 5 - 6 6 - 7 7 - 8 says, "If you want to 5 | 4 - 5 5 - 6 6 - 7 find out how strong a 6 | 3 - 4 4 - 5 5 - 6 pro really is, play him 7 | <= 3 <= 4 <= 5 for money!" 6. Is there a go club in...? Before asking the net, you should consult the appropriate lists of Go clubs which are on the archive site. All of the lists except the AGA list are in the info directory. They are: aga/clubs.93 Clubs affiliated with the AGA clubs.german.Z Clubs in Germany clubs.ishi.Z Clubs on Ishi's mailing list clubs.british.Z Clubs in Britain clubs.australia.Z Clubs in Australia clubs.sweden.Z Clubs in Sweden 7. What is the IGS? How do I use it? The IGS is operating from hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu 6969 (165.123.8.103 6969) The Internet Go Server (IGS) is the most popular way of playing realtime interactive go games by computer. If you couldn't find a club listed above, then you can use the IGS as an electronic club. You can connect to the IGS and look for opponents to play or just watch a game. To connect directly to the IGS from a unix machine, type "telnet hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu 6969". The IP number is 165.123.8.103. When you connect for the first time, log in as "guest". In order to gain full access to the IGS you will have to register for an account. Type "help register" to get information about registering. When connecting to the IGS, you must connect to telnet port 6969. Be SURE to use the port number 6969. Please be ABSOLUTELY sure to use the port number 6969. If you are on a VMS system, the port is specified with "/port=6969" after the tenet command. The IGS is also run on a site in France: flamingo.pasteur.fr (157.99.64.12). Once connected to the IGS, you will need to use the help command to learn how to use the interface. There is NO other accurate information about the IGS available. Ancient (and hence innacurate) LaTeX and Postscript versions of the server's help files are available from the archive site as igs/igs.ps.Z and igs/igs.tex.Z. A more recent (but still outdated) copy of the IGS helpfiles is in igs/helpfiles.Z. New users should read the file Etiquette on the archive site which explains how to behave when using the IGS, and when playing Go. The IGS interface is quite awkward, so several client programs are available to ease your interaction with the server. They are all available on the archive site in the Go/clients directory: igc0751.sh.Z ASCII client for Unix xigc_v3.5.tar.Z X11 client xgospel18g.tar.Z X11 client kgo.tar.Z X11 client pcigc51x.exe IBM PC client WITH MODEM tgigc18.zip IBM PC client for EGA/VGA WITH MODEM igc075.zip IBM PC, ethernet with Clarkson packet drivers gs1.33.sea.hqx Macintosh client stigcbin-1.9.zoo Atari ST client nextgo-2.5.3.tar.Z NeXT client amigaigc075.lha Amiga client winigc35.zip MS Windows, modem or Winsock wigc1_3.zip MS Windows with Winsock (without modem) DOS users may wish to consult clients/help.dos for information on using either tgigc or pcigc. In order to use the IGS, you must be able to use telnet. You can pay to get this capability through Holonet. To find your closest number for a free demo, conneect by modem to 1-800-NET-HOLO. For more information, send email to info@holonet.mailer.net. Another service that provides telnet ability is Delphi. Call 1-800-695-4005 for more information. 8. How do I play games by computer? Since computers make poor opponents, we use them to connect us to other humans. There are two types of computer games: email, and interactive. Email games can be handled manually, by creating a board in an editor, or only exchanging move coordinates. The other option is the use the unix program 'mailgo' which is included with mgt (mgt/mgt231.sh.Z). It sends Smart-Go records of your game back and forth, and invokes mgt for moves. There are several ways to play interactive games. Probably the most popular is the Internet Go Server (IGS) which was described in the previous section. Another interactive options is the internet go program, available on the archive site as prog/inetgo72.sh.Z, which allows BSD Unix users to play interactive games with ascii text screens. The xgosh program (prog/xgosh17.sh.Z on the archive site) allows people with X-Windows to play interactive games with a graphical board. The two interactive programs are NOT compatible. To help find suitable opponents, check out the go players email address list, available on the archive site as go-players, and also posted monthly. There is a standard go modem protocol which is used by go programs for modem play. It is implemented in Many Faces of Go, Nemesis, Smart Game Board and Telego (a shareware go modem program for the IBM PC). The protocol spec and sample code are available from the archive site as prog/protocol.Z. Fotland's program, Many Faces of Go for X Windows on HP machines supports two players on two screens. The Imagination Network provides on line game players for IBM-PC owners with a modem. They have Go, Chess, Checkers, Othello, bridge, Cribbage, Hearts, as well as a Dungeon game and a multiplayer flight simulator. Graphics are pretty good, software is free. Connect charge is $12.95 per month for 30 hours. Call 1-800-SIERRA1 to sign up. An electronic Go club is present on NovaNet, a Computer-Aided Learning system that is installed in schools. NovaNet uses a special terminal program, with color graphics, mouse and sound support. To find out more, contact Dietrich Schuschel at schuschel-dialup@nova.novanet.org or schuschel/dialup/nova. NovaNet accounts are available from Bill Strutz, (217) 244-4300. Cost is $2.50/hour usage and $10 for the terminal program (spec Mac, IBM, Sun, X format). The lesson name is goclub. 9. What are the different game record formats and how can I display them? There are several different formats for game records. The two most popular formats are Smart-Go and Ishi "Standard" Format. Definitions for these two formats are on the archive site in info/smartgo.def.Z and prog/standard.sh.Z respectively. The Smart-Go format can be read by mgt, winmgt, xmgt, Pon Nuki, xgoban, NeXTGo, wingo and the Smart Go program. Ishi Format can be read by Many Faces of Go, Goscribe, Goview, Contender, Smart Go Board (version 4.0 or later), and Nemesis (version 5 and above). Smart Go Board cannot write Ishi format. Ishi publishes games regularly in Ishi format. The Liberty format is a binary format which is not common. Many of the files on the archive site are presently in this format. They can be converted to other formats with prog/convert.tar.Z. There is a program prog/sg2ishi05.sh.Z or prog/sg2ishi05.zip on the archive site which attempts to convert Smart-Go to Ishi format. It cannot handle variations, and has problems with the short form of Smart-Go. A second option is the SG2GO program contained in the prog/gobase20.zip utilities. This is available as C source or as an IBM PC executable and does handle variations. 10. What programs can I get to display go game records? The program mgt will display game records under Unix (either ascii or X11), MSDOS, MS-Windows or Atari ST. The Unix and MSDOS versions do not use graphics, however. The mgt program was created originally by Greg Hale at the request of rec.games.go readers who wanted an interactive program that would read a series of tutorial files posted to the net. The program was expanded by Adrian Mariano to edit and save game records. The purpose of mgt is to display and edit game records in Smart-Go format. It can be used to display a game board. Pieces can be placed and removed, and games can be scored. Mgt is in mgt/mgt231.sh.Z (Unix ascii), mgt/xmgt23.sh.Z (Unix X11), mgt/mgt231.zip (MSDOS) mgt/stmgt.zoo (Atari ST), mgt/winmgt42.zip (MS WINDOWS). The program xgoban by Antoine Dumesnil de Maricourt (dumesnil@etca.fr) can display and edit Smart-Go under X11. It can also communicate with wally to provide a graphical interface to this program. The program Pon Nuki (prog/ponnuki10.hqx) for the Mac can display and edit Smart-Go or Ishi format. NeXTGo (clients/nextgo-2.5.3.tar.Z) is available for the NeXT and can display Smart-Go. Sgview (prog/sgview11.zip) can display Smart-Go with true graphics under MS-DOS. The program text and documentation are in German. Wingo (prog/wingo1.zip) can display Smart-Go for Microsoft Windows. Many Faces of Go can display only Ishi format. Telego and Tgigc can display Ishi format files. The Smart-Go program itself is available for the Mac as shareware. It is on the archive site as prog/smartgo41.hqx. Also, Goscribe for MSDOS is available through Ishi press for $59.95. It can display and edit Ishi format. 11. What are the differences between different rules? Several minor variations in the rules can change the game slightly. Scoring Under Japanese rules, the score is calculating by counting points of territory and subtracting the number of captured stones. Points in seki are not counted, even if they are completely surrounded by one player. Under Chinese rules, the score is calculating by counting points of territory and stones left on the board. The number of captures is not counted. Points surrounded in seki are counted as territory and points shared in seki are counted as 1/2 point for each player. Because the sum of the scores is always 361, only one color needs to be counted. The komi for Japanese scoring is a number of points to add to white's score. With Chinese counting, the komi is a number of extra white stones to place in black's territory. Placing a white stone in black's territory gives white one point and deprives black of one point, so the total value is 2 points. A 2.75 stone komi corresponds to a 5.5 point komi. In handicap games, the Japanese system makes no adjustment, but the Chinese system deducts half of the handicap from black's score and adds it to white's. In the absence of sekis, and assuming that white plays last, these two scoring systems will produce the same score difference. The big difference between the systems is that under the Japanese system, players are penalized for playing inside their own territory. This makes it difficult to resolve disputes about the life status of groups on the board at the end of the game. Until recently, the Japanese rules handled this by enumerating cases at great length. A famous example is the "bent four in the corner". # # . O # . . What is the status of the white group? If black (#) # O O O # . . plays inside, then white must capture. Then black . O # # # . . can start a ko fight. Only black can start the fight. O O # . # . . If white plays, the white stones are dead. Therefore, # # # # . # . black will not start the fight until the end of the . . . # # # . game after black has removed enough of white's ko . . . . . . . threats so that black will win the fight. Under the old Japanese rules, the white group would have been ruled unconditionally dead. Under Chinese counting, the status of the group depends on the number of ko threats. If white has unremovable ko threats, the white group may live. A seki can provide an unremovable ko threat. The Nihon Kiin adopted new rules in 1989 which remove the special rulings like the bent four ruling. The new rules say that to resolve life and death questions at the end of the game, you play them out on a different board. While playing these disputes, the ko rule is altered: the only legal ko "threat" is "pass". This means that direct ko fights are automatically won by the first player to capture. With this new rule, the bent four is still unconditionally dead. The GOE rules use Chinese counting. Before 1991, these rules had a more complex way of counting shared points in seki. Instead of dividing them equally, they were divided in proportion to the number of stones each player had around the disputed point. . . . . . With the pre-1991 GOE rules, this situation would have . # # # # split the left point 2/3 for white (O) and 1/3 for black. . # O O O The right point would have been divided evenly. # # O # O So black would get 5/6 points and white would get 7/6. # O O # O This method was abanded because dealing with the various # O . # . fractions was annoying. Suicide Suicide is playing a stone which does not capture an enemy group, but does remove the last liberty of one of your own groups. Since your group has no liberties, it is immediately removed from the board. It is possible to use suicide to make ko threats available sooner. There are even situations where suicide plays a direct role in life and death problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O O O O . . . . If suicide is legal, black lives in seki. If # # # # O . . . . suicide is forbidden, all the black stones die. . . . # O . . . . O O O # O O O . . See games/suicide.mgt on the archive site for # . O # # # O . . details. # # O # . # O . . Ko The purpose of the ko rule is to prevent infinite loops in the game. The simplest way to do this is to forbid repeating a board position. This is generally called the "superko" rule. The Japanese rules only prohibit immediate repetitions. If the players managed to form a longer loop, which can happen with three simple kos on the board, then the game is is replayed. This triple ko situation has arisen in professional games. The GOE rules specify a very complicated ko rule involving a distinction between "fighting" kos and "disturbing" kos. Handicap stones Japanese rules dictate that the handicap stones be placed on the star points in fixed patterns. Other rule sets simply give black free moves without restriction. Pass stones In order to bring Japanese counting and Chinese counting into agreement, the AGA rules dictate that whenever a player passes, that player must give a prisoner to the other player. This stone is a captured stone and will be counted as such if Japanese counting is used. AGA rules also require that white make the last move. This allows life and death disputes to be played out on the board without changing the score, even though Japanese counting is used. Note also that AGA rules do award points for surrounded territory in seki. The full statement of the current GOE rules is on the archive site as igs/goe.rules.Z. The AGA rules are in aga/aga.rules.Z. 12. What public domain programs can I get to play go? Very few public domain programs exist. Those that do are extremely weak. On the archive site, you will find comp/wally.c, which can be compiled anywhere. If you think wally.c is too strong, you can get the even weaker gnugo from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu/gnugo-1.1.tar.gz. If you have X11, you can get xgoban from the archive site (prog/xgoban-1.0.sh.Z) to act as a graphical interface to either wally or gnugo. Macintosh users can try MacGo or Dragon Go (available on the archive site). Amiga users can get Amigo (comp/amigo.lzh on the archive site). Amigo has been ported to X11 (comp/xamigo.sh.Z). If you have access to an HP9000 either 680x0 based or HP-PA risc based, you can get Many Faces of Go for X11 from the archive site in comp/hp-xgo.tar.Z. Many Faces of Go is available commercially for other platforms and is one of the strongest Go programs. A restricted version of Many Faces of Go for the IBM PC which can play only on a nine by nine board is available from the archive site (comp/igo.zip). 13. What commercial programs can I get to play go? The information in this section may be somewhat out of date. Prices or version numbers may be wrong. The Many Faces of Go, $59.95 (add $4.00 for shipping; in CA add sales tax) ISBN 0-923891-28-5 Version 8.03 July '92 for MSDOS is available from Ishi Press Star of Poland, Version 3.1, $110 OPENetwork 215 Berkeley Pl. Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 638-2266 Nemesis Go Master is at version 5. Apparently version 4 is stronger than version 5, though. It is available for DOS, Windows or the Mac for $69. The Nemesis Toolkit which does not play go, but includes a Joseki tutor, life and death analyzer is available for $139. Contact Toyogo for more information. Toyogo, Inc. P.O. Box 1088 West Dover, VT 05356 1-800-869-6469 1-802-348-9380 FAX: 1-802-348-7887 Go Intellect 1990 Computer Olympiad 1st place; 1990 International Computer Go Congress world championship tied for 1st/2nd place. Go Intellect version 2.98 can be ordered directly from the author. An reduced cost upgrade from 2.0 to 2.98 is also available (Version for macintosh) Dr. Ken Chen 4407 Oak Lane Charlotte, NC 28213 Go Explorer runs on top of Smart Go and is available from Anders Kierulf. (For macintosh) Anders Kierulf Smart Game Board P.O. Box 7751 Menlo Park, CA 94026-7751 Many Faces of Go, Nemesis, and Contender (Mac), and Goliath for the Mac are available from Ishi Press. Handtalk for IBM PC, $69 plus $1.50 shipping or $6 overseas airmail. This program is the 1993 world champion program. Yutopian Enterprises 4964 Adagio Court Fremont, CA 94538 USA Tel: (510)659-0138 FAX: (510)770-8913 E-mail: yutopian@netcom.com 14. How strong are the commercial programs? It's difficult to rank the programs because they are all very inconsistent in their play. They may play a sequence of moves that look dan level, or solve a dan level problem during play, but then a few moves later they will make a move that a 20 kyu would never make. Since none of the current programs can learn from their own mistakes, when the same situation comes up they will make the same bad move again. A few years ago, the top program in the world (Goliath) claims to be around 8 or 10 Kyu. Many Faces of Go and Nemesis claim to be 13 Kyu. Poka claims to be about 17 Kyu, and Dragon Go is about 17 kyu as well. These claims are generally based on games that are the first game the human has played against a computer. Nemesis has played in AGA rated tournaments for its rating. David Fotland (Author of Many Faces of Go) says, "I know someone who was having trouble beating Many Faces at 13 stones until I suggested he could beat it at 29 stones. He spent a few weeks trying odd moves and found some weaknesses, and now he has no trouble beating it at 29 stones. Each of the programs has different weaknesses, but they all tend to collapse tactically in a complicated position, so if attach and crosscut a lot you can usually win big." Results of the 1993 US Computer Go Championship 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wins Place 1 Stone - Kuo Yuan Kao X 1T 1 1C 1 1 1 6 1st 2 Go Intellect - Ken Chen 0T X 1 1 1 1 1 5 2nd 3 Prototype - Art McGrath 0 0 X 1T 1 1 1 4 3rd 4 Many Faces of Go - David Fotland 0C 0 0T X 1 1 1 3 4th 5 Poka - Howard Landman 0 0 0 0 X 1 0C 1 5/6/7th 6 Nemesis - Bruce Wilcox 0 0 0 0 0 X 1 1 5/6/7th 7 Petronius - ? 0 0 0 0 1C 0 X 1 5/6/7th Stone took 7th place in the world competition in 1988, 5th in Europe in 1989, 10th in the World in 1989, and 3rd in the USA in 1991. It is one of the stronger programs and is also very stable software. It beat Many Faces of Go in the first round due to Many Faces crashing when MF was winning (due to a last minute change made in the plane on the way to the congress). It beat Go Intellect on time when Go Intellect was winning, since the time limits are very strict (125 moves in one hour). Many Faces lost another won game against Prototype, whcih created a very complex position, with many small unsettled groups, causing Many Faces to spend too much time reading. Petronius is a new program this year, and had one victory over Poka, when it committed suicide, and Poka would not accept the move as legal. Prototype is only in its second year, and is doing very well, taking third place. 1993 World Computer Go Congress Results: This year one program, Handtalk, was clearly superior to all the others. It won all 6 of its games, and has a very strong middle game for a computer go program. Only one game, against Stone was close (4 points), since Handtalk gave back a lot of points in the endgame after getting way ahead in the middle game. Handtalk is also very fast, completing a game in less than 20 minutes. Star of Poland, Go Intellect, Many Faces, Modgo, and Stone are similar in strength. Star of Poland is a little stronger tactically, and took second, with 5 wins. In the game between Many Faces and Star of Poland, Many Faces was ahead right up until the last few dame were filled, when Star of Poland brought a large group back to life through better tactics. In the game between Star of Poland and Stone, Stone was a little ahead until the late endgame, when Star of Poland captured a group. The 6 round tournament ended with a tie between Many Faces and Go Intellect on all 4 tiebreakers, so Many Faces and Go Intellect played a game to settle the tie, which Go Intellect won by one point. In the 15 play handicap games between Handtalk and 3 local young experts (12 year old amateur 3 dans), Handtalk won one and lost two, so the 15 play handicap prize remains unclaimed. Goliath and Nemesis did not compete this year. 1st Place: Handtalk, China 2nd Place: Star of Poland, Poland 3rd Place: Go Intellect, USA (last year's champion) 4th Place: The Many Faces of Go, USA 5th Place: Modgo, Germany 6th Place: Stone, USA If you are interested in computer go you may want to join the computer-go mailing list. The computer-go mailing was established in Feb 93 to discuss programming computers to play go. The volume of mail on this list is rather low, but sometimes goes up in bursts. To join the list, send a request to computer-go-request@comlab.oxford.ac.uk To post to the list, send a message to computer-go@comlab.oxford.ac.uk Please do not post to the whole list your request to join or leave the list. An archive of the mailing list from Feb 93 to Jan 94 is on the archive site in comp/compgo-mail-1.Z. 15. What computer go tournaments exist? What are the prizes? There is a North American Championship every year at the Go Congress the first week of August. Plaques and the title of North American Computer Go Champion are the prizes. There is a similar competition at the European Go Congress. There is a Computer Games Olympiad every year in London in the summer that includes Computer Go. The Usenix conference used have a computer go competition every year, and may still - no prizes. The big money is in the World Computer Go Congress, sponsored by Ing Chang Chi and Acer in Taiwan. They have a preliminary competition every August (formerly held in Europe, USA, and Japan, but now held in Taipei with programs that are mailed in by their authors). If you do well in the preliminary (defined as beating two of 3 benchmark programs - this year the benchmarks were Stone, Friday, and Goliath) you will be reimbursed for 1/2 of your air fare to the Congress. The congress is held on November 11 and 12 in various places. In 1990 it was in Beijing. In 1991 it was in in Singapore. First prize for the best computer program is about $8,000. Second is about $1,000 and 3rd is about $500. The winning computer program plays a 3 game series against the Taiwan youth champion (usually a 12 year old 5 Dan) and gets another $8000 if it wins. This prize went unclaimed for five years, but in 1991 Goliath beat all three human challengers, so the handicap has been decreased to 14 moves. The top prize if for winning a 7 game series against a professional (of unspecified rank) is about $1.6 Million. The contest only runs through the year 2000 so the top prize will go unclaimed. 16. What are the dimensions of a go board? How do I make my own board? The official size according to Nihon Ki-in is 45.45 x 42.42 (cm). Measurements of an Ishi board indicate that the lines are 0.8 mm thick and the hoshi points are 3 mm in diameter. Stones are supposed to be 20-21 mm in diameter. Net discussions about making your own board are on the archive site in info/board.Z.