68
votes
Accepted
Is "Adversarial Policies Beat Professional-Level Go AIs" simply wrong?
One of the authors of the paper here. It might shock you to find that I believe the paper was not "simply wrong". I do however think that we did a poor job explaining our evaluation setting, ...
- 726
33
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't a go board have an 'I' ('i') column?
Zeiss isn't completely correct, this is actually the less common reason for omitting the I. The more common reason why I is often omitted where it would normally be expected between H and J is because ...
- 13.8k
22
votes
Why don’t you capture more territory in Go?
Suppose there is a black stone in the corner but it is impossible for black to survive, no matter how well played.
By convention, both sides recognize this and the black stone is counted as a prisoner....
- 437
21
votes
Is there an equivalent of Deep Blue in the Go world?
AlphaGo
Now there is AlphaGo by Deep Mind, a company recently bought by Google playing currently a match against 9p Lee Sedol. It is the Deep Blue of Go.
EDIT: The final result of the match of five ...
- 1,197
19
votes
Accepted
What are the differences between Chinese and Japanese rules in Go?
In most games (as already noted) the two rulesets produce the same strategy and outcome.
Differences between the current Japanese and Chinese rules:
Japanese counts enclosed territory (of groups able ...
- 306
19
votes
Accepted
Why is this tsumego solution wrong?
In tsumegos where you should kill a group, the best (and thus correct) answer is always the solution where you kill unconditionally (if possible). Only if there is no unconditional kill the ko would ...
- 416
19
votes
Why doesn't a go board have an 'I' ('i') column?
In most cases, where "I" is omitted between "H" and "J", it's to avoid confusion with number "1". It's also common to omit the letter "O" for the same reason (confusion with number "0", more of a ...
- 1,687
18
votes
Accepted
In this Go position, can black capture the entire length of the white arm?
Yes. That white chain has only two liberties - A and the space next to A. If black fills both of them the chain will be captured. None of the surrounding black stones are vulnerable to capture ...
- 12.5k
15
votes
Is studying tactics for Go useless?
On the contrary, studying tactics for go is essential. Books or online resources on Joseki, Tesuji, and Life and Death situations are good places to start, followed by general opening strategy as you ...
- 11.7k
15
votes
In this Go position, can black capture the entire length of the white arm?
Yes, but Black doesn't need to. Since each of the surrounding groups already have two eyes, there's no reason to play those stones. In fact, it will cost Black two points in Japanese scoring.
If ...
- 3,258
15
votes
Is "Adversarial Policies Beat Professional-Level Go AIs" simply wrong?
Regardless of the validity of this particular strategy, the general technique seems quite valid.
They did not simply discover a bug in KataGo and then write a program to exploit the bug. Rather, they ...
- 251
14
votes
Accepted
How do I chose invasion or reduction points?
First off, count the current score. If you're winning, do not invade. Just make sure you keep white small enough that you still win.
Let use further presume that black would be losing. You counted, ...
- 6,962
13
votes
Why are Elo ratings for go higher than for chess?
There is no ELO rating in go. And even no official international rating at all. A common question in go forums is "how does my rating in [whatever country or online server] compare with [other country ...
- 1,061
12
votes
Accepted
How much of AlphaGo's success is due to novelty?
I would argue that AlphaGo's advantage cannot be significantly attributed to the novelty of its moves.
The original public AlphaGo games were those against Lee Sedol, the second ranked player in the ...
- 80.3k
12
votes
Who won this match of Go?
Summary
You needed to finish the game, after which, assuming optimal play, White would have won by a very large margin (if it was their turn next) or a large margin (if it was Black’s turn).
The ...
- 1,358
11
votes
Accepted
How does AlphaGo calculate?
Here's the AlphaGo team's paper that has all of the details (behind a paywall): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7587/full/nature16961.html
I gave a couple of tech talks about this recently....
- 3,258
11
votes
Accepted
What's the longest possible forced repetition in Go?
Molasses ko: http://denisfeldmann.fr/bestiary3.htm#mol
"The semeai in figure 11 is probably the worst known case of repetition. Known as "molasses ko", ..."
Denis Feldmann's Go Bestiary is a ...
- 236
11
votes
Accepted
In Go can you put a counter in a place that had a prisoner
After a piece and/or group is completely out of liberties, it is removed immediately.
The only rule that would really prevent you from placing a stone back on the captured space is the ko rule, in ...
- 6,682
11
votes
Is it possible to live with false eyes, only?
Yes, this is possible. It requires the living group to circle back on itself like this:
$$Bcm0
$$ ............
$$ ...OOOOOO...
$$ ..OOXXXXOO..
$$ .OOX.XX.XOO.
$$ .OX.XOOX.XO.
$$ .OXXO.OOXXO.
$$ ....
11
votes
Is "Adversarial Policies Beat Professional-Level Go AIs" simply wrong?
In the Tromp–Taylor rules, the concept of dead stones is left out—all stones on the board at the end of the game are treated as being alive. The KataGo AI was trained primarily using the Tromp–Taylor ...
- 404
10
votes
Do Go players play to minimize score difference after realizing they cannot win?
In general, if you realize that you can't win, you should resign. It's considered rude to make plays that will only allow you to catch up if your opponent makes a stupid mistake.
I don't think Go ...
- 3,258
10
votes
Accepted
Why do asymmetric ko fights exist?
I think the easiest way to think of this is in terms of options, and the freedom to take whatever options benefit me.
In your example, you have no options: You need to win this ko, or you will lose.
...
- 6,682
10
votes
Accepted
Why do player start with fighting for the corners in go?
Common starting practices are to open by placing stones on a Hoshi (4-4 point), or close to it, in order to "claim" that corner. As the players are trying to secure as much area as they can, it makes ...
- 9,140
9
votes
Why are Elo ratings for go higher than for chess?
There are three determining factors for how high the highest Elo rating for a given game will be:
Internal aspects of the rating system: First an foremost how the ratings are initialised. If you ...
9
votes
Accepted
Do Go players play to minimize score difference after realizing they cannot win?
Sadly I do not have a reliable source for this answer, but as far as I know, continuing when clearly behind is not generally considered rude, at least at professional level.
One reasoning was that it ...
- 6,962
9
votes
Accepted
Go Surrounding Rules
The game is incomplete.
Literally nothing is "surrounded" here, and if the game ended in such a state nobody would get any points at all until you can mutually agree on which groups are "dead" and ...
- 6,682
9
votes
Accepted
Is there more than one solution to this problem about cutting in go
Your idea does keep the stones connected, but it isn't as good as the correct answer.
$$W
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . . .|
$$ . . 1 . . . . .|
$$ . O X 2 B . . .|
$$ . O O X . X . .|
$$ ...
- 3,258
8
votes
Is studying tactics for Go useless?
Go tactics are essential, as other answers have said. Two critical aspects of beginning Go play are fuseki (openings, similar in theory to chess; you want to position your first pieces to stake a ...
- 1,091
8
votes
End game deciding on dead stones
As TimK pointed out, the situation could be but may not be a Seki but without a diagram to show to us, it's not easy for us to guess what happened.
Seki : no one die, everyone live
$$cm1
$$ +--------...
- 475
8
votes
Accepted
How do I effectively use a big wall?
The biggest strength of a wall is that it keeps your opponents stones from connecting to anything on the other side of it; this forces him to worry about living in general, either by making life ...
- 6,682
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