how does go compare with chess?
Ed Wilkinson
it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the same. There is no variey
and it'll take some getting used to. Anyone care to comment on whether
skills are transferrable? In both directions? What sort of time limits are
used in go? Do good chess players make good go players, and vice versa?
Thanks,
Ed
--
Ed Wilkinson e...@ima.com
ToeKnee
> I'm a chess player (around 2000) and am currently learning go. I'm finding
> it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the same. There is no variey
> and it'll take some getting used to...
Ok, all the pieces in go look pretty much the same; they are all
disk-like, and each weigh about the same, and so on. But, just as in
chess, it's not so much that they all look the same (are all pawns worth
the same?), it is *where* they are placed which gives them value.
Similarly, the variety in go comes from the multiplicity of move sequence
possibilities, rather than the individual capabilities of each stone.
Another related idea is if you consider that the 'pieces' in go correspond
to the local arrangements of stones (the 'shapes'), then there must
thousands more 'pieces' in go than in chess!
It does take some getting used to :) But it is WORTH IT. It has been
said that where chess is like a battle, go is like a war.
> Anyone care to comment on whether skills are transferrable? In both
> directions? What sort of time limits are used in go? Do good chess players
> make good go players, and vice versa?
The skills that are most tranferable are your abilities at analysis. The
problem you will face at first will come from adapting your analytical
insight to counting liberties, assessing live/dead groups, and finding
tesujis (Japanese word for a locally good move). Mostly, though, hurdles
will appear whenever you have a new stategic concept to grasp. Go is a
game rich with strategic complication, and has an elaborate technical
language to describe some of these intricacies. If you are willing to put
the effort forth, a whole new world will open up, and you might even find
yourself comparing philosophical principles ('Go is sure like life, man')
to the game of go :)
It's not an easy game. Edward Lasker, a former World Chess Champion,
never got much better than 1-dan, which is considerably weaker than the
average professional go player, who could have given him a hard time at 6
stones. I personally only know a few other chess players who play the
game, and none of them have gotten much past 1-dan (well, except for me
:P).
The time limits in go are somewhat longer than in chess, since an average
game of go can last over 200 moves. It depends. A fun game can last an
hour or two, a serious game about 4 hours.
If you want to play against other players on the 'Net, try
telnet hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu 6969 login as 'guest'
and ask around for help (try 'help commands'). I'd be happy to teach you
about the game, if you like.
I hope this is an adequate reply.
---
ToeKnee, 2d* (IGS rating), 2119 (USCF rating)
toe...@teleport.com
Mason House Co-Op
David Forthoffer
: In article <emwCtG...@netcom.com>, e...@netcom.com (Ed Wilkinson) wrote:
:
: > I'm a chess player (around 2000) and am currently learning go. I'm finding
: > it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the same. There is no variey
: > and it'll take some getting used to...
That's 'cause you're looking at the *pieces*.
You should learn to look at the *configurations* and their potentials.
: > Anyone care to comment on whether skills are transferrable? In both
: > directions? What sort of time limits are used in go? Do good chess players
: > make good go players, and vice versa?
:
: The skills that are most tranferable are your abilities at analysis.
I agree.
: It's not an easy game. Edward Lasker, a former World Chess Champion,
Edward Lasker was never a World Chess Champion.
Maybe you're thinking of Emmanual Lasker.
: I personally only know a few other chess players who play the
: game, and none of them have gotten much past 1-dan (well, except for me
: :P).
Allow me to introduce myself -- 3-dan AGA and 2260 USCF.
I'd probably be 1d* on IGS if I hadn't played so many games in text mode...
By the way, I like go better than chess because I can feel myself learning
something each time I play go. To improve my chess, I'd need more
scholarship and analysis experience.
--
David Forthoffer (1k*) NEC Technologies Printer Division
dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com 110 Rio Robles, San Jose CA 95134
"I'm not speaking for NEC unless I explicitly say so."
Trevor Green
>
> It's not an easy game. Edward Lasker, a former World Chess Champion,
>never got much better than 1-dan, which is considerably weaker than the
>average professional go player, who could have given him a hard time at 6
>stones. I personally only know a few other chess players who play the
>game, and none of them have gotten much past 1-dan (well, except for me
>:P).
Let's keep our Laskers straight here. Emmanuel Lasker was the world
chess champion for several decades. He learned go later in life and is
credited with the wonderful quote to the effect that it is tragic that one
cannot be a great player of two games at once. Edward Lasker (no relation,
I believe) wrote one of the first go books in English.
--
Trevor Green, ex-chess player
IGS: death 16k* (yes, the nefarious 16k* rating!)
Dave Wagner
Here's an interesting topic! (FYI I am shodan at go, about 1500 at chess.)
Time limits in go tournaments are typically 1 hour per player per game (at
the amatuer level). A game at the club usually takes an hour and a half,
unless it's my old nemesis, when it can be two and a half to three. So
STAMINA is an important quality for a go player. I would say that generally
skills are NOT transferrable between go and chess, as the games are too
different. However, the analytical requirements are similar in both games,
but the specific knowledge has to be built up seperately in each case.
Knowing "the book" is important in go openings (joseki) just as in chess,
but where go surpasses chess IMHO is in its requirement for positional
judgement. Deciding where and in which direction to play at the junction
between the opening and the middle game is a delicate, subtle problem, and
i don't understand chess well enough to see as wide a variety of options as
present themselves at this point in a go game.
It's interesting that you complain about all the pieces being the same.
Indeed they are, but upon striking the board each stone takes on its
own character (heavy/light thin/thick etc.) in relation to all the other
stones on the board. A stone on the 3-4 point is different than a stone
on the 5-3 point. And although the stones never move the groups which they
form certainly do grow and press each other in response to the forces exerted
by these stones on one another.
Good luck with your pursuit of this fiendishly addictive game/obsession!
--
Dave Wagner | "It might have been one small step for
dgwa...@math.uwaterloo.ca | Neal, but it was a long one for a little
| guy like me!"
| - Pete Conrad, Commander of Apollo 12
Robin Garner
FWIW, I have heard it said that getting to shodan in Go adds about 200
points to your ELO rating. The remark came from a 2000/4 dan.
ToeKnee
I guess I blundered. *Dr. Emmanuel Lasker* was World Chess Champion, not
Edward Lasker. Thanks for correcting me. Actually, I let a friend
convince me that Edward, and not Emmanuel, was the World Chess Champion, so
don't blame the mistake on me, but rather on an overbearing friend. Dr.
Emmanuel Lasker, however, never even reached shodan level, so Edward Lasker
was the better go player :)
One other thing I forgot to point out: I like go A LOT more than I like
chess. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First of all, handicapping exists. This makes it easy for players of
disparate strength to compete against one another and still have an
enjoyable time of it, without the stronger player getting too bored or the
weaker player losing confidence.
Secondly, in chess there is a problem with the game having been
over-analyzed. There are hundreds of books on openings and opening theory,
with just about every variation in the first 15 moves of the game having
been covered in an issue of the Informant or some like book. This
diminishes the appeal of playing chess, mechanizes it, makes it seem like
you can't ever play a truly new game, just variations on old ones. In go,
the game is just too big for this to ever happen. There are many books on
the fuseki (the Japanese word for the opening in go), but in all likelihood
the opening of the game will never be fully encapsulated in an n-volume
set.
This leads to a point about the game which I find to be most engrossing:
you have a chance in the game of go to develop your own unique style, a
methodology behind your moves which distinguishes you from other players.
While you are learning the game, you pick up ideas about how to play which
you develop, refine, and finally redefine as you continue to build up your
base of knowledge. You learn some things at the expense of other ideas,
and this gives character to your play. You might, for example, like to
attack groups. This means you will probably learn a lot of techniques for
removing eyes, taking away the bases of groups, leaning attacks, splitting
attacks, creating thickness, etc., but this might turn out to be a weakness
at times, because if your opponent excels at making stable groups, and has
a better sense of timing for getting the big points on the board, you might
eventually find yourself taking stones from him/her. Maybe you will
discover how to balance your play more, and to take the big points before
your opponent does. The point is that there will be a quality to your play
that is unique, like a face or a fingerprint, and that the game of go can
at times seem like a 2-person drama, with the opposing styles striving to
overcome each other. It is quite a pleasure to observe :)
Well, thanks for listening...
--
ToeKnee, 2d* (IGS rating), 2219 (USCF rating)
toe...@teleport.com
Mason House Co-Op
Darse Billings
>I'm a chess player (around 2000) and am currently learning go. I'm finding
>it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the same. There is no variey
>and it'll take some getting used to.
This reminds me of an analogous chess story, supposedly based on an actual
event... While sitting on stage in front of an audience, a world-class
grandmaster executes a brilliant attack leading to checkmate. After the
applause dies down, a woman approaches the grandmaster, and says excitedly,
"That was a wonderful performance! But tell me, how do you remember how
all those different pieces move?"
Somewhat astonished, the grandmaster replies "I don't really know...".
> Anyone care to comment on whether
>skills are transferable? In both directions? What sort of time limits are
>used in go? Do good chess players make good go players, and vice versa?
I have been playing chess since I was a kid, and became a fairly decent
player after investing several hundred hours on the game...
It took me about three weeks of learning Go to discover that it was a much
better game -- broader in scope and richer in strategy. Once you begin to
see how groups of stones relate to each other, certain patterns will
emerge and your understanding and appreciation for the game will increase
rapidly.
Go will probably be most enjoyable to the strategic, positional type of
chess player. While the tactics in Go can be much more complicated than
chess, Go is usually played at a higher, more intuitive, level. Concepts
like "shape" and "efficiency" generally take precedence over direct
threats and parries. So if you are a wizard at combinations, and enjoy
computing variations, then Go may not be your cup of tea. Even so, there
are aggressive and dynamic styles of playing Go which may suit you fine.
I believe my chess abilities helped me to learn Go very quickly (I was
able to defeat three different 8 kyu players after playing only half a
dozen serious games). This was not a direct transference of skills, but
an application of certain intangible qualities, such as discipline of
thought and the ability to focus and concentrate. Despite my affinity
and appreciation for Go, I decided to not pursue it (at least for now).
I am more interested in a wide variety of challenging games, some of
which have certain tangible advantages (money :-) over chess or Go...
Incidentally, in the same way that learning Go can help your chess game,
mastering Poker or backgammon can help sharpen your "gambling instincts"
for chess and Go. There *is* an element of randomness in chess and Go,
because the game is played between imperfect opponents; and knowing how
to distinguish between a good risk and a bad risk can be worth a lot,
even in a game of "pure skill".
Cheers, - Darse.
--
Go is better than Chess. Poker is more lucrative. Sex is more fun.
Darse Billings, 7 kyu; 2065 CFC; meaningless IRC sb/hand ratios:
(rayzor on IRC) Hold'em +0.22 ; HiLo Omaha +0.76
Michael Sullivan
Robin Garner <R.Ga...@svh.unsw.EDU.AU> wrote:
>
>FWIW, I have heard it said that getting to shodan in Go adds about 200
>points to your ELO rating. The remark came from a 2000/4 dan.
that doesn't surprise me at all.
I used to play chess a fair bit (before I learned go) and while I never
got an official rating, I judged it to be ~1300 based on the people I
played who were. Since learned go, I'd played maybe 3 games of chess (all
against very weak players) in 4 years until a year ago when I played a set
of games against a new friend of mine (he let me teach him go as long as
I played some chess too so he could win something) who is around Elo 1600.
I expected to get swamped but ended up playing him even over seven games
with medium time limits: 3 wins, 3 losses 1 draw. though he did kill me,
as expected, the couple of blitz games we played.
And I wasn't even shodan at the time. (I have a very tenuous connection
with that rank currently which I am hoping to secure at the USGC)
Mike
--
________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sullivan (Society for the Incurably Pompous) m...@pcnet.com
"Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it, depends on what you put
into it." -- Tom Lehrer.
Ioffe Nick
: In article <emwCtG...@netcom.com>, e...@netcom.com (Ed Wilkinson) wrote:
:
: It's not an easy game. Edward Lasker, a former World Chess Champion,
I just wonder: who is Edward Lasker? I know that a former World Chess
Champion's name is Emanuel Lasker and Edward is author of the first book
about Go in English (I think he is Emanuels cousin).
Nick
:
: ---
Carlos Costa
(Ioffe Nick) writes:
>
> ToeKnee (toe...@teleport.com) wrote:
> : In article <emwCtG...@netcom.com>, e...@netcom.com (Ed Wilkinson)
> wrote:
> :
> : It's not an easy game. Edward Lasker, a former World Chess Champion,
> I just wonder: who is Edward Lasker? I know that a former World Chess
> Champion's name is Emanuel Lasker and Edward is author of the first book
> about Go in English (I think he is Emanuels cousin).
>
> Nick
Emmanuel Lasker and Edward Lasker were not related, but were
very good friends. Emmanuel was the World Chess Champion
(for 27 years, I believe, until beaten by Capablanca), but
Edward was also a very good player. Edwards main
contribution to the game, though, were his writings. He
particpated in many of the great Tournaments of the early
part of the Century and seemed to be a friend to everyone.
His anecdotes of the players and tournaments really added to
my enjoyment of the game.
It would be nice if there were some books that described
some of the great Go tournaments and their stories as well.
Are there any in Japanese that may be translatable? Books on
go technique are great but some human-interest stories would
also be very welcome. (IMHO :-)
Carlos
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
carlos...@mindlink.bc.ca IGS: carlos Vancouver, B.C., Canada
"Life is a simplified paradigm of Go"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hal Womack
Christians chess = John the Baptist, *go* = the Messiah
Marxists socialism communism
Teenagers petting fucking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Computers can play chess better than 99+% of human competitors
while they are still trying to reach the lowest official amateur rank
(9 kyu) in *go*. A cover story in the English magazine THE NEW SCIENTIST
from about 1980 contained the claim that if one counts all the moves
possible in chess and subtracts that number from the like one in *go*,
the difference > the number of all the atoms in the Universe. Chess
has become constipated, with a very high proportion [over 50 % ?] of
match games ending in draws. In *go* a draw ['gigo'] in a friendly game
remains a rare thrill and tournament procedures automatically exclude the
possibility.
Both Chairman Mao and the C.I.A. highly esteemed *go*, although
neither played it [subject to correction on the latter, although safe
enough for the high officials known to me] and only the former of the
two effectively promoted it.
Some tag lines: 'the world language'[Jiang Jujo, 9 dan], the
spiritual sport, the mental martial art. Life: a metaphor for *go*.
Will someone provide estimates of the planetary populations
of players of the two games ? Breakdown for the barbarian world [i.e.,
outside the three home countries] ?
[P.S., I am using asterisks in lieu of italics to mark *go* as a word
foreign to the English language.]
--
Hal of Womack Enterprises | e-mail to wom...@netcom.com | tel. 415/ 923 1507
Snail mail to P.O. Box 640113/ San Francisco, CA 94164/ U.S.A. | Student of
Diego Rivera, Ho Chi Minh, Paul Robeson, Naguib Mahfouz, Shusaku, Bertolt
Brecht, Madonna & Sgt. York | "Lean on me until you're strong; we all need.."
Joachim Beggerow
: It would be nice if there were some books that described
: some of the great Go tournaments and their stories as well.
: Are there any in Japanese that may be translatable? Books on
: go technique are great but some human-interest stories would
: also be very welcome. (IMHO :-)
There is "The Treasure Chest Enigma" by Noriyuki Nakayama.
This is a very entertaining book with some anecdotes.
Joachim
Lee Schumacher
> It would be nice if there were some books that described
> some of the great Go tournaments and their stories as well.
> Are there any in Japanese that may be translatable? Books on
> go technique are great but some human-interest stories would
> also be very welcome. (IMHO :-)
> Carlos
A couple of items from the ishi catalogue:
"the 1971 honinbo tournement": Ishida v. Rin. can't remember the
author. All six games from the title match.
"appreciating famous games": Kageyama.
collection of assorted historical games.
"Invincible: the games of Shusaku" James Power. Much general
historical background, and a lot of background for many of the
indidvidual games.
"The Treasure Chest Enigma" Nakeyama. This is a collection
of essays, and problems. Some of the essays are about tournement
games for which the author was the official recorder.
All of these are excellent books, unfortunately 'Invincible' is out
of print (some of the others may be too). This is really tragic,
since Invincible is without peer among go books in the english language;
every serious go player should have it.
enjoy -
Lee.
Michael Richard
: > It would be nice if there were some books that described
: > some of the great Go tournaments and their stories as well.
: > Are there any in Japanese that may be translatable? Books on
: > go technique are great but some human-interest stories would
: > also be very welcome. (IMHO :-)
The best source around is the magazine Go World, published by Ishi
Press. Each issue is chock full of (mostly recent) tournament games
and analysis. Check the FAQ.
veg
david carlton
> I'm a chess player (around 2000) and am currently learning go. I'm
> finding it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the
> same. There is no variey and it'll take some getting used to. Anyone
> care to comment on whether skills are transferrable? In both
> directions? What sort of time limits are used in go? Do good chess
> players make good go players, and vice versa?
(Warning - I'm not a chess player, and I'm no expert at go.)
The basic difference, I think, is that in chess all moves are local.
Many of your pieces can reach large amounts of the board in a couple
of moves, so your moves have a clear effect on the entire board and
you can't really get much out of analyzing a part of the board in
isolation.
In go, however, your pieces can't move at all, so in particular they
can't move all across the board. And the board is larger. These
facts mean that there are, loosely speaking, two levels of analysis:
the local sitation (Is this corner group of mine alive? Can my
opponent invade me here? How should I threaten this group of my
opponents?), and the global situation (Is it more important for me to
attack this group or to defend that group? How will defending this
group affect this other group?). Playing a stone will occasionally
have clear non-local effects (ladder breakers being the most obvious
example), but more likely when playing a stone, you have to figure out
what effect that stone will have on the local situation and what
effect that change in the local situation will have on the global
situation.
One good example of this is the difference between chess openings and
go openings. In both games, there are general opening principles, and
in both games there are book moves. The difference between the chess
book moves and the go book moves, however, are that the chess book
moves cover the whole board and the go book moves only cover a corner
of the board. So the go book moves give situations that are locally
fair, but they may be better for one or the other player in a specific
game, depending on the situation on other places on the board. For
example, say that players play a joseki (= go opening book moves) in
the lower right hand corner that gives white solid territory in the
corner and gives black influence to the left (along the bottom of the
board). If the sequence is a joseki, that means that in general the
amount of influence that black gets is considered to be worth about as
much as the territory that white gets. In a specific game, however,
white might already have other stones in the bottom side of the board,
negating black's influence (which probably makes the situation better
for white, so black should have chosen a different joseki, or maybe
even played some non-joseki moves); or black might have stones along
the bottom of the board which are complemented well by his new
influence (in which case white should have done something
differently.)
At any rate, go is a very rich game, and once you've played it a bit,
you'll discover that there is quite a lot of variety in the game.
david carlton
car...@husc.harvard.edu
I want to kill everyone here with a cute colorful Hydrogen
Bomb!!
Gary Boos
12kyu. I think some skills are transferable eg. planning ,visualation,
the ability to learn. I bought 11 books and play every week - we'll see
how good I am a year from now.
Ilmin Kim
I can play many chesses and go. (Orient countries have their chess games
the rules are very similar to the western chess)
My answer is simple one.
Go (Baduk) is much better than chess.
Chess is a simple game and strategic depth is very shallow.
Go looks like more simpler but it should take your life time to master it.
I. Kim
David Forthoffer
:
: I can play many chesses and go. (Orient countries have their chess games
: the rules are very similar to the western chess)
Neither Chinese chess nor Japanese chess is "very similar" to
western chess.
: My answer is simple one.
: Go (Baduk) is much better than chess.
: Chess is a simple game and strategic depth is very shallow.
If it's so simple, why doesn't everyone draw all their chess games?
Maybe you're just thinking of oriental chess games.
: Go looks like more simpler but it should take your life time to master it.
It takes nearly a lifetime to master chess, too.
The problem with chess is that you have to be *significantly* stronger
than your opponent to win, on average. If you're just a little stronger,
a slightly weaker opponent can draw.
Go would be the same way if you had to win by, say, 10 points.
If so, you'd see a lot of draw games at the 9-dan level.
By the way, I'm 1k* on igs, and 2260 USCF. I suspect I'm a lot stronger
at Go than you are at chess.
--
David Forthoffer NEC Technologies Printer Division
Jialin Zhong
Actually, chess indeed bears strong similarity to oriental chess. In China,
the western chess champions were often former Chineses chess players. It
only took them 2-3 years to catch up with professional chess players (of
course, those Chinese ones). I also noted that Chinese chess players (the
real good ones) liked to play Go during their non-training time, but I rarely
saw Go players play chess. But a large portion of Go players play bridge.
Chess is a fine game though I know little about how to play it.
Jialin
Chris Sanderson
elastic game. The board can change size without changing the
game. The standard go board is 19x19, but you could use a
smaller or larger board. Training boards are 13x13 I think. To
compare chess with go, you have to state the size of go board
being used. Checkers is the same way. You can change the size of
the board, increase the number of pieces without changing the
game. Chess is stuck on its 8x8 board. You couldn't play chess
on something different.
Go and checkers are too slow. It takes a long time to develop
the pieces and create strategy for the game. For this reason,
computers have a hard time with go and large sized checkers.
Chess used to be like this, pawns moved one square always, there
was no castleing. Then, chess was also slow and took time to
develop. But then chess changed into the current rules of
castleing, 2 square pawn moves and en passant capture. Chess
requires more attention and discipline that go, and its speed is
not a problem, its a feature.
-- Chess is better than go.
Michael Richard
: The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
: chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
: move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
This may be true for people who don't really know how to
play, but becomes less and less true as you become stronger.
: Chess is still better than go.
I personally feel it is the height of folly to consider
any game better than any other unless you state up front
a rigorous set of criteria. Chess and Go are both fine
games, but so are football, strip poker, and mumbly-peg.
veg
Lee Schumacher
>Go and checkers are too slow. It takes a long time to develop
^^^^^^^^
>the pieces and create strategy for the game. For this reason,
[munch]
>castleing, 2 square pawn moves and en passant capture. Chess
>requires more attention and discipline that go, and its speed is
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>not a problem, its a feature.
Huh ? overlooking the obvious ignorance of your *opinions*, aren't
you contradicting yourself ? Go is slower than chess *and* it requires
*less* concentration ? What are go players doing with all that extra
time spent developing ? whistling dixie ?
>-- Chess is better than go.
Well, that's your opinion.
Lee.
Anthony Ragan
mric...@cie-2.uoregon.edu (Michael Richard) writes:
>
>: Chess is still better than go.
>
> I personally feel it is the height of folly to consider
> any game better than any other unless you state up front
> a rigorous set of criteria. Chess and Go are both fine
> games, but so are football, strip poker, and mumbly-peg.
>
> veg
But I wouldn't recommend strip mumbly-peg. :)
--Anthony
ecz...@mvs.oac.ucla.edu -OR- Iris...@aol.com
Rune Chia Pet of Ernalda, Snotling in Chief
Wayne Folta
but don't even know what my rank was. In college, I was first exposed to GO,
and my impressions have been (hyperbole to be sure):
1. Chess is a cramped game. It is like a knife fight in a phone booth.
GO has *lots* of room on the board. Not only does it have 6x the
positions in which to place pieces, but since pieces don't move, this
space is more effectively used.
All GO games will, at some point, involve sharp, life-or-death fighting
in close quarters. But most will also involve long stretches where
opponents carve up territory, lay out frameworks, probe, etc, with no
direct fighting.
2. Chess does not give second chances. For example, there are traps
(or swindles, or whatever) that you can fall for that can lose you
a game in a very few moves.
In GO, you can lose in one corner, yet win in another. You can then
come back later and use your lost position to make gains nearby.
Another example is that you can lose a corner, but build inside
thickness. Your opponent may be skillful enough to cancel this
advantage, too, but at least you can get something out of the position
besides a total slaughter of a game.
(How many of us were slapped in the face with a snap-back the first
time we saw it? How many of us were still able to go on and make an
acceptable showing in the game? On the other hand, how many of us were
mated in 10 moves in chess?)
3. Chess is a constipated game. You can actually end up in positions where
you are injured because you *have* to move and you don't want to. You
can also tactically retreat with a piece. ("Run Away! Run Away!")
In GO, I don't think it is ever in your best interest to pass, until the
pass that signifies the game is over. And, as you take territory,
your pieces either defend that territory, or die trying. You can make
strategic retreats, but at the loss of pieces.
4. Chess is a restricted game. You begin with the same pieces in the
same places every time. And the flow of the game is, by the nature of
the goal, polarized by the locations of the two, slow-moving kings.
In GO, you construct a game, beginning with an empty board. It is
natural to move in the corners first, then edges, because of the
"terrain" advantages at the boundary of the board. But you do not
have to move there. Nor do you have to move close to your opponent
nor far from your opponent.
There is no "my side" or "your side" to direct play. You play in the
direction that makes sense, sometimes this way, sometimes that.
5. Chess is an ugly game.
In GO, everything, from the texture of the stones to the spacing of the
lines is meant to be visually pleasing. (No, the lines do not form
squares, and yes, the stones are too big to fit without jostling.) Even
the various sounds of making moves become a part of the artistic
enjoyment of the game.
(Then, at least where I've played, it's not unusual to accompany GO
playing with teas and cookies, maybe on oriental rugs. It's not just
a game, folks! ;-))
GO is not only an aesthetically pleasing game, but, to some extent,
beautiful moves are good strategic moves. It has never ceased to
amaze me that, considering the board as if it were a canvas, a move
to the most visually pleasant spot is often a strategically sound
move.
6. Chess is unbalanced. Playing someone much better than you is a waste
of time for one of you. (Either the better player plays "nice" and
gets bored, or you get butt kicked.)
GO is balanced. Handicaps allow you to play with others who are
within +/- nine steps of you. Additionally, you can play on a smaller
board (emphasizing the easier-to-grasp tactics over strategy), without
radically changing the game.
At another level, even if a better player starts to crush a group of
yours, if you can run to safety (connect the group to one that is alive),
you may: 1) actually be able to turn on the over-extended attacker, or
2) lose territory, and maybe the game, but at least have the
satisfaction of avoiding the capture of many pieces.
In fact, when you give a large handicap, you are not just having to use
your wits to compensate for a disadvantage (as you would if you gave
up a bishop, for example), you are having to fight at a more strategic
level. You almost create a fog of war. You move in such a way as to
leave many tactical questions open, creating many strategic
interconnections, and, to some degree, throwing lots of stuff in there
so that you can then overwhelm the weaker player. They might be able to
read the tactics in each area, but the areas start interacting beyond
their ability to see.
In fact, the beauty of GO is it's contrasts and the trade-offs that can
be made. The obvious goal of GO is to have more territory than your
opponent at the end. But there are two high-level strategies that can
be pursued: directly take and hold territory, or kill enemy groups to
deny him territory.
You can launch a successful attack, by moving *away* from your opponent. Moves
that build up big, strong-looking "fortresses" are probably wasteful, while
moves that create nebulous, "light" shapes are good. Attaching to a stone
(moving directly adjacent to it) strengthens that stone, unless you absolutely
crush it. Etc...
Actually, now that I've spoken my piece from ignorance of the depths of
Chess, let me ask a few questions of the Chess experts out there:
* Does Chess have a strong concept of initiative (sente/gote) that GO has?
This concept, to some degree, forces even winning move combinations to
leave weaknesses or lose the initiative.
* Does Chess have a strong concept of exploitable weakness (aji) that GO has?
I'm somewhat aware of how piece trades can create weaknesses, and pawn
movements, in particular, can create irreperable structural defects. But is
it as strong an influence as aji (or shape, heavy/light moves, etc)? Unless
I'm really getting clobbered, it seems like most any tactical loss can be
done such that later tactical gain can be made. (By leaving aji.)
* Does Chess have a strong concept of the flow of play that GO has? You can
make locally good moves that go against the flow of play, and hence do
not have global power.
--
Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu)
David Forthoffer
: The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
: chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
: move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
In go, a move that loses a lot of points can lose the game, and
a move that loses a few points usually doesn't.
In chess, a move that blunders a piece can lose the game, and
a move that creates an unneccessary weakness usually doesn't.
I suspect you have no idea what constitutes a slightly weak move
in chess.
: I play these games I worry mostly about the long term prospects of
: my move without concern for the immediate impact. This is
: because one move won't have much immediate impact. In chess,
: long term strategic thinking is required. But in addition, the
: player must consider the immediate tactical situation and
: prevent any quick attacks. This two tiered nature of chess,
: versus the one for go, is what I was talking about.
When I play go, I worry a lot about the strategic impact of my move
and a lot about the local impact. Go is two-tiered in my mind.
Even if it's not, why would a one-tier nature make go better than go?
: Chess is still better than go.
Chess is still has many similarities and differences compared to go.
--
David Forthoffer (1k* 2260 USCF) NEC Technologies Printer Division
David Forthoffer
: dav...@atherton.com (David Forthoffer) writes:
:
: >Ilmin Kim (ik...@enws237.eas.asu.edu) wrote:
: >:
: >: I can play many chesses and go. (Orient countries have their chess games
: >: the rules are very similar to the western chess)
:
: >Neither Chinese chess nor Japanese chess is "very similar" to
: >western chess.
:
: the western chess champions were often former Chineses chess players. It
: only took them 2-3 years to catch up with professional chess players (of
: course, those Chinese ones). I also noted that Chinese chess players (the
: real good ones) liked to play Go during their non-training time, but I rarely
: saw Go players play chess. But a large portion of Go players play bridge.
: Chess is a fine game though I know little about how to play it.
Well, maybe we have different ideas about what is "very similar".
I think the Chinese chess aspects of restricting the king to a 3x3 area,
having generally slow-moving pieces, and restricting the power of a
promoted pawn makes it very different from western chess.
I think the Japanese chess aspect of being able to use captured enemy
pieces as your own makes it very different from western chess.
ToeKnee
Sanderson) wrote:
> The previous poster believes that because a game is slow, the
> player must concentrate harder and longer because of all the
> moves required to develop the game.
No, he was explaining that since go is more complicated, it requires
more time to think and, consequently, more concentration. I think that
'concentrating harder' is a notion that has relevance only if you can
somehow quantify the 'density' of thought. This being the case, let's
just assume that the length of time that a player concentrates (relative
to other games, let's say) is the only important variable to consider when
analyzing 'levels' of concentration in a game.
>...I was refering to the way small errors in chess are pounced upon quickly,
> and how hard it is to make the right move. Concentration is needed
because the
> consequences of an error in chess is far higher than in other games. The speed
> of chess is what gives it this edgy quality.
I certainly do agree with your description of how even the smallest
error can lead to disaster in chess, and that you really need to focus
your attentions on the game in order to avert calamity. However, isn't
this true of most things? And why can't this be true for go?
It sounds like you have a very 'chess-centric' view of games.
Certainly, the consequnces of error in chess is high, but this is a
perception that is based on a level of understanding about chess which is
deep. Possibly, if you were to have a similar deep perception of go, you
would also have the capacity to recognize that the consequences of an
error in go, even a small one, are also great.
Go is a game that you can win by one point, and if you make an error
that is valued at one point, you could lose the whole game. Think about
it. Think about the level of concentration you have to maintain to assure
yourself that you aren't losing a point here, a point there, how careful
you have to be to avoid playing sequences which turn out to leave you a
point down in the denouement. This always leaves me feeling 'edgy'.
> In go, no pieces move at all, it's a static game. It's modern chess that
> has overcome these problems (which other games don't even think
> are problems) and works well.
Just because 'no pieces move' in go doesn't mean that it is a static
game. Open your mind a little.
> The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
> chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
> move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
How did this person get ahead in the first place? Luck?
If a person is ahead in a game of chess and they make a weak move, do
they automatically lose?
Are you trying to say that it really doesn't matter *that much* if you
make a bad move in go? I wish I could have such a carefree appraisal of
my own game; instead, I worry about every mistake I make, and
subsequently try to improve my game so those tiny consequences of my bad
moves don't force me to consistently take handicap stones from stronger
players who don't make those tiny, inconsequential mistakes as often as I
do.
Give me an example of a bad move in go that has a smaller consequence
than an analagous move in chess, and then I'll show you how a person ahead
can lose after a single 'weak' move in go. It is not wise to
overgeneralize.
> To answer the question, yes, they are whistling dixie. When I
> play these games I worry mostly about the long term prospects of
> my move without concern for the immediate impact.
Then I would say you are an unskilled go player, with very little
understanding of the game. I don't think you are fit to argue a pro/con
case of go vs. chess.
> This is because one move won't have much immediate impact.
Duh! Are you kidding? The group isn't in atari, right?
> In chess, long term strategic thinking is required. But in addition, the
> player must consider the immediate tactical situation and
> prevent any quick attacks. This two tiered nature of chess,
> versus the one for go, is what I was talking about.
Ok, so chess is two-tiered. Big deal. Go is infinitely-tiered.
> Chess is still better than go.
Opinions are not facts... and a weakly argued opinion is certainly won't
win others to your viewpoint. Try arguing your point again after you
become a dan-level go player, or stop trying to discuss something you
obviously don't understand.
--
ToeKnee, 2d* toe...@teleport.com
Mason House Co-Op
Chris Sanderson
cconcentration*.
The previous poster believes that because a game is slow, the
player must concentrate harder and longer because of all the
whisting dixie?" These two things are not a contradiction but
rather go together. I was refering to the way small errors in
chess are pounced upon quickly, and how hard it is to make the
right move. Concentration is needed because the consequences of
an error in chess is far higher than in other games. The speed
with no castleing and 1 move pawns. Those are he old rules. Its
slow, and to be honest feels a good deal like checkers. In go,
no pices move at all, its a static game. Its modern chess that
has overcome these problems (which other games don't even think
are problems) and works well.
The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
To answer the question, yes, they are whistling dixie. When I
play these games I worry mostly about the long term prospects of
my move without concern for the immediate impact. This is
because one move won't have much immediate impact. In chess,
long term strategic thinking is required. But in addition, the
player must consider the immediate tactical situation and
prevent any quick attacks. This two tiered nature of chess,
versus the one for go, is what I was talking about.
Chess is still better than go.
Scott Brown
>Chris Sanderson wrote:
>> In go, no pieces move at all, it's a static game. It's modern chess that
>> has overcome these problems (which other games don't even think
>> are problems) and works well.
ToeKnee writes:
> Just because 'no pieces move' in go doesn't mean that it is a static
>game. Open your mind a little.
Furthermore, it's not true that the pieces don't move. They
move from the bowl of stones onto the board, after which they
don't move again (unless removed). Until placed on the board,
each stone is identical; after being played, no two stones are
alike (indeed, a stone may change purposes many times).
That sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be so. Consider:
while it is true that the _position_ of a stone, once placed,
cannot be changed, in go the _role_ the stone plays can change
several times. It may begin as an extension into uncharted
territory, then turn into part of an iron post or the base
of a running group. Later, it may be treated as an unimportant
kikashi stone, until the opponent ignores a ko threat and the
stone becomes the launching point for an invasion of the
opponents corner.
In go, the positions of stones are less flexible than in
chess but the roles of each stone can be far more flexible.
Rooks, bishops and queens, while employable in many
configurations, do not change their "character" as much
as a stone may do so.
>Chris Sanderson wrote:
>> In chess, long term strategic thinking is required. But in
>> addition, the player must consider the immediate tactical
>> situation and prevent any quick attacks. This two tiered nature
>> of chess, versus the one for go, is what I was talking about.
This is a joke, right? You aren't _really_ saying there's no
need for tactical thinking in go?
>Chris Sanderson wrote:
>> Chess is still better than go.
This is also a joke, right? It would, after all, be very
childish to claim one's own tastes and hobbies are the
"best ones".
Scott Brown
Lee Schumacher
>Contradiction between being *too slow* and requiring *less
>cconcentration*.
>The previous poster believes that because a game is slow, the
>player must concentrate harder and longer because of all the
>moves required to develop the game. "What are they doing,
>whisting dixie?" These two things are not a contradiction but
>rather go together. I was refering to the way small errors in
>chess are pounced upon quickly, and how hard it is to make the
>right move. Concentration is needed because the consequences of
>an error in chess is far higher than in other games. The speed
Well, this is just flat out false. Why don't you go out and
study go, and learn something about the game before you spew
out crap like this. Try logging in to the internet go server
and play a real go player and just see how long it takes for
your 'small' errors to be pounced on. Try studying professional
games and reading professional commentaries on them and see
what effects a small mistake can have on the whole course
of a game.
>of chess is what gives it this edgy quality. I've played chess
>with no castleing and 1 move pawns. Those are he old rules. Its
>slow, and to be honest feels a good deal like checkers.
> In go,
>no pices move at all, its a static game.
Just because the pieces don't move doesn't mean that its static.
You're obviously too ignorant to recognize the flow and the beauty of go.
> Its modern chess that
>has overcome these problems (which other games don't even think
>are problems) and works well.
>The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
>chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
>move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
And how did you get ahead ?
>To answer the question, yes, they are whistling dixie. When I
>play these games I worry mostly about the long term prospects of
>my move without concern for the immediate impact. This is
>because one move won't have much immediate impact. In chess,
>long term strategic thinking is required. But in addition, the
>player must consider the immediate tactical situation and
>prevent any quick attacks. This two tiered nature of chess,
>versus the one for go, is what I was talking about.
There's more than one tier to go, in fact there are so many
tiers to go that you can't even percieve the gradations.
And besides, your whole analysis conviently ignores the one clear
advantage of go - no draws. In many chess positions even large
material advantages don't ensure a win. Draws represent a significant
portion of the games at high levels in chess, this is because the
advantage of the opening move is probably insufficient to ensure a win
for white. Within that space of drawn games there is plenty of room
for blundering without affecting the final outcome of the game, or
possibly changing wins to draws. In go correct play from a superior
position always results in a win.
>Chess is still better than go.
I don't know why i let this obvious flame bate annoy me ...
David Forthoffer
:
: 1. Chess is a cramped game. It is like a knife fight in a phone booth.
What does that have to do with being a better or worse game?
: 2. Chess does not give second chances. For example, there are traps
: (or swindles, or whatever) that you can fall for that can lose you
: a game in a very few moves.
Chess *does* give second chances. Very rarely does the first mistake
in the game cause a loss.
: 3. Chess is a constipated game. You can actually end up in positions where
: you are injured because you *have* to move and you don't want to. You
: can also tactically retreat with a piece. ("Run Away! Run Away!")
Why does *having* to move make chess inferior to go?
: 4. Chess is a restricted game. You begin with the same pieces in the
: same places every time. And the flow of the game is, by the nature of
: the goal, polarized by the locations of the two, slow-moving kings.
:
: In GO, you construct a game, beginning with an empty board. It is
: natural to move in the corners first, then edges, because of the
: "terrain" advantages at the boundary of the board. But you do not
: have to move there. Nor do you have to move close to your opponent
: nor far from your opponent.
:
: There is no "my side" or "your side" to direct play. You play in the
: direction that makes sense, sometimes this way, sometimes that.
In go, there is "my areas" and "your areas" after just a few moves.
One of the exciting aspects of chess is that the main target *can* change
positions geographically. That generally doesn't happen much in go
(except furikawari).
: 5. Chess is an ugly game.
:
: In GO, everything, from the texture of the stones to the spacing of the
: lines is meant to be visually pleasing. (No, the lines do not form
: squares, and yes, the stones are too big to fit without jostling.) Even
: the various sounds of making moves become a part of the artistic
: enjoyment of the game.
:
: (Then, at least where I've played, it's not unusual to accompany GO
: playing with teas and cookies, maybe on oriental rugs. It's not just
: a game, folks! ;-))
:
: GO is not only an aesthetically pleasing game, but, to some extent,
: beautiful moves are good strategic moves. It has never ceased to
: amaze me that, considering the board as if it were a canvas, a move
: to the most visually pleasant spot is often a strategically sound
: move.
Just about everything you've said about go can or does apply to chess.
: 6. Chess is unbalanced. Playing someone much better than you is a waste
: of time for one of you. (Either the better player plays "nice" and
: gets bored, or you get butt kicked.)
That's not the usual meaning of "unbalanced".
I think you mean, "Chess is not easily handicappable."
I'll agree with that.
: At another level, even if a better player starts to crush a group of
: yours, if you can run to safety ... (and take a while to lose)
That's easy to do in chess, too.
In chess, no one in the world can checkmate me in under 50 moves if I don't
want them to.
In go, no one in the world can capture any of my groups if I don't
want them to.
The method is the same: I give up the game strategically in return
for living longer tactically.
: In fact, when you give a large handicap, you are not just having to use
: your wits to compensate for a disadvantage (as you would if you gave
: up a bishop, for example), you are having to fight at a more strategic
: level. You almost create a fog of war. You move in such a way as to
: leave many tactical questions open, creating many strategic
: interconnections, and, to some degree, throwing lots of stuff in there
: so that you can then overwhelm the weaker player. They might be able to
: read the tactics in each area, but the areas start interacting beyond
: their ability to see.
Your comments apply equally to chess.
: In fact, the beauty of GO is it's contrasts and the trade-offs that can
: be made. The obvious goal of GO is to have more territory than your
: opponent at the end. But there are two high-level strategies that can
: be pursued: directly take and hold territory, or kill enemy groups to
: deny him territory.
In chess, the obvious goal is to capture the enemy king.
There are *lots* of subordinate strategies that can be used.
: Actually, now that I've spoken my piece from ignorance of the depths of
: Chess, let me ask a few questions of the Chess experts out there:
:
: * Does Chess have a strong concept of initiative (sente/gote) that GO has?
: This concept, to some degree, forces even winning move combinations to
: leave weaknesses or lose the initiative.
Chess has a very similar concept of initiative.
: * Does Chess have a strong concept of exploitable weakness (aji) that GO has?
: I'm somewhat aware of how piece trades can create weaknesses, and pawn
: movements, in particular, can create irreperable structural defects. But is
: it as strong an influence as aji (or shape, heavy/light moves, etc)? Unless
: I'm really getting clobbered, it seems like most any tactical loss can be
: done such that later tactical gain can be made. (By leaving aji.)
Actually, I think aji is not high on the list of exploitable weaknesses
in a typical go game. By its very nature, you cannot guarantee that aji
will have *any* affect on the game. For example, suppose you mess up a
corner so you get less than you should have, but you have some aji whereby
if you were to get a stone somewhat nearby you could invade his territory.
Through skill and/or luck, you may be able to play so that he would have
to spend a move killing the aji -- making the aji successful. But the
game *may* take a turn (without regard to your aji) where you will never
make use of this aji.
Every go game *does* have lots of exploitable weaknesses that are not aji.
For example, the san-ren-sai trades outward influence for a weakness on
the 3-3 points. This balance of strengths and weaknesses is part of the game.
Chess games also have exploitable weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses
are fairly static (pawn structure), where devoting a single move to the
defense of such a weakness will not repair it. Other weaknesses are
dynamic, such a falling behind in development; devoting a single move
to such weaknesses will often repair it.
Both games have extreme depth and variety in dealing with multiple
weaknesses. Go generally has more weaknesses involved in a single game,
but the relationships between weaknesses in chess are more complex.
: * Does Chess have a strong concept of the flow of play that GO has? You can
: make locally good moves that go against the flow of play, and hence do
: not have global power.
Definitely. Annotators often speak of one player "losing the thread of
the game".
: --
: Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu)
You've convinced me you like go more than chess,
but that doesn't mean go is *better* than chess.
I also like go more than chess. I don't think go is "better" than chess,
any more than I think apples are "better" than oranges. They're different.
Chess does have one aspect that definitely lowers the excitement level
compared to go. That is the possibility of a drawn game. One must be
significantly stronger than your opponent to win, on average.
The analogy in go would be as if you had to get 10 more points than
your opponent in order to win.
--
David Forthoffer (1k* 2260 USCF) NEC Technologies Printer Division
Wayne Folta
>
>What does that have to do with being a better or worse game?
I never said that go was better than chess. In fact, you cut out my first
paragraph that specifically stated that this was my hyperbolic *impressions*.
The title of this thread is not "is go better than chess", but "how does go
compare with chess". I was comparing go and chess. Seems I hit a sore spot
for you.
>: 2. Chess does not give second chances. For example, there are traps
>: (or swindles, or whatever) that you can fall for that can lose you
>: a game in a very few moves.
>
>Chess *does* give second chances. Very rarely does the first mistake
>in the game cause a loss.
I must tread lightly here, because I do not know chess well. But is your
statement true mainly because there are many draws in chess? And does it
apply to a small misplay, or, say, the loss of a piece? I'm not talking
about little tiny mistakes here, since both Chess and GO obviously forgive
more than one small mistake.
You still did not address my point about chess traps and swindles. They may
not affect even novices, but us untrained rookies *do* fall for them. One of
the last games of chess I ever played (having played against smart friends for
10 years), was one where I was crushed by a stranger in about 10 moves.
>: 3. Chess is a constipated game. You can actually end up in positions where
>: you are injured because you *have* to move and you don't want to. You
>: can also tactically retreat with a piece. ("Run Away! Run Away!")
>
>Why does *having* to move make chess inferior to go?
You are using the word "inferior". I'll state it again: I don't like a game
where it is possible to be in a position where you lose because it is your
turn to move, you can move, but it is to your disadvantage to move. No other
game comes immediately to mind as having that problem.
>: 4. Chess is a restricted game. You begin with the same pieces in the
>: same places every time. And the flow of the game is, by the nature of
>: the goal, polarized by the locations of the two, slow-moving kings.
>:
>: In GO, you construct a game, beginning with an empty board. It is
>: natural to move in the corners first, then edges, because of the
>: "terrain" advantages at the boundary of the board. But you do not
>: have to move there. Nor do you have to move close to your opponent
>: nor far from your opponent.
>:
>: There is no "my side" or "your side" to direct play. You play in the
>: direction that makes sense, sometimes this way, sometimes that.
>
>In go, there is "my areas" and "your areas" after just a few moves.
No, there are "my tentative areas" and "your claimed areas". And the point
still stands, that this is fluid. No rule of the game establishes, a priori,
what parts of the board will fall into either camp.
Positional change is not as important in GO as a change in size. Sure, I
can map out a big area along one edge. But do I get it all, or is it
narrowed down to a pittance?
Later, you talk about the complex strategy of Chess, but I'll say again that
the two kings polarize Chess strategy, don't they? At least, once castling has
occurred, isn't strategy pretty-much grouped by the relationship between the
two kings? (I.e. are both on the same side, or on opposing sides, etc.?)
>One of the exciting aspects of chess is that the main target *can* change
>positions geographically. That generally doesn't happen much in go
>(except furikawari).
In GO, there is no game-long main target. That's Chess-think. As you know, the
area of the GO board that is currently a "main target" (if I can loosley use
the term) continually changes.
This "main target can move" idea is similar to the people who are complaining
that GO pieces don't move, so the game is static. An individual piece does
not move, but it's meaning changes, it's group changes, etc. It is not static.
>: 5. Chess is an ugly game.
>:
>: In GO, everything, from the texture of the stones to the spacing of the
>: lines is meant to be visually pleasing. (No, the lines do not form
>: squares, and yes, the stones are too big to fit without jostling.) Even
>: the various sounds of making moves become a part of the artistic
>: enjoyment of the game.
>:
>: (Then, at least where I've played, it's not unusual to accompany GO
>: playing with teas and cookies, maybe on oriental rugs. It's not just
>: a game, folks! ;-))
>:
>: GO is not only an aesthetically pleasing game, but, to some extent,
>: beautiful moves are good strategic moves. It has never ceased to
>: amaze me that, considering the board as if it were a canvas, a move
>: to the most visually pleasant spot is often a strategically sound
>: move.
>
>Just about everything you've said about go can or does apply to chess.
Please explain. It's true that you can have pretty wooden chess pieces. Maybe
even one of those nifty-cool pewter Civil War sets (gag). But the board and
pieces are *not* designed, per se, based on aesthetic principles.
The distinction is: designed for aesthetic pleasure, versus maybe containing
individual elements that, chosen by a particular person, happen to be pretty.
The bottom line is that GO has been shaped in a culture that emphasized
beauty as a part of everything, while Chess has been shaped by a culture
that emphasized logic over everything. (Not criticizing here. I like
Western Culture. Just observing.)
>: 6. Chess is unbalanced. Playing someone much better than you is a waste
>: of time for one of you. (Either the better player plays "nice" and
>: gets bored, or you get butt kicked.)
>
>That's not the usual meaning of "unbalanced".
>I think you mean, "Chess is not easily handicappable."
>I'll agree with that.
Yes, handicappable is probably a better word. Maybe I should say that GO is
robustly balanced, while Chess is precariously balanced. That allows GO to
be handicapped more easily, since a slight shift does not make it come
crashing down. But I think balance, in this sense, is deeper than simply
handicappability. (Wow, is that a word, or what?)
>: At another level, even if a better player starts to crush a group of
>: yours, if you can run to safety ... (and take a while to lose)
>
>That's easy to do in chess, too.
>In chess, no one in the world can checkmate me in under 50 moves if I don't
> want them to.
>In go, no one in the world can capture any of my groups if I don't
> want them to.
>The method is the same: I give up the game strategically in return
> for living longer tactically.
Running with a group may yield up lots of territory to your opponent, losing
you the game. It may also allow you to turn on your opponent who now finds
himself overextended. It is not simply a tactical victory versus a strategic
defeat.
How many times have you had a weaker player (usually a novice) attempt to
crush a group, not realizing that their "strong" attack is actually
strengthening your position, while a more distant "attack" would actually
hurt you more? We've all been involved in life-and-death struggles where
both players cross a line: if the group succesfully runs, the attacker has
lost way too much territory and has left way too many pieces vulnerable to
win, and if the group does not make it, the defender has invasion-proofed
a large territory and will lose.
I'm not sure that Chess has a similar concept.
>: In fact, when you give a large handicap, you are not just having to use
>: your wits to compensate for a disadvantage (as you would if you gave
>: up a bishop, for example), you are having to fight at a more strategic
>: level. You almost create a fog of war. You move in such a way as to
>: leave many tactical questions open, creating many strategic
>: interconnections, and, to some degree, throwing lots of stuff in there
>: so that you can then overwhelm the weaker player. They might be able to
>: read the tactics in each area, but the areas start interacting beyond
>: their ability to see.
>
>Your comments apply equally to chess.
Seeing as a chess board is 1/6 the size of a GO board, and seeing that Chess
pieces interact directly, while GO pieces often interact communally, and without
direct contact or threat of contact, I don't see how it applies equally well
to chess. But I will freely admit I gave up chess years ago for GO. And I wasn't
that good, I would guess.
>: In fact, the beauty of GO is it's contrasts and the trade-offs that can
>: be made. The obvious goal of GO is to have more territory than your
>: opponent at the end. But there are two high-level strategies that can
>: be pursued: directly take and hold territory, or kill enemy groups to
>: deny him territory.
>
>In chess, the obvious goal is to capture the enemy king.
>There are *lots* of subordinate strategies that can be used.
Please expand this. If by that, you mean, "control the center" I would
call this a tactic, not a strategy. I guess that I just cannot see much room
in Chess for strategy, as opposed to drawn-out tactics.
In the particular example of directly taking territory, or killing enemy groups,
what might be a Chess comparison? Attack the king directly or capture all of
his pieces except the king? Doesn't sound like two undamentally different
strategies to me.
>: Actually, now that I've spoken my piece from ignorance of the depths of
>: Chess, let me ask a few questions of the Chess experts out there:
>:
>: * Does Chess have a strong concept of initiative (sente/gote) that GO has?
>: This concept, to some degree, forces even winning move combinations to
>: leave weaknesses or lose the initiative.
>
>Chess has a very similar concept of initiative.
To the extent that even winning plays must often be followed up with
initiative-losing moves? One of the skills of GO is being able to judge
the value of moves in such a way that you know when continuing with the
initiative will gain you less than yielding the initiative to tidy loose ends.
>: * Does Chess have a strong concept of exploitable weakness (aji) that GO has?
>: I'm somewhat aware of how piece trades can create weaknesses, and pawn
>: movements, in particular, can create irreperable structural defects. But is
>: it as strong an influence as aji (or shape, heavy/light moves, etc)? Unless
>: I'm really getting clobbered, it seems like most any tactical loss can be
>: done such that later tactical gain can be made. (By leaving aji.)
>
>Actually, I think aji is not high on the list of exploitable weaknesses
>in a typical go game. By its very nature, you cannot guarantee that aji
>will have *any* affect on the game. For example, suppose you mess up a
True. And one of the skills of an advanced GO player is weighing the value
of a particular aji, and being patient enough to wait to use it effectively.
Time may see the aji eliminated. But the good player has weighed out things,
and has done higher-priority things first.
In many cases, aji-erasure costs the opponent something even if not directly
lost territory: sente, flexibility in choice of moves, etc. You don't have to
poke at an aji, forcing a defensive move, in order to profit from it.
Again, the trade-offs, the give-and-take, the duality of GO is its beauty.
:
: Deleted
:
>Both games have extreme depth and variety in dealing with multiple
>weaknesses. Go generally has more weaknesses involved in a single game,
>but the relationships between weaknesses in chess are more complex.
>
>: * Does Chess have a strong concept of the flow of play that GO has? You can
>: make locally good moves that go against the flow of play, and hence do
>: not have global power.
>
>Definitely. Annotators often speak of one player "losing the thread of
>the game".
Ah, good to hear. Though I still wonder if it is directly comparable to GO.
After all, GO is, to some extent, nine games that share overlapping boards,
and which profoundly influence each other.
You can do cool stuff in one corner, but be playing in the wrong direction,
actually weakening the edge or another corner. I can't see someone fiddling
off in the corner of a Chess board, doing cool stuff with his rook and
knight, only to discover that it actually weakens his other side. You are always
focused by your and your opponent's kings. You don't have to make widely
separated moves work together.
>You've convinced me you like go more than chess,
>but that doesn't mean go is *better* than chess.
I never said it was better. I was comparing them, with my impressions. And
this is completely in keeping with the thread's subject.
--
Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu)
Ed Wilkinson
most interesting, and look forward to learning more about go. Long may the
discussion continue! Of course, we could always cross post to
rec.games.chess :-)
Ed
--
Ed Wilkinson e...@ima.com
Roy Langston
>
> I was refering to the way small errors in
> chess are pounced upon quickly, and how hard it is to make the
> right move. Concentration is needed because the consequences of
> an error in chess is far higher than in other games.
You have misunderstood what I consider the fundamental appeal of go, the
thing that sets it apart from -- and IMHO above -- all other games in the
same category, incuding chess. In go, you have more _good_ moves to choose
from at each decision point. This gives go a freedom, a meaning, and a
strategic depth that chess cannot approach. Just ask a computer which game
is deeper :^)
> In go, no pices move at all, its a static game.
This is like saying warfare is static because fortifications do not move
when they are overrun. True, a go stone's position does not change unless
it is captured. However, it's _function_ may change dramatically and
repeatedly over the course of a game. Chess players usually have a hard
time understanding this.
>
> The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
> chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
> move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
Again, you have misunderstood. The consequences of a bad move are just as
serious in go as in chess. It's just that the meaning of each move in go
is far more complicated than the meaning of a move in chess, and there is a
much larger continuum between the best move and the worst.
>
> To answer the question, yes, they are whistling dixie.
Wrong pronoun. It is you who are whistling dixie. _They_ are considering
strategic issues you are neither strong enough to understand nor
open-minded enough to believe exist. I submit in evidence:
> When I play these games I worry mostly about the long term prospects of
> my move without concern for the immediate impact. This is
> because one move won't have much immediate impact.
Tell you what: send me a record of just the first few dozen moves from one
of your games, along with a commentary of what you think they mean. I'll
bet I can tell you a lot about your moves (and yourself) that you never
knew before.
>
> In chess, long term strategic thinking is required.
Wrong again. There are strong computer chess programs that do virtually no
strategic thinking at all. They think only of material, and they can beat
grandmasters in blitz.
> Chess is still better than go.
Chess is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freedom and
opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
presented by go...
-- Roy
Paul Neureiter
Both Chairman Mao and the
HW> C.I.A. highly esteemed *go*, although neither played it [subject to
HW> correction on the latter, although safe enough for the high officials
HW> known to me] and only the former of the two effectively promoted it.
Unfortunately, Mao did not do a great job of promoting go. In fact he banned
it as a "bourgouis influence" or something like that. BTW, Go was one of the
four arts that needed to be mastered by noblemen in ancient china. The other
three were calligraphy, poetry, and music. It was only recently that Chinese
were allowed to play out in the open again (i.e. with the sponsorship of the
government) This is why there are very few stories of Chinese pros between
1945 and 1975: there were no Chinese pros!
Lance A. Brown
You all do realize that arguing over which game, chess or go, is
better is a religious argument that cannot be decided....
:-)
Lance
Michael Sullivan
Chris Sanderson <cis...@gamma.std.com> wrote:
>rather go together. I was refering to the way small errors in
>chess are pounced upon quickly, and how hard it is to make the
>right move. Concentration is needed because the consequences of
>an error in chess is far higher than in other games. The speed
[...munch...]
>The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
>chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
>move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
You are correct. Some people *like* this aspect of go. One of the
things that always disturbed/frustrated me about chess was that I could
build up a winning game with superior play, but there were still tons of
chances to throw that win away with a single careless move. It's true
that in go, you can build nearly insurmountable leads, but to do so, you
have to play significantly better than your opponent for a long time.
Small leads change hands easily. In chess there really are no leads
except at levels where major tactical blunders never happen.
Chacun a son gout (Where's that cedilla?!:)) You like being terribly
nervous and edgy the whole game. *I* like being able to focus in a
natural way that is similar to the way I focus on real life problems. Go,
for me is good practice at problem solving in general. Unless the
problems you care to solve involve highly critical tactical decisions made
at lightning speed (such as flying a fighter plane) chess is less of an
analogy.
I've met a lot of very strong chess players who think that the game of go
is a lot bigger and more interesting. That once you have eliminated the
tactical blunders from your game (which is done all the time by amateur
players), chess becomes a research contest -- to find an opening or
variation your opponent won't be familiar with, because the kinds of
tactical/strategical mistakes that top players make are too small to
determine the game. In go even top players make plenty of small errors
This is true of chess too. but in go these very small errors add up to the
difference in the game, in chess there is a certain fairly large
discrepancy (to a very good player) that must be met otherwise there will
be a draw.
I wonder how much go you have played. I don't like to make
generalizations, but in my experience, people who have gotten beyond
novice rankings in both games (say ~1400 Elo and 3-4kyu) nearly always
prefer go, often to the point where they give up chess almost completely.
If you're still with me, you are reading the words of one such person
right now.
That's skewed of course, because it's harder to find go games. Anyone
who gets to 3-4kyu has to do a lot more logistical work than they had to
to play the chess, so they probably did it because they were plenty
interested in go.
Don't get me wrong, chess is a *great* game. It's the only game I've
played that even deserves comparison with go:). (although I hear tell
that some of the oriental variants of chess are also quite good).
Mike
--
________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sullivan (Society for the Incurably Pompous) m...@pcnet.com
"Life is like a sewer -- what you get out of it, depends on what you put
into it." -- Tom Lehrer.
Ioffe Nick
I think Go requires much more stamina than Chess.
Nick.
Gary Boos
evan behre
: e...@netcom.com (Ed Wilkinson) writes:
: --
: Go is better than Chess. Poker is more lucrative. Sex is more fun.
worth keeping ^ ^ ^
i think chess plays an important role in developing the minds and
analytical ability of future go players, especially in the western world.
when i was growing up, my dad taught me how to play chess. i used to play
him, until i started beating him. ~-(
i enjoyed chess matches with friends and thought i was pretty good, got a
second place trophy at a chess tournament in college (big deal).
i learned about go from a friend in high school, whom i would play all
sorts of other board games with. when i went to college and discovered
the go club scene and the a.g.a. tournament scene, i discovered there was
a whole lot more to go, than what i and my self-taught buddies had
previously imagined. as i learned more about go, and my imagination was
captured, i just gave up chess. i considered go to be more open, more
wonderous, more intuitive, etc, and chess appeared to be so constipated,
etc. for me, go is prefered. let others with more ability than i play
chess, it is a fine game. after all, it led me to go.
another anecdote: i founded a club in my area: HoCoGo. we specialize in
helping beginners and double digit kyu players become stronger by giving
lessons, teaching games, lending library of go books, etc. there is this
guy from the U.K. who is a decent chess player and new to go who comes to
my club once in a while. this guy had never played any human opponents
before my club (just computer programs). he would think and take a long
time. we asked him to play a little faster since there are more moves in
a go game than in your average chess game. i could tell this guy was
burning (hard concentrating). so, he borrows a book and comes back to
club in a few weeks and plays at a level about 5 stones stronger. this
same pattern continues, and in less than a year, he is in the single
digit kyu range! he doesnt play very often, but when he does, he is
serious about it. the most impressive performance by a beginner i have
seen. i attribute his rapid improvement to his experience at "reading"
out tactical situations at the chess board.
chess is great, i prefer go. money is okay, but i prefer food.
-- -evan-
(wo shi da pangzi.) .-)
Rob Verschoor
>Subject: how does go compare with chess?
>I'm a chess player (around 2000) and am currently learning go. I'm finding
>it a bit difficult in that all the pieces are the same. There is no variey
>and it'll take some getting used to. Anyone care to comment on whether
>skills are transferrable? In both directions? What sort of time limits are
>used in go? Do good chess players make good go players, and vice versa?
>Thanks,
*The* final remark on this issue comes from the book "Shibumi" by Travanian :
"Go is to chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting"
Play it, Ed
Rob
li...@acacia.qut.edu.au
---------------------------------
I wrote the following notes a few years ago. I see that the above topic
has flared up again, so I decided to post this article again. BTW, I haven't
had time to read through all the postings yet, so it is possible that my
opinion has been voiced already.
IMHO:
Go is the most interesting, 2 person, perfect information, (zero sum)
board game ever invented. I am very good in Chinese chess (Shan-Chi)
and have played many games of English chess (YAK!) and a few games of
Japanese chess (Shogi). All the board games can be classified into 3
groups.
The first group is the simplest to play. It includes games such as gomoku,
othello(reversi), draught, Chinese-checker, etc in which the aims of the
game are to form a certain patterns and/or removal of pieces.
The second group is more difficult to play. All the different variants
of chess are in this group. The aim of this group is to capture pieces.
Pieces have different capturing/defending powers, different mobilities.
Among this group, English chess is the simplest (all congestions in the
opening, too many pawns, not enough other types, board too small).
The Chinese chess has the same number of pieces as English and plays on
a 8x8 board with a river in the middle, but because the pieces are played
on the lines, the playing space is actually 9x10. With less number of
pawns (just 5 a side), bigger playing space, other pieces such as cannons,
the middle river and a castle with 2 elephants and 2 nobles defending the
general, the game is much more interesting than English chess. During the
course of a game, there are critical board positions, bands of lines
(such as the middle river, the 3 sides of the castle) to fight for. The
core structure of the pieces/positions is less varying in time which
allows deeper analysis.
Japanese chess is the most complicated to learn. Each side has 20 pieces
to start with (on 9x9 cells), but the captured pieces can be put back
into play at any time and any position. Therefore, theoretically, one side
can end up playing the other side pieces. All pieces have the same color,
the pointed end indicates which side they belong to. Also, pieces are
promoted to more powerful pieces on reaching certain positions.
The third group's aim is to capture the playing space as well as
the opponent's pieces. IT IS THIS RULE WHICH SETS GO ABOVE ALL OTHERS.
This group has only one game called go. Japanese, Chinese, Ing's counting
rules and the Tibet's version are just minor variations. The game is the
most interesting and hardest to play well because of its goal which states
that the side with the most area wins. This means not only one has to
capture opponent's pieces but also the space on which they play.
THIS 'SPACE' GOAL MAKES THE ABOVE TWO GROUPS SUB-SETS OF THIS THIRD GROUP.
Other aspects which make the game most interesting and hardest to play well
are: (1)abstractness - all pieces are the same to start with;
(2)vitually no rules (gomuku and go have almost the same rules except the
ko rule and the 'territory point rule' for go);
(3)over 1 thousand year of recorded knowledge; (4)large board, 19x19 the
current size is just right, smaller than that, the games will be full of
close contact fightings all the time, whilst bigger than that, the games
will be peacefull co-existent ways to achieve areas.
Also, I don't think any person in the world can invent a better board game
than go using such simple playing equipment and rules. A better game
would have to be in the third group with may be different types of
equipments and rules. I can't think of one to better go. By the way,
the chess and go all originated from the same place in Tibet about 4000
years ago.
One more thing about go is that, although the game has few rules, it
is quite hard for children to be interested in go because of the
abstractness of the game. The kids need real-life experiences to gain the
strategy, tactic, computational and value system which are vital in the
game. Another thing is: the moves are elemental, nothing seems to happen
(unlike in chess where every move resulted in an immediate change visibly,
this could make the chess game players played with shallow-thinking moves)
until sufficient stones are built up which finally cause some visible
change to the board. This slow build-up of stones all over the board is
the reason why strong players can think many hundred moves
(professionals:thousands; Yoshio Ishida 9Dan once mentioned a hugh
number which I forgot) because the move tree are built up over time and
human mind can retain and rebuild the move tree after each move.
How-Hie Ling.
(h.l...@qut.edu.au)
(holder of about 1000 books and mags. on go).
Jim Hill
>Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu) wrote
>
>Actually, I think aji is not high on the list of exploitable weaknesses
>in a typical go game. By its very nature, you cannot guarantee that aji
>will have *any* affect on the game. For example, suppose you mess up a
>corner so you get less than you should have, but you have some aji whereby
>if you were to get a stone somewhat nearby you could invade his territory.
>Through skill and/or luck, you may be able to play so that he would have
>to spend a move killing the aji -- making the aji successful. But the
>game *may* take a turn (without regard to your aji) where you will never
>make use of this aji.
I'm ~21k on igs, very, very weak, and I can tell you you're missing the
point. If you're not tracking and exploiting aji you're not, IMAO, playing
Go. A single, isolated stone can have pervasive, global impact -- if you
can see and exploit its potential. "Through skill and/or luck", eh? If
you see the aji and exploit it, it means your opponent did not see the aji
or could not find a way to counteract it. If you didn't intentionally
produce the aji, well, that's what makes stronger players, isn't it.
The stones don't move, but the aji is like an electric field flowing
across the whole board, and the game is to see how to produce it and
how to use it. Or a weather system: heard of the "butterfly effect"?
Violent storms or a light breeze, can you ride the winds? Summon them?
How's your touch?
Ever play a game where both you and your opponent/partner get the feeling
you're being taken for a ride? Surfing a wave and just trying not to
wipe out it's so out of control? Happens to me sometimes. Look at an
empty board after one of those, I see something I haven't the words
to describe.
Jim
--
Jim Hill
jth...@netcom.com.
Chris Sanderson
about go. You people must like it a lot. For me, chess takes
less time, and I don't have much time.
I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
either slow or to big for memory. Is there any public-domain go
game I can download and practice with? I have an old 286 machine
with only 2meg of memory.
Lee Schumacher
>It seems I have stired up a hornets nest of people defensive
>about go. You people must like it a lot. For me, chess takes
>less time, and I don't have much time.
Well, as an avid go player, even i must admit that there's nothing
like a good game of blitz to get the adreneline pumping :-).
>I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
>go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
>either slow or to big for memory.
bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
>Is there any public-domain go
>game I can download and practice with? I have an old 286 machine
>with only 2meg of memory.
The public domain programs are all on the internet go archives
which is in (last i checked) bsdserver.ucsf.edu in the directory
pub/go (or something similar). Check the FAQ for rec.games.go
if I got it wrong. I warn you that the programs available there
are pathetically weak! However there is a lot of instructional
material there, as well as information about how to get on
the internet go server. Thats the place to get a real education ...
good luck,
Lee.
Paul A. Lane
>My answer is simple one.
>Go (Baduk) is much better than chess.
>Chess is a simple game and strategic depth is very shallow.
A silly question. A very silly answer. Both games have their own
intrinsic beauty and different appeal. Comparing depth on the basis
of relative computer performance (which you didn't do, but seems to
be common here) is naive. One could easily make adjustments to chess
to make it more difficult for computers, but this wouldn't improve
the game.
>Go looks like more simpler but it should take your life time to master it.
If you don't think chess takes a lifetime to master, you need to
reevaluate your analysis. The entire argument makes me think of
loves of opera and orchestral music arguing about which is better
while the rest of the world ignores them. It's to the outside they
should look. Not to one another.
Paul
--
Paul A. Lane
> The third group's aim is to capture the playing space as well as
> the opponent's pieces. IT IS THIS RULE WHICH SETS GO ABOVE ALL OTHERS.
> This group has only one game called go. Japanese, Chinese, Ing's counting
> rules and the Tibet's version are just minor variations. The game is the
> most interesting and hardest to play well because of its goal which states
> that the side with the most area wins. This means not only one has to
> capture opponent's pieces but also the space on which they play.
> THIS 'SPACE' GOAL MAKES THE ABOVE TWO GROUPS SUB-SETS OF THIS THIRD
> GROUP.
An arbitrary rule. Prior to becoming active in tourney chess, I was a
fair to middling player in both games. At the time, older chess games
could hand me my head on a platter. I could challenge a go program.
Had I devoted the effort to go that I have devoted to chess, I'd still
be a fair to middling chess player and a quite good go player.
If you believe space is not important in chess, you need to reconsider.
It is not an arbitrarily scored factor, but is one of the deepest
aspects of the game.
>(holder of about 1000 books and mags. on go).
Paul Lane
(holder of ~150 books on chess and ~5 on go)
--
Paul A. Lane
>>I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
>>go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
>>either slow or to big for memory.
>bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
>for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
>of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
>any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
Oh, please. How many idiots are going to be drawn in on this
specious argument. The number of possible moves in the tree
is no kind of evidence.
One could expand the chess board to 10x10 and add more pieces.
Would this be objectively superior to chess? No
Would there be more possible mores? Yes
Perhaps one could design an incredibly complex game that a
Cray couldn't fathom. It wouldn't be enjoyable, but at least
it's complex.
Paul
--
john_gipson
I have go nemesis, which I bought to improve my skill, and have played with
ManyFaces on IGS (available from ISHI press for $40). The problem with both
is that I always beat them! This is true even them I am IGS rated at 22kyu,
and ManyFaces is 15kyu.
I am better chess player than a go player, but my chess program always beats me.
Must be a lot harder to program go!
Benjamin K Shisler
Really? As primarily a go player, I find chess to be extremely taxing
in terms of concentration. Each play has so much pressure on it.
>
>Nick.
Ben
ToeKnee
pal...@iastate.edu (Paul A. Lane) wrote:
> In <31htcg$d...@news.doit.wisc.edu> schu...@math.wisc.edu (Lee
Schumacher) writes:
>
> >>I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
> >>go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
> >>either slow or to big for memory.
>
> >bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
> >for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
> >of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
> >any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
>
> Oh, please. How many idiots are going to be drawn in on this
> specious argument. The number of possible moves in the tree
> is no kind of evidence.
>
> One could expand the chess board to 10x10 and add more pieces.
>
> Would this be objectively superior to chess? No
>
> Would there be more possible mores? Yes
If it were simply the 'number of possible moves in the tree' (the
heuristics tree, I assume you mean), then all you would have to do is take
the proverbial Cray with a hundred different accelerator boards to make an
awesome go program fly. However, go cannot be programmed solely with
heuristics (unlike chess)... there are too many conceptual (i.e.
pattern-based/non-computational) functions to implement; no tree-based
program can compete with a human player.
So, suggesting that expanding a chessboard by 36 squares would
effectively recreating the complexity of a go board (albeit on a smaller
scale) is misguided... there apparently are certain global relationships
between stones that cannot be ignored and unfortunately *would be* if
heuristics were the only means used for programming a better computer go
game.
So, you are right... the number of possible of moves in the tree is no
kind of evidence [for the superiority of Go] :)
However, I also don't think that it is possible to just find a
supercomputer and a good computer programmer and make a
professional-strength go-playing program. I believe it will take a
dramatic change in the current academic understanding of how the human
brain learns and operates before we can even create a program that can
defeat a strong amateur.
>Perhaps one could design an incredibly complex game that a
>Cray couldn't fathom. It wouldn't be enjoyable, but at least
>it's complex.
I honestly don't think that a Cray can fathom 19x19 go... and I would
even put money on my ability to beat it giving 9 stones :)
--
ToeKnee, 2d*, 2219 USCF toe...@teleport.com
Mason House Co-Op PDX/OR/USA
Larry M. Watanabe
>One could easily make adjustments to chess
>to make it more difficult for computers, but this wouldn't improve
>the game.
This is an interesting idea. I wonder how large a chess board
would make it equivalent to go. This would depend on which pieces
were duplicated and their positions.
Maybe one could make a chess board as follows:
8n pawns
2n rooks
2n bishops
2n knights
1 king
1 queen
with the obvious arrangement.
Ok, mathematicians: in terms of possible games, for what value of
n would chess be equally complex as go?
This would be a nice response to the question "is chess as difficult
as go". We could say that both are difficult and interesting games,
but mathematically go is about the same as playing N-chess, where
N=?.
Question 2 for mathematicians: what size go board is equivalent
to the standard game of chess?
It seems to me that for this size board, one should be able to
develop go programs comparable in strength to chess programs.
I think the value would be between 9-13 size go boards.
-Larry Watanabe
Lee Schumacher
>In <31htcg$d...@news.doit.wisc.edu> schu...@math.wisc.edu (Lee Schumacher) writes:
>>bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
>>for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
>>of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
>>any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
>Oh, please. How many idiots are going to be drawn in on this
>specious argument. The number of possible moves in the tree
>is no kind of evidence.
If you will carefully review the above paragraph, nowhere will you
find any discussion of *why* current computer programs are not a match
for humans. Even played on a 9x9 board, go is still too hard for
current computer programs to pose a challenge even too novices. Since
the complexity of 9x9 go is (more) comparable to that of chess, and
since chess programs, even running on pc class hardware play better
than 95% (or whatever) of all human players, I think the conclusion
has to be that computational complexity alone is not the issue here.
>One could expand the chess board to 10x10 and add more pieces.
>Would this be objectively superior to chess? No
>Would there be more possible moves? Yes
Would humans be any better at it than machines ? I think not.
While go is computationaly much more complex than chess, it
is also more amenable to the pattern matching skills of human
beings.
The thing about chess is that it is a very linear game. Serial tasks
are ideally suited for being solved by convential computers. Playing
go fully engages the parrallel processing power of the human mind while
also requiring a great deal of serial analysis. Since serial tasks
are the ones that we are 'conscious' (arguably by definition) of, they
are much easier to program. The pattern matching which goes on in
parallel is largely unconscious, and so is much more difficult to
translate into computer algorithms. The effect of this is that
Go 'feels' more intuitive, which is why many go players prefer it to
chess.
Personally, i only enjoy playing chess at blitz time controls,
because neither player has enough time to analyse very deeply, but
because of my go background i often have a much better strategic grasp
of the game than chess players who are much higher rated ..
>Perhaps one could design an incredibly complex game that a
>Cray couldn't fathom. It wouldn't be enjoyable, but at least
>it's complex.
Cray's don't 'fathom' anything, they're just machines. People
play go and chess because they enjoy the sense of accomplishment
they get from playing them well. You can play tic-tac-toe perfectly,
but do you derive any pleasure from it ?
sigh...
Lee.
Mark A Zabel
I'm sure he would have made similar comments on people who play that
game.
In article <toeknee-0108...@ip-ca.teleport.com>,
ToeKnee <toe...@teleport.com> wrote:
[Earlier excerpts of "debate" deleted]
>
> If it were simply the 'number of possible moves in the tree' (the
>heuristics tree, I assume you mean), then all you would have to do is take
>the proverbial Cray with a hundred different accelerator boards to make an
>awesome go program fly. However, go cannot be programmed solely with
>heuristics (unlike chess)... there are too many conceptual (i.e.
>pattern-based/non-computational) functions to implement; no tree-based
>program can compete with a human player.
>
> So, suggesting that expanding a chessboard by 36 squares would
>effectively recreating the complexity of a go board (albeit on a smaller
>scale) is misguided... there apparently are certain global relationships
>between stones that cannot be ignored and unfortunately *would be* if
>heuristics were the only means used for programming a better computer go
>game.
>
> So, you are right... the number of possible of moves in the tree is no
>kind of evidence [for the superiority of Go] :)
>
> However, I also don't think that it is possible to just find a
>supercomputer and a good computer programmer and make a
>professional-strength go-playing program. I believe it will take a
>dramatic change in the current academic understanding of how the human
>brain learns and operates before we can even create a program that can
>defeat a strong amateur.
>
>>Perhaps one could design an incredibly complex game that a
>>Cray couldn't fathom. It wouldn't be enjoyable, but at least
>>it's complex.
>
> I honestly don't think that a Cray can fathom 19x19 go... and I would
>even put money on my ability to beat it giving 9 stones :)
>
>--
>ToeKnee, 2d*, 2219 USCF toeknee@teleport.
com
>Mason House Co-Op PDX/OR/USA
-Regards, Mark
Paul A. Lane
>If you will carefully review the above paragraph, nowhere will you
>find any discussion of *why* current computer programs are not a match
>for humans.
The point was made that this is some kind of evidence for the super-
iority of go vs. chess.
>Even played on a 9x9 board, go is still too hard for
>current computer programs to pose a challenge even too novices. Since
>the complexity of 9x9 go is (more) comparable to that of chess, and
>since chess programs, even running on pc class hardware play better
>than 95% (or whatever) of all human players, I think the conclusion
>has to be that computational complexity alone is not the issue here.
Sorry. 9x9 go can be more quickly mastered than chess.
Perhaps checkers is a better analysis.
>Personally, i only enjoy playing chess at blitz time controls,
>because neither player has enough time to analyse very deeply, but
>because of my go background i often have a much better strategic grasp
>of the game than chess players who are much higher rated ..
The primary reason I dislike blitz (or to be precise, consider it only
an occasional amusement) is that games tend to be decided by blunder
rather than good moves.
>Cray's don't 'fathom' anything, they're just machines. People
>play go and chess because they enjoy the sense of accomplishment
>they get from playing them well. You can play tic-tac-toe perfectly,
>but do you derive any pleasure from it ?
I realize that picking nits is a famous net sport, but come on.
I understand exactly what computers do when processing. I suppose
I could have used an exact game theory term which wouldn't have
enlightened the post any further. However, my meaning should have
been clear.
> sigh...
> Lee.
Sigh. This is a silly squabble. A better question might be
what draws people to each of these games.
Paul
--
Chris Sanderson
more branches per node, and that more ply are needed to play
well. Go computers are no good against even a moderate go
player.
Yet the argument that says go is a better game for this reason
is spurious. This has been discussed in this thread for a while
now. Now the question is to decide if a game is "enjoyable" or
not. Now this is too subjective, it comes down to preferences
and orientation. Lets say someone likes 3x3 tic-tac-toe a whole
bunch, and prefers it over chess or go. Does this mean that 3x3
tic-tac-toe is the best game around? I don't think we want to
make things so subjective that there is no meaning to it.
I will use the concept of "diversity" to help make the question
less subjective.
* tic-tac-toe games have squares and pieces. The goal is to get
n in a row. There is not much diversity of types in this game.
* Go has only one kind of piece, again little diversity. But the
objective is to take territory, which gives it another
dimention. The game is large and complex by computational
standards, but not diversity standards.
* Chess has the square board like the others. In chess, the
different parts of the board add to its diversity: the center,
the wings, the corners. Go has this as well. Chess also has six
separate kinds of pieces, go only has one. Chess is far more
diverse than go, but go players probably don't care about that.
A similar way to say it is to ask "What is a shortest possible
way to describe the rules of the game?" Go would talk about the
board, the one piece, the atari rule, not a lot. Chess would
have to describe all six pieces, the en passant rule, castleing,
two move pawns, fifty move draws, etc. By this standard, chess
has a longer description and is more diverse.
Do the go players have something better? I would like to here
more about how the chess players exposed to go start playing go,
and go players exposed to chess keep on playing go. If I
expanded the go board, from 19x19 to 23x23 (the next prime
number) would that make it better or just bigger?
ToeKnee
mza...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Zabel) wrote:
> Yet more evidence that G.B. Shaw was correct. If he knew about Go
> I'm sure he would have made similar comments on people who play that
> game.
So what's the quote you are referring to? Do you realize I am a chess
player? Would that quote apply to me being 'a person who plays that game'
as well?
Cheers...
--
Michael Sullivan
Paul A. Lane <pal...@iastate.edu> wrote:
>
>An arbitrary rule. Prior to becoming active in tourney chess, I was a
>fair to middling player in both games. At the time, older chess games
>could hand me my head on a platter. I could challenge a go program.
>Had I devoted the effort to go that I have devoted to chess, I'd still
>be a fair to middling chess player and a quite good go player.
Don't be so sure. Especially if we don't just accept your intial
assumptions. If you couldn't beat the go programs you played *easily* and
give them stones, you were by no means a fair to middling go player. The
strongest go playing program right now is around 10kyu AGA (which is on
the poor end of fair to middling) and it isn't readily available. common
programs vary from 12-20kyu AGA which is mostly novice to bad. 5 years
ago the *best* programs were rated at around 15-16kyu.
Also, these ratings are for playing against *new* opponents only. If you
play a particular program many times you learn it's weaknesses, and it
doesn't ever change it's game. Dave Fotland (who wrote Many Faces which
rates around 14k against new opponents) has said that some shodan players
can give it 17 stones and nearly kill everything, once they play it enough
to learn it's weaknesses. That would put it somewhere in the mid
twenties...
The median regularly rated go player in the US is 3-4k AGA, and should win
consistently at 9 stones from the better current go playing programs.
I don't know what the median regularly rated chess player is but I suspect
it's around 15-1600, which will get whacked by good programs on average.
I won't argue with your dismissal of the previous argument, it was as
weak as your go game -- but your counter is ridiculous.
Michael Sullivan
<li...@acacia.qut.edu.au> wrote:
> GO VS CHESS AND OTHER BOARD GAMES
> ---------------------------------
[ specious taxonomy of board games based on ling's personal impressions
largely deleted. ]
I have to admit that my own personal impressions of depth and complexity
follow yours to the extent that I know the games well. But your arguments
about which game is better are simply seat of the pants opinions
masquerading as informed taxonomy.
The fact that this little flame war comes up so often is simply evidence
of just how seriously both chess and go players take their favorite game.
About the only objective evidence anyone can come up with which *might*
indicate go's superiority is the size of the move tree. But this
is no indication of superiority. It is easy to design a game with a much
larger move tree than go, but which is completely uninteresting as a
game. I'm not entirely sure it is easy to design a game with as
*complex* a move tree as go, which would be uninteresting as a game...
But that's based on my own intuitive notion of complexity, not on any
good rigorous definition. If someone can come up with one, then the
hypothesis might be testable.
But still all in all, how interesting a game is, is a matter of personal
opinion. 1,000,000 chess players can stand in front of me and proclaim
that go is a boring game... and it will not change my opinion. Let them
play chess. Similarly if 1,000,000 go players stand here and tell me
that chess is a boring game. Clearly it is not to me. It occupied my
interest better than any other game except go.
And as much as I can procaim the virtues of go, there is another side
which simply says, but all those things *you* like, *I* prefer the other.
It is a worthless argument. I certainly don't want any chess players to
be herded away from trying go by domineering folks like Paul Lane and
Chris Sanderson. But neither would I try to tell people not to try chess
if they like go. I may jokingly tell a chess player that I am trying to
proselytize, that s/he may not want to play chess again once s/he learns
go... But that's not likely to keep an established chess player from
playing unless it's really true for them.
On the other hand, the attitude which does exist among a lot of chess
players that there is no other game, can be a strong deterrent for people
who might otherwise be interested in go. In the US, that's a big problem
for go players trying to expand the population. There may be a similar
problem for chess players trying to expand *their* population in Asian
countries.
So anyway, I'll readily admit that I try to lure people to the game of go
with hyperbolic comparisons to chess, but I don't think that's completely
unfair -- especially since I really do feel that way. And I wouldn't say
it to someone who wasn't already interested in chess and unlikely to give
it up solely on the basis of what I said.
Trying to say that there is some objective measure by which go is
better than chess is a little difficult -- none of the obvious ways to
tell work.
I feel safe in saying that chess is better than tic-tac-toe because t-t-t
is solved. Comparing, say reversi or checkers to chess is a little more
complicated. I'm inclined to believe that chess is more interesting, but
why? mostly personal preference, and aesthetic taste, and probably a
little cultural bias.
Agh. I've spent way too much time on this already. I won't spend any
more.
John Tromp
> In article <31jhu5$q...@hubcap.clemson.edu>, cis...@gamma.std.com (Chris Sanderson) writes:
> [...]
> |> If I expanded the go board, from 19x19 to 23x23 (the next prime
> |> number) would that make it better or just bigger?
>
> were done in Asia relatively recently, with professional go players.
> The conclusion was that the 17x17 game is too trivial to be
> interesting,
Haha! I almost killed myself laughing at this.
You must be confused with 7x7. Anything larger is highly nontrivial.
Why do you think professional players play 9x9 tournaments?
regards,
%!PS % -John Tromp (tr...@math.uwaterloo.ca)
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Peter Lasersohn
>* Go has only one kind of piece, again little diversity. But the
>objective is to take territory, which gives it another
>dimention. The game is large and complex by computational
>standards, but not diversity standards.
I don't think it's legitimate to compare individual pieces in go to
individual pieces in chess. This is a little like comparing
individual lines of assembly language code to individual lines of lisp
code. Just like a single command in a higher-level programming
language corresponds to a whole long program in machine language,
individual moves in chess are comparable to whole sequences of moves
in go. Individual pieces in chess correspond, not to individual
pieces in go, but to larger patterns involving several pieces. There
are a wide variety of possible patterns on this scale, some of which
come up all the time, others of which are less common -- but in any
case there are more than enough of them to produce as much "diversity"
as in chess.
A corollary of this is that a go board is not really "larger" than a
chess board, just more fine-grained. This presumably invalidates some
of the arguments based on board size that people have given in favor
of go, even while it also invalidates arguments in favor of chess like
the one above, based on piece variety.
It seems to me that chess and go are roughly comparable.
Peter Lasersohn
David Forthoffer
: >: 1. Chess is a cramped game. It is like a knife fight in a phone booth.
: >What does that have to do with being a better or worse game?
:
: I never said that go was better than chess.
Sorry. I was confusing your article with another that did say that.
: >Chess *does* give second chances. Very rarely does the first mistake
: >in the game cause a loss.
:
: I must tread lightly here, because I do not know chess well. But is your
: statement true mainly because there are many draws in chess?
Yes.
: And does it apply to a small misplay, or, say, the loss of a piece?
A small misplay.
: I'm not talking about little tiny mistakes here, since both
: Chess and GO obviously forgive more than one small mistake.
No, Go is *much* less forgiving than chess concerning "tiny" mistakes,
since the margin of victory is much smaller. You have this perception
because your Go opponents are forgiving (due to their lack of skill
to take advantage of your mistake(s)).
: You still did not address my point about chess traps and swindles. They may
: not affect even novices, but us untrained rookies *do* fall for them.
Even well-trained players fall for go traps and swindles.
Do *you* know the avalanche joseki well enough to avoid its traps?
: >In go, there is "my areas" and "your areas" after just a few moves.
:
: No, there are "my tentative areas" and "your claimed areas". And the point
: still stands, that this is fluid. No rule of the game establishes, a priori,
: what parts of the board will fall into either camp.
The same goes for chess.
: Positional change is not as important in GO as a change in size. Sure, I
: can map out a big area along one edge. But do I get it all, or is it
: narrowed down to a pittance?
If you map out a big area along one edge, you should get a certain profit
from it, if you play correctly. You don't know ahead of time, though,
whether it will be in the form of territory, or a byproduct of influence.
: Later, you talk about the complex strategy of Chess, but I'll say again that
: the two kings polarize Chess strategy, don't they? At least, once castling has
: occurred, isn't strategy pretty-much grouped by the relationship between the
: two kings? (I.e. are both on the same side, or on opposing sides, etc.?)
The two kings don't polarize Chess strategy any more than getting territory
polarizes Go strategy. Chess strategy is ultimately based on capturing the
opposing king. Go strategy is ultimately based on capturing more territory
than your opponent. In both cases, this "polarization" limits the
sub-strategies at your disposal.
: >One of the exciting aspects of chess is that the main target *can* change
: >positions geographically. That generally doesn't happen much in go
: >(except furikawari).
:
: In GO, there is no game-long main target. That's Chess-think. As you know, the
: area of the GO board that is currently a "main target" (if I can loosley use
: the term) continually changes.
In Go, there *is* a game-long main target. It's called territory.
Although the current area of play continually changes, the focus of the
play is concerned with present and future territory.
: >: 5. Chess is an ugly game.
: >:
: >: In GO, everything, from the texture of the stones to the spacing of the
: >: lines is meant to be visually pleasing. (No, the lines do not form
: >: squares, and yes, the stones are too big to fit without jostling.) Even
: >: the various sounds of making moves become a part of the artistic
: >: enjoyment of the game.
: >:
: >: (Then, at least where I've played, it's not unusual to accompany GO
: >: playing with teas and cookies, maybe on oriental rugs. It's not just
: >: a game, folks! ;-))
: >:
: >: GO is not only an aesthetically pleasing game, but, to some extent,
: >: beautiful moves are good strategic moves. It has never ceased to
: >: amaze me that, considering the board as if it were a canvas, a move
: >: to the most visually pleasant spot is often a strategically sound
: >: move.
: >
: >Just about everything you've said about go can or does apply to chess.
:
: Please explain. It's true that you can have pretty wooden chess pieces. Maybe
: even one of those nifty-cool pewter Civil War sets (gag). But the board and
: pieces are *not* designed, per se, based on aesthetic principles.
I have an old wooden set. The white pieces are made from a light variety of
hardwood, and the black pieces from a dark variety of hardwood. Over the
decades it developed its own character and patina. It has seen a lot of
battles, and carries memories with it. It's not a "pretty" set.
It's a beautiful set. *You* may not find it visually pleasing, but I do.
You didn't address the point about "beautiful moves are good strategic
moves". If you learn chess so you don't see the *pieces* in a position,
but rather the *power* of the pieces and their interplay, you will
learn to recognize moves that enhance the harmony of the position and,
being guided by that sense of harmony, are beautiful moves.
Of course, in both Chess and Go, a beautiful strategic move can be
a tactical blunder.
: >: 6. Chess is unbalanced.
: I think balance, in this sense, is deeper than simply handicappability.
OK. So in what way is chess unbalanced?
: How many times have you had a weaker player (usually a novice) attempt to
: crush a group, not realizing that their "strong" attack is actually
: strengthening your position, while a more distant "attack" would actually
: hurt you more? We've all been involved in life-and-death struggles where
: both players cross a line: if the group succesfully runs, the attacker has
: lost way too much territory and has left way too many pieces vulnerable to
: win, and if the group does not make it, the defender has invasion-proofed
: a large territory and will lose.
:
: I'm not sure that Chess has a similar concept.
It does, in a variety of ways.
The classic is where one side aims to induce long-term weaknesses in one
area while the opponent accepts them in exchange for an attack on the King
in another area. If the King attack is unsuccessful, the game is probably
lost due to the weaknesses in the other area. An example is the Minority
Attack in the Queen's Gambit Declined.
:
: >: In fact, when you give a large handicap, you are not just having to use
: >: your wits to compensate for a disadvantage (as you would if you gave
: >: up a bishop, for example), you are having to fight at a more strategic
: >: level. You almost create a fog of war. You move in such a way as to
: >: leave many tactical questions open, creating many strategic
: >: interconnections, and, to some degree, throwing lots of stuff in there
: >: so that you can then overwhelm the weaker player. They might be able to
: >: read the tactics in each area, but the areas start interacting beyond
: >: their ability to see.
: >
: >Your comments apply equally to chess.
:
: Seeing as a chess board is 1/6 the size of a GO board, and seeing that Chess
: pieces interact directly, while GO pieces often interact communally, and
: without direct contact or threat of contact, I don't see how it applies
: equally well to chess. But I will freely admit I gave up chess years ago
: for GO. And I wasn't that good, I would guess.
I believe you: you don't see how it applies equally well to chess.
Let me know if you want me to explain it to you... :-)
: >: In fact, the beauty of GO is it's contrasts and the trade-offs that can
: >: be made. The obvious goal of GO is to have more territory than your
: >: opponent at the end. But there are two high-level strategies that can
: >: be pursued: directly take and hold territory, or kill enemy groups to
: >: deny him territory.
: >
: >In chess, the obvious goal is to capture the enemy king.
: >There are *lots* of subordinate strategies that can be used.
:
: Please expand this. If by that, you mean, "control the center" I would
: call this a tactic, not a strategy. I guess that I just cannot see much room
: in Chess for strategy, as opposed to drawn-out tactics.
The concept of controlling the center is considered a strategic concept
by pro Go players, so I don't know why you wouldn't consider it such.
It's also considered a strategic concept in chess.
We could discuss the differences between "strategy" and "tactics",
if you'd like... ;-)
Some strategic concepts include:
* Dominate squares of one color
* Control the center
* Control files and diagonals
* Provoke weak squares, especially near the opposing King (aji)
* Win material
* Increase piece activity
* Create a powerful passed pawn
* Prevent a Knight from blockading a passed pawn
..
Numerous other strategic goals can be used to further the above.
:In the particular example of directly taking territory or killing enemy groups,
:what might be a Chess comparison?
There's no direct comparison.
What might be a Go comparison to the Chess concept of creating a powerful
passed pawn?
: >: * Does Chess have a strong concept of initiative (sente/gote) that GO has?
: >: This concept, to some degree, forces even winning move combinations to
: >: leave weaknesses or lose the initiative.
: >
: >Chess has a very similar concept of initiative.
:
: To the extent that even winning plays must often be followed up with
: initiative-losing moves? One of the skills of GO is being able to judge
: the value of moves in such a way that you know when continuing with the
: initiative will gain you less than yielding the initiative to tidy loose ends.
You're not stating it quite right. If it's a "winning" play, the game would
be over.
A similar decision must often be made in Chess -- whether to continue with
the initiative versus consolidating gains.
: I can't see someone fiddling
: off in the corner of a Chess board, doing cool stuff with his rook and
: knight, only to discover that it actually weakens his other side.
: You are always focused by your and your opponent's kings.
: You don't have to make widely separated moves work together.
Good chess players know how difficult it is to checkmate the opponent's
kings in the middlegame. The game is often decided in the endgame, with
the focus on promoting a pawn. That in turn involves many sub-goals
and sub-sub-goals. An innocuous move made in the middlegame can be
decisive in the endgame.
In summary, I think that Chess and Go have great similarities when viewed
as one intellect struggling against another.
There are three main reasons why I prefer Go over Chess:
1. The margin of victory in Go is much smaller, making the game more tense.
2. The effect of rote memorization in Go is less. Modern chess masters
build databases of hundreds of thousands of opponents' games and use
them to memorize opening moves to gain an advantage.
3. It is easier for me to improve my Go skills.
--
David Forthoffer NEC Technologies Printer Division
dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com 110 Rio Robles, San Jose CA 95134
"I'm not speaking for NEC unless I explicitly say so."
David Forthoffer
:
: IMHO:
: Go is the most interesting, 2 person, perfect information, (zero sum)
: board game ever invented. I am very good in Chinese chess (Shan-Chi)
: and have played many games of English chess (YAK!) and a few games of
: Japanese chess (Shogi). All the board games can be classified into 3
: groups.
: How-Hie Ling.
I disagree with some of your reasoning... *smile*
--
David Forthoffer NEC Technologies Printer Division
dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com 110 Rio Robles, San Jose CA 95134
"I'm not speaking for NEC unless I explicitly say so."
(holder of about 2000 books and magazines on chess)
David Forthoffer
: David -- ever consider helping to write a GO program?
I'm writing my own now...
Did you want help with one?
David Forthoffer
: David Forthoffer <dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com> wrote:
: >Actually, I think aji is not high on the list of exploitable weaknesses
: >in a typical go game. By its very nature, you cannot guarantee that aji
: >will have *any* affect on the game. For example, suppose you mess up a
: >corner so you get less than you should have, but you have some aji whereby
: >if you were to get a stone somewhat nearby you could invade his territory.
: >Through skill and/or luck, you may be able to play so that he would have
: >to spend a move killing the aji -- making the aji successful. But the
: >game *may* take a turn (without regard to your aji) where you will never
: >make use of this aji.
:
: I'm ~21k on igs, very, very weak, and I can tell you you're missing the
: point. If you're not tracking and exploiting aji you're not, IMAO, playing
*Of course* you should track aji.
But *sometimes* you cannot *exploit* a particular aji.
Maybe our difference in understanding has to do with why you're ~21k
and I'm 1k...
--
David Forthoffer (1k*) NEC Technologies Printer Division
David Forthoffer
: cis...@gamma.std.com (Chris Sanderson) writes:
:
: >I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
: >go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
: >either slow or to big for memory.
:
: bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
: for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
: of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
: any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
The superiority of Go (if any) is not proven by the difficulty
of programming Go.
Here's a game for you. You and your opponent each receive a piece of
paper with a story handwritten on it. Each sentence in the story is
handwritten by a different person. The goal of the game is to see who
can most correctly type the story into a computer.
If you judge the superiority of this game versus Go, you should conclude
that this game is superior to Go because the computer plays this game
so poorly.
--
David Forthoffer NEC Technologies Printer Division
David Forthoffer
: Is there any public-domain go
: game I can download and practice with? I have an old 286 machine
There are only commercial ones that I know of...
The problem with current programs is that you can learn to beat them
without becoming better at Go.
I can give Many Faces of Go a 31-stone handicap and beat it.
This is due to my ability to provoke and exploit certain repeatable
stupid maneuvers it makes. Some of my provocations are actually
weak moves, but turn out well due to the program's stupidity.
(I give it a 31-stone handicap by giving it 27 stones to start,
then passing 4 times. I can't give it a 32-stone handicap because
it claims a win then.)
--
David Forthoffer (1k*) NEC Technologies Printer Division
Roy Blackmer
|> number) would that make it better or just bigger?
|>
|>
I read somewhere that experiments with 17x17 and 21x21 go boards
were done in Asia relatively recently, with professional go players.
The conclusion was that the 17x17 game is too trivial to be
interesting, and that 21x21 is too complex.
-- Roy
al
schu...@math.wisc.edu "Lee Schumacher" writes:
> cis...@gamma.std.com (Chris Sanderson) writes:
>
> >I have a number of computer chess programs, but none for go. If
> >go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
> >either slow or to big for memory.
>
> bingo! got it in one! Some even claim that this is further evidence
> for the superiority of Go. Its certainly the most objective piece
> of evidence available. Current computer go programs do not provide
> any challenge for a human player beyond the absolute novice stage.
>
Surely one could say that there are just far more people working in
the field of chess computers. If that's the case maybe it is because
chess is more of a challenge to them?
Al
Michael Sullivan
Larry M. Watanabe <wata...@asimov.cs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Question 2 for mathematicians: what size go board is equivalent
>to the standard game of chess?
I worked this out once, very roughly. Allowing for some gross
inaccuracies, I came up with 12x12. 13x13 I was quite sure had more
possible positions than chess. 9x9 had many fewer. But chess has many
more restrictions on legal positions than does go, of which I only took
into account some of the most obvious (There can't be a pawn on it's own
first rank... etc. positions with more than 8 pawns of one color or more
than two rooks etc...) In go the only thing to discount for is
symettry.
Carlos Costa
Sanderson) writes:
>
> It seems I have stired up a hornets nest of people defensive
> about go. You people must like it a lot. For me, chess takes
> less time, and I don't have much time.
>
> go is as big and complex as described, such a program would be
> game I can download and practice with? I have an old 286 machine
>
a) I play almost every lunch hour a game of go with a co-worker. We use a
13x13 size board.
b) At the go archive site (bsdserver.ucsf.edu) in the /Go/comp directory
you can download igo.zip which is an excellent go tutorial and also allows
one to play on a 9x9 board.
I found myself at a cross-roads a few years back. I was playing tournament
chess at the time. I also played go. I wanted to excel at both games, but
realized that I only could devote myself to one or the other, given the
amount of time I had. I chose go. No regrets.
Carlos
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
carlos...@mindlink.bc.ca IGS: carlos Vancouver, B.C., Canada
"Life is a simplified paradigm of Go"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Paul Vrotney
> This is an interesting idea. I wonder how large a chess board
> would make it equivalent to go. This would depend on which pieces
> were duplicated and their positions.
>
> Maybe one could make a chess board as follows:
>
> 8n pawns
> 2n rooks
> 2n bishops
> 2n knights
> 1 king
> 1 queen
>
> with the obvious arrangement.
>
> Ok, mathematicians: in terms of possible games, for what value of
> n would chess be equally complex as go?
>
> This would be a nice response to the question "is chess as difficult
> as go". We could say that both are difficult and interesting games,
> but mathematically go is about the same as playing N-chess, where
> N=?.
>
> Question 2 for mathematicians: what size go board is equivalent
> to the standard game of chess?
>
> It seems to me that for this size board, one should be able to
> develop go programs comparable in strength to chess programs.
> I think the value would be between 9-13 size go boards.
>
This is interesting insight. To add to this. I read that the size of the Go
board was determined by the masters. Ie. they tried a 21x21 board but found
it beyond human comprehension. What they meant was that a 21x21 was beyond
human comprehension to master Go. Consequently they stopped with the 19x19
board. Presumably a similar phenomena has happened with the 8x8 chess board
over history. If so then we are comparing masters with masters, a common
metric of human intelligence if you will. Also it may surprise us to find
out that the common metric for artificial intelligence is subtly different
since the computer can do some things better than humans and vice versa.
Bill Vrotney - vro...@netcom.com
--
Bill Vrotney - vro...@netcom.com
J E H Shaw
compare with oranges"' compare with `"how does chalk compare with cheese"
compare with "how does go compare with chess"'?
--
J.E.H.Shaw, Department of Statistics, | JANET: st...@uk.ac.warwick
University of Warwick, | BITNET: strgh%uk.ac.warwick@UKACRL
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K. | PHONE: +44 203 523069
An ex-algebraist who lost his ideals, his associates, and finally his identity
Harry F. Harte
The key difference between playing go and playing chess is that in go it is
the order of moves that matters more than anything.
While it is true that there are situations in chess where the same moves can
be sensibly be played in different sequences, it is rare for this to be both
vital and difficult. In go it is the heart of the problem from beginning to
end. Often, there is no problem at all about which are the right moves - the
only question is the order in which they are played.
--
Harry F. Harte
Mark A Zabel
ToeKnee <toe...@teleport.com> wrote:
>In article <31j4ii$a...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
>mza...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Zabel) wrote:
>
>> Yet more evidence that G.B. Shaw was correct. If he knew about Go
>> I'm sure he would have made similar comments on people who play that
>> game.
>
> So what's the quote you are referring to?
Don't have the quote handy. The gist was that chess is a waste of
time that makes grown men think they are doing something clever.
I didn't say I agreed with it or him in general.
>Do you realize I am a chess
>player?
Yes.
>Would that quote apply to me being 'a person who plays that game'
>as well?
I believe it would.
I don't buy Shaw's arguments on why someone shouldn't play chess, and I
literally don't see any occupation of one's time that couldn't be said to be
a waste of time.
On the other hand, I don't see any point at all to asking "which
game is better - Go or Chess?", as the word better isn't clearly defined.
A more appropriate title for this thread would be "Why is go more difficult
to program than chess?" Perhaps this is even too subjective a question.
Note: Re-reading the title reminded me that it was in fact "How does go
compare with chess? - not Which is better... One wouldn't know it from the
debate on this thread.
Finishing up here: I taught at a chess camp in Pennsylvania a couple of
weeks ago. One of my students, a 6 year old boy, had an absolutely great
time cheating at tic-tac-toe against me during dinner. I also was able to
relate to him much better through that game than through chess. For me, this
was an instance where tic-tac-toe *was* better than chess. It is not, however,
an answer to "Is tic-tac-toe better than chess?" without any clear definition
of the word better.
-Regards, Mark
p.s. BTW, the reason I chose to comment on ToeKnee's post was because
he plays both go and chess. I figured I would ruffle less feathers that
way. I apologize if I ruffled any.
Jerry Cullingford
My 2p worth: To me, the major difference is that given players of differing
skill, go seems to work better - not only is handicapping easier, but the
interest factor seems to hold up better; Even if one player is clearly ahead,
there is still a lot of interest in seeing what happens to the remaining
groups - you can still get a lot of satisfaction out of sucessfully
attacking/defending a particular group, and it's quite likely that there
will be significant differences in how strong different groups are, due to
the pattern of play. So there's still something interesting to play for,
even if the final outcome is predictable. (And it makes a difference to
the final score).
On the other hand, with chess, this sort of "local interest" just isn't
there - once one player is clearly ahead - especially if it's the stronger
player - the likely outcome is obvious, and the other player is just trying
to delay the inevitable - not hugely satisfying for either of them.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
| Jerry Cullingford #include <std.disclaimer> +44 442 230000 x3875| ,-|--
| j...@crosfield.co.uk j...@selune.demon.co.uk je...@shell.portal.com | \_|__
+-----(Work)--------------(Home)--------------(another alternate)--+ \___/
Nici Schraudolph
>Perhaps one could design an incredibly complex game that a
>Cray couldn't fathom. It wouldn't be enjoyable, but at least
>it's complex.
You're missing the point here: Go is a game with incredibly *simple*
rules that a Cray still can't fathom. That's part of its beauty.
I agree that the size of search space is a red herring, but think about
it this way: it is only because Go is so well-suited to the way humans
process information that we can play it on such a large board, despite
of the humongous search space.
>Sorry. 9x9 go can be more quickly mastered than chess.
By humans, yes. By computers, not yet. I'm interested in computer Go
because I believe it will force us to learn more about the humans mind.
Nothing against chess as a game, but I do wish AI had picked Go instead
as its touchstone problem in the 50s... of course there's no guarantee
that someone won't come up with a "magic bullet" for computer Go (like
search was for computer chess), but it doesn't look likely at this point.
--
Nicol N. Schraudolph | The purpose of words is to convey ideas: when
The Salk Institute, CNL | the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
10010 N. Torrey Pines Rd | Where can I find one who has forgotten words?
La Jolla, CA 92037-1099 | That's the one I'd like to talk to. (Chuang Tzu)
David Forthoffer
: In go, you have more _good_ moves to choose from at each decision point.
: This gives go a freedom, a meaning, and a
: strategic depth that chess cannot approach.
In go, you have *fewer* good moves to choose from the deeper you look.
And the fact that you have more good moves to choose from at the start
is simply because you have more total moves to choose from.
The width or depth of a look-ahead tree has nothing to do with the
strategic depth of the game.
: the meaning of each move in go
: is far more complicated than the meaning of a move in chess
The meaning of some moves in go are less complicated that the meanings of
some moves in chess, and vice versa.
: > In chess, long term strategic thinking is required.
:
: Wrong again. There are strong computer chess programs that do virtually no
: strategic thinking at all. They think only of material, and they can beat
: grandmasters in blitz.
No, *you* are wrong, The strong computer chess programs that can beat
grandmasters in blitz do *extensive* strategic thinking. They are weak
in the planning department, and do not understand *certain* strategies,
but they definitely pay attention to strategy.
: Chess is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
: rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freedom and
: opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
: presented by go...
Go is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freed and
opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
presented by ches...
By the way, how good are you at chess?
--
David Forthoffer (1k* 2260 USCF) NEC Technologies Printer Division
Wayne Folta
>: not affect even novices, but us untrained rookies *do* fall for them.
>
>Even well-trained players fall for go traps and swindles.
>Do *you* know the avalanche joseki well enough to avoid its traps?
Maybe I'm not advanced enough in GO, either. But would my not understanding
this joseki mean that the game is over at the point I fall for it? Or might
I redeem myself in another area of the board? Like I said, I've played chess
games where it was over, checkmate, in minutes.
You might say that Chess has a more concrete ending condition, checkmate, so
it can be stopped, based on the rules, much earlier than a GO game. A GO game
might be over after 15 moves, but stopping at that point would be done because
strong players can see that the game is, baring horrible mistakes, headed for
a certain outcome. A poor player just doesn't see that they have lost after
15 moves in GO.
>: >In go, there is "my areas" and "your areas" after just a few moves.
>:
>: No, there are "my tentative areas" and "your claimed areas". And the point
>: still stands, that this is fluid. No rule of the game establishes, a priori,
>: what parts of the board will fall into either camp.
>
>The same goes for chess.
Really? I'd say that, through the middle-game, the board is still very much
influenced by "my side" and "your side" that we were forced to begin with.
(If nothing else, because pawns always advance in one direction and because
kings are so slow.)
It is true that no Chess rule determines what part of the board will be
controlled by which player, at all times during the game. But surely, it
determines it at the beginning of the game, and that influence is felt
throughout the entire game.
In GO, the two of us negotiate (play) territory. Territory claimed at the
beginning of the game surely influences the rest of the game, but the
organization of the claims and the influence of the claims are decided by
the two players and their skill level, not by fiat.
>The two kings don't polarize Chess strategy any more than getting territory
>polarizes Go strategy. Chess strategy is ultimately based on capturing the
>opposing king. Go strategy is ultimately based on capturing more territory
>than your opponent. In both cases, this "polarization" limits the
>sub-strategies at your disposal.
Certainly in terms of piece movement, the locations of the two kings does
polarize Chess, doesn't it? Do you mean to say that you move pieces in Chess,
not caring whether your opponent's king is castled, whether your king is
castled, what sides they are castled? And if both are castled, is it to the
same side or not?
>: >One of the exciting aspects of chess is that the main target *can* change
>: >positions geographically. That generally doesn't happen much in go
>: >(except furikawari).
>:
>: In GO, there is no game-long main target. That's Chess-think. As you know, the
>: area of the GO board that is currently a "main target" (if I can loosley use
>: the term) continually changes.
>
>In Go, there *is* a game-long main target. It's called territory.
>Although the current area of play continually changes, the focus of the
>play is concerned with present and future territory.
It still seems to me that we are not communicating here. In GO, territory is
where I find it, maybe even underneath an opponent's group. Gaining territory
is a goal, which is an ephemeral target. Unlike a king, which sits in one
place on the board, or slowly lumbers around.
>I have an old wooden set. The white pieces are made from a light variety of
>hardwood, and the black pieces from a dark variety of hardwood. Over the
>decades it developed its own character and patina. It has seen a lot of
>battles, and carries memories with it. It's not a "pretty" set.
>It's a beautiful set. *You* may not find it visually pleasing, but I do.
True, but not addressing my point. Chess sets *can* be beautiful. The
entire game was not designed to be so. GO is designed, from the ground up,
to be aesthetically pleasing. We're talking everything from look and feel to
sound here. There's a fundamental difference between "can be beautiful" and
"is designed in every way to be beautiful".
(I'll admit again that my original article indulged in hyperbole. Chess is
not inherently ugly. It is just that Chess is not inherently beautiful
either.)
>You didn't address the point about "beautiful moves are good strategic
>moves". If you learn chess so you don't see the *pieces* in a position,
>but rather the *power* of the pieces and their interplay, you will
>learn to recognize moves that enhance the harmony of the position and,
>being guided by that sense of harmony, are beautiful moves.
Good point. Much like some people in this thread have been unable to see GO
pieces as radiating influence, and hence not being static.
>: >: 6. Chess is unbalanced.
>: I think balance, in this sense, is deeper than simply handicappability.
>
>OK. So in what way is chess unbalanced?
I'm still thinking on this one. It just strikes my intuition (these are
opinions, remember) that handicapability is just a surface indication of
deeper balance.
And I think of the many contrasts (balances) of GO:
* Attack directly, attack by moving in the other direction
* Take territory, take opposing pieces
* Gaining territory by chasing a group, spoiling territory by being chased.
* etc.
Maybe if I can come up with a rigorous definition of this balance, I would
have a powerful tool for playing.
>: Seeing as a chess board is 1/6 the size of a GO board, and seeing that Chess
>: pieces interact directly, while GO pieces often interact communally, and
>: without direct contact or threat of contact, I don't see how it applies
>: equally well to chess. But I will freely admit I gave up chess years ago
>: for GO. And I wasn't that good, I would guess.
>
>I believe you: you don't see how it applies equally well to chess.
>Let me know if you want me to explain it to you... :-)
I'm sure you can, and you make a good start later in your article. But will
you not allow that GO's larger board and smaller, duplicate pieces does not
allow more scope for strategy? If only from a purely real-estate view.
And if only because GO *is*, in some sense, more abstract and strategic. I
mean, Chess pieces embody certain movements, which generally define capture
and defense. GO pieces, as individuals, have no real power to capture, and
have no movement. It is the agregation of GO pieces that creates groups
and the expansion/relationship of groups that defines capture, defense, and
movement.
>What might be a Go comparison to the Chess concept of creating a powerful
>passed pawn?
The pawn changes from a weak, in-the-way piece to a strong piece. And not just
a strong piece, but one that is on the opponent's side of the board.
("Your side", "My side" again.)
My feeling is that a successful invasion which utilizes a dead group, has
much the same theme. Or maybe where you squeeze a group from the outside,
killing it before it can kill a previously-dead group inside of it. The weak
("I'm not dead yet") group inside suddenly turns into a powerful attacker,
on your opponent's "side".
>There are three main reasons why I prefer Go over Chess:
You could add a fourth:
4. You can kick the butt of the best GO-playing program in the world. And unless
a breakthrough occurs, you will be able to do so for many years to come.
--
Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu)
Hal Womack
: From p...@his.com
: Both Chairman Mao and the
: HW> C.I.A. highly esteemed *go*, although neither played it [subject to
: HW> correction on the latter, although safe enough for the high officials
: HW> known to me] and only the former of the two effectively promoted it.
:
: Unfortunately, Mao did not do a great job of promoting go. In fact he banned
: it as a "bourgouis influence" or something like that. BTW, Go was one of the
: four arts that needed to be mastered by noblemen in ancient china. The other
: three were calligraphy, poetry, and music. It was only recently that Chinese
: were allowed to play out in the open again (i.e. with the sponsorship of the
: government) This is why there are very few stories of Chinese pros between
: 1945 and 1975: there were no Chinese pros!
Thanks to Paul Neureiter for pointing out my obvious blunder
in overlooking the suppression of *go* [wei chi] in China during the
so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Mao refers to wei chi examples several times in his writings
on revolutionary strategy. After nationwide victory he appointed the
go player and foreign minister Chen Yi to oversee the the development
of the game. I suppose that we can credit this system with the
rapid development of Chinese playing strength after the correction of
the excesses of the GPCR.
--
Hal of Womack Enterprises | e-mail to wom...@netcom.com | tel. 415/ 923 1507
Snail mail to P.O. Box 640113/ San Francisco, CA 94164/ U.S.A. | Student of
Diego Rivera, Ho Chi Minh, Paul Robeson, Naguib Mahfouz, Shusaku, Bertolt
Brecht, Madonna & Sgt. York | "Lean on me until you're strong; we all need.."
li...@acacia.qut.edu.au
I don't want to go into arguments with you or anyone because firstly, I
am too busy at work, secondly my English is not good, thirdly, I never
argue much in life. (This is a go strategy).
> GO VS CHESS AND OTHER BOARD GAMES
> ---------------------------------
> [ specious taxonomy of board games based on ling's personal impressions
> largely deleted. ]
>I have to admit that my own personal impressions of depth and complexity
>follow yours to the extent that I know the games well. But your arguments
>about which game is better are simply seat of the pants opinions
>masquerading as informed taxonomy.
>The fact that this little flame war comes up so often is simply evidence
>of just how seriously both chess and go players take their favorite game.
>About the only objective evidence anyone can come up with which *might*
>indicate go's superiority is the size of the move tree. But this
What about all the different possible moves that a strong player use
(see below) in Go (and in real life). What about the strength of computer
in go vs chess.
>is no indication of superiority. It is easy to design a game with a much
>larger move tree than go, but which is completely uninteresting as a
like chess with much larger board and many more pieces.
>game. I'm not entirely sure it is easy to design a game with as
>*complex* a move tree as go, which would be uninteresting as a game...
>But that's based on my own intuitive notion of complexity, not on any
>good rigorous definition. If someone can come up with one, then the
>hypothesis might be testable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Go moves (not complete)
-----------------------
asking
probing
one area relating to another area
inducing
preparation
correct order
sente (retain initiative)
gote (losing initiative)
global
local
wait-and-see
attacking
defending
indirect attacking
direct attacking
indirect defending
direct defending
moyo (territory) building
moyo (territory) erasing
tesuji (skillful play)
kill the shape
make stones congested
make situation simple
make situation complicated
invading
kill eye
make eye
kill eye space
make eye space
territory critical point
shape critical point
increase liberty in race to capture
reduce liberty in race to capture
light
heavy
busy
relaxed
ko threat
self harming ko threat
cause opponent to miss the proper move
cheers,
How-Hie Ling.
Michael Sullivan
Chris Sanderson <cis...@gamma.std.com> wrote:
>I will use the concept of "diversity" to help make the question
>less subjective.
>* tic-tac-toe games have squares and pieces. The goal is to get
>n in a row. There is not much diversity of types in this game.
>* Go has only one kind of piece, again little diversity. But the
>objective is to take territory, which gives it another
>dimention. The game is large and complex by computational
>standards, but not diversity standards.
>* Chess has the square board like the others. In chess, the
>different parts of the board add to its diversity: the center,
>the wings, the corners. Go has this as well. Chess also has six
>separate kinds of pieces, go only has one. Chess is far more
>diverse than go, but go players probably don't care about that.
You were saying something about spurious arguments?
Essentially you are claiming that chess is more diverse because it has
more rules.
I've seen battle miniatures rule sets that will dwarf the chess rule book
many times over? Does this necessarily mean they are more diverse than
chess?
I think not. I think one of the marks of a truly great game is how
diverse the tactics and strategies are relative to the *simplicity* of the
rules. Chess scores very high on this scale, only a few games are
simpler, yet have significant tactical and strategic dimensions that can
even be mentioned in the same breath as chess (Othello, certain renju
variants, go, checkers -- off the top of my head).
Mike.
Christopher Yep
Wayne Folta <fo...@cs.umd.edu> wrote:
>
>>: 3. Chess is a constipated game. You can actually end up in positions where
>>: you are injured because you *have* to move and you don't want to. You
>>: can also tactically retreat with a piece. ("Run Away! Run Away!")
>>
Someone else wrote:
>>Why does *having* to move make chess inferior to go?
>
Wayne Folta wrote:
>You are using the word "inferior". I'll state it again: I don't like a game
>where it is possible to be in a position where you lose because it is your
>turn to move, you can move, but it is to your disadvantage to move. No other
>game comes immediately to mind as having that problem.
>
I can think of at least 5 well known games in which a player who is
given the privilege of being allowed to pass would have an advantage over
his opponent (who is never allowed to pass): Othello (especially!),
checkers, Connect 4, Backgammon, and Monopoly, to name a few... (for the
dice games, passing means not even rolling the dice). In fact many, maybe
even most games, in which passing is not allowed, have this same property:
sometimes the player would prefer to be able to pass on his move.
ToeKnee
> Now the question is to decide if a game is "enjoyable" or
> not.
What!? You are going to decide objectively once and for all if chess or
go is enjoyable? It is clear you don't enjoy go, so how will you get
around that bias?
> I will use the concept of "diversity" to help make the question
> less subjective.
> [ deleted ]
> * Go has only one kind of piece, again little diversity. But the
> objective is to take territory, which gives it another
> dimention. The game is large and complex by computational
> standards, but not diversity standards.
Ok, first of all, unless you define 'diversity' a bit better, your
subsequent statements won't make much sense. Secondly, in go the
*foremost* objective is to take territory, but there are many lower-level
objectives followed to accomplish this, the details of which I won't
elaborate upon here. Knowing this bit of info, can you see more
'diversity' in the game, or more dimensions perhaps?
> * Chess has the square board like the others. In chess, the
> different parts of the board add to its diversity: the center,
> the wings, the corners. Go has this as well. Chess also has six
> separate kinds of pieces, go only has one.
In go, rarely do players (unless they are rank beginners) consider the
pieces on a go board stone by stone. Instead, they think about the
arrangements of the stones, the 'shapes' of the stones, 'groups', and
sequences of moves. A single stone on the board cannot 'do' anything; it
is important to consider the effects that neighboring stones and strings
of stones will have on each other. By your own definition (if I
understand it correctly), this would mean in some sense that go has many,
many different kinds of pieces, since go players themselves perceive them
to exist.
> Chess is far more diverse than go, but go players probably don't care about
> that.
Kind of an overly-opinionated, blanket statement, don't you think?
> A similar way to say it is to ask "What is a shortest possible
> way to describe the rules of the game?" Go would talk about the
> board, the one piece, the atari rule, not a lot. Chess would
> have to describe all six pieces, the en passant rule, castleing,
> two move pawns, fifty move draws, etc. By this standard, chess
> has a longer description and is more diverse.
I still don't understand the 'diversity standard'... it seems to mean
that a game that has more rules is more diverse... Monopoly has a lot of
rules :)
> Do the go players have something better? I would like to here
> more about how the chess players exposed to go start playing go,
> and go players exposed to chess keep on playing go. If I
> expanded the go board, from 19x19 to 23x23 (the next prime
> number) would that make it better or just bigger?
Well, I started playing go because I had moved to a city that had very
few good chess players (at least, I couldn't find them :( ) and so I took
up go as a leisure activity. Chess was my first love, but go has many
things in its favor, some of which I have delineated in previous posts.
Games have been played on 21x21 boards, and 23x23 boards (experiments
discussed in GoWorld), but not much enthusiasm was expressed for these
variations, primarily because the balance present in a 19x19 board was
lost. The total number of points on a 19x19 board is 361: 120 points for
the corners, 120 points for the sides, and 121 for the center. In a 21x21
or 23x23 game, the value of the center is much bigger, and (I guess) this
removes the balanced quality of the game for professional player, puts it
'beyond human comprehension'. Better? Bigger? Are you just trying to
find material for some future argument? Play it... and try to appreciate
it. It's not a bad game....
--
ToeKnee, 2d*, 2219 USCF
toe...@teleport.com
Mason House Co-Op PDX/OR/USA
ToeKnee
mza...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Zabel) wrote:
> In article <toeknee-0108...@ip-ab.teleport.com>,
> ToeKnee <toe...@teleport.com> wrote:
> >In article <31j4ii$a...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
> >mza...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Zabel) wrote:
> >
> >> Yet more evidence that G.B. Shaw was correct. If he knew about Go
> >> I'm sure he would have made similar comments on people who play that
> >> game.
> >
> > So what's the quote you are referring to?
>
> Don't have the quote handy. The gist was that chess is a waste of
> time that makes grown men think they are doing something clever.
> I didn't say I agreed with it or him in general.
Right! And talking about either chess or go is a waste of time that
makes people think they are doing something clever %^> Ah well... if I
weren't talking about it, I'd probably be doing it... what an empty life I
lead... <chuckle>
> I don't buy Shaw's arguments on why someone shouldn't play chess, and I
> literally don't see any occupation of one's time that couldn't be said to be
> a waste of time.
> On the other hand, I don't see any point at all to asking "which
> game is better - Go or Chess?", as the word better isn't clearly defined.
> A more appropriate title for this thread would be "Why is go more difficult
> to program than chess?" Perhaps this is even too subjective a question.
My original post (the one you quoted in full) was a response to what I
felt was an inadequate series of rebuttals by Paul A. Lane to Lee
Shumacher about the 'superiority' of go vs. chess as proved by the
difficulty of programming each game. (Whew! what a convoluted statement...
Sorry!) I thought that I was keeping in the spirit of the thread by
disagreeing with his hypothesis about 'make a chess program with a bigger
board, then you have a good go program', which seemed to be a comparison
of chess and go (in some small way). I probably got too windy (still
am)... I can't help it :) Anyhow, I wasn't saying that 'Go is better than
Chess', so I am sorry if this somehow came through in my writing.
> Note: Re-reading the title reminded me that it was in fact "How does go
> compare with chess? - not Which is better... One wouldn't know it from the
> debate on this thread.
Yeah, it always happens... you would think that either game is some
peoples' LIVES, or something :)
> p.s. BTW, the reason I chose to comment on ToeKnee's post was because
> he plays both go and chess. I figured I would ruffle less feathers that
> way. I apologize if I ruffled any.
Well, you did ruffle my feathers, mostly because I didn't know what
quote you were referring to, and I felt left out. %^>
Thanks for explaining...
ToeKnee
wrote:
> My tuppence worth:
>
> The key difference between playing go and playing chess is that in go it is
> the order of moves that matters more than anything.
Yeah, I hear you... I remember a situation when my girlfriend tried to
tell me in the middle of a go game that she was leaving me and taking all
of the furniture and the electronics and I simply ignored her because I
had to figure out a semeai. :^)
I disagree with you, though, in believing 'the order of moves' to be the
key difference. Just to offer a counterargument: in chess, the order of
moves is EXTREMELY important... in fact, I believe it is *as important* as
in go. Some chess situations have to flow as precisely as clockwork in
order for a certain tactic to be resolved in your favor. And if you play
a different order of moves at the beginning of a chess game, you end up in
a different opening...
> While it is true that there are situations in chess where the same moves can
> be sensibly be played in different sequences, it is rare for this to be both
> vital and difficult. In go it is the heart of the problem from beginning to
> end. Often, there is no problem at all about which are the right moves - the
> only question is the order in which they are played.
Well, how about semeais in go? All you have to do for some semeais is
fill in the 'outside' liberties, and in some cases the order doesn't
matter one whit. I agree that there are some instances in chess when the
sequence of moves isn't vital, as long as the pieces end up on the squares
that you want them to go on (kind of a simplistic interpretation, though),
but I think that this is also true of go, especially if you think of miai
situations, or certain tactical battles, etc. I'm only a 2d* at go, tho
-- don't take everything I say as having merit :)
Matched your 2 cents... raise you a nickel?
Kip Voytek
>You are using the word "inferior". I'll state it again: I don't like a game
>where it is possible to be in a position where you lose because it is your
>turn to move, you can move, but it is to your disadvantage to move. No other
>game comes immediately to mind as having that problem.
Part of playing good chess is developing your pieces and laying out your
pawns in such a way that they are dynamic, flexible, and always have room
for imporovement. To me, there is something wonderful to watch in, say,
a Kasparov game, when all of his pieces seem to be maxed out and at
absolute top power and then see him make that position even stronger or
have it match a complete shift in his opponent's strategy. You mention
the communal nature of pieces in GO -- but it's in chess as well. But,
getting back to the point, the position in which it is to one's
disadvantage to move, known as "zugzwang" is extremely rare and is
avoided by strong players. What you describe sounds more like boredom with
the game.
>>: 5. Chess is an ugly game.
>Please explain. It's true that you can have pretty wooden chess pieces. Maybe
>even one of those nifty-cool pewter Civil War sets (gag). But the board and
>pieces are *not* designed, per se, based on aesthetic principles.
>The bottom line is that GO has been shaped in a culture that emphasized
>beauty as a part of everything, while Chess has been shaped by a culture
>that emphasized logic over everything. (Not criticizing here. I like
>Western Culture. Just observing.)
I have heard it said that GO was designed by an emperor to teach his son
strategy -- not as an exercise in aesthetics or the totality of art and
war. Regardless, I think this is an overly strong statement. First,
consider the naming of chess pieces as bishops, queens, knights -- a
dramatic aesthtetic, based on court drama, but an aesthetic
nevertheless. Also, consider the wide ranging chess boards that have
been created. I'm not talking about pewter crap or sets based on Lord of
the Rings, Star Trek. I'm thinking of the many chess sets Marcel Duchamp
created, the Stauntons etc. I'm thinking also of the chess table my wife
had made for me in which moving the pieces, perfectly weighted and a
pleasure to hold is really a joy.
This is a rambling on aesthetics not an argument but a few other things
come to mind. Check out early scenes of Searching for Bobby Fischer when
they play in the rain. Even the sound of cheap, worn-out plastic pieces
pinging on stones is exciting there. Speaking of Bobby Fischer, check
out some of the games in his "My 60 Memorable Games" in which the play
*and* the annotations are breathtaking.
>>: In fact, the beauty of GO is it's contrasts and the trade-offs that can
>>: be made. The obvious goal of GO is to have more territory than your
>>: opponent at the end. But there are two high-level strategies that can
>>: be pursued: directly take and hold territory, or kill enemy groups to
>>: deny him territory.
>>
Chess games can have quite a bit of drama in various parts of the board.
In Sicilian Defense (which make up a far greater number of high level
games than any other opening) there are fights all over the board. Black
typically attacks on the Queen side, while White typically mobilizes
pieces for a direct attack on the King, usually involving a well-timed
sacrifice (the timing of which is an art form in itself) and even small
developments can thwart each side and shift attention to the center, the
opposite flank, or some other strategic/tactical theme.
On the issue of GO's forgiving nature (you can make a mistake and still
play) I think it's important to remember that GO is simply a bigger
game. 361 points of play versus 64, 100+ moves per GO games, versus an
average of forty of fifty in Chess. True, there are probably less single
moves in GO that could be described as blunders (or ??? in Chess
notation) but there are probably lots of combinations of 5 bad moves in a
row in a GO game that could be fatal -- such as the beginner's tendency to
obsess over corners in the beginning. That's why a 9 handicap is
considered to be such a great advantage. (Also, blunders usually happen
at a critical time in the game, game-losers aren't always possible.)
For the record, I think I prefer playing GO to Chess on a 51 to 49 per
cent basis. I think that there are different modes of thought and
different mind-sets for each of them and I find that each game feeds a
different part of me.
My recently renewed interest in GO comes from reading Chung Kuo, a
science fiction series in which a cunning political/military operator
plays Wei Ch'i all the time. Any other good titles about Go or Wei Chi?
-KIP-
Roy Langston
Forthoffer) writes:
>
>
> Roy Langston (Roy_La...@mindlink.bc.ca) wrote:
> : In go, you have more _good_ moves to choose from at each decision
> point.
> : This gives go a freedom, a meaning, and a
> : strategic depth that chess cannot approach.
>
> In go, you have *fewer* good moves to choose from the deeper you look.
It is hard to imagine how this could be true, if you are in fact saying
what your words appear to mean. In go, tenuki is usually a possible good
move. How on earth can the exploding possibilities of tenuki lead to fewer
good moves the deeper I look? Your notion of lookahead in go seems to be
an extremely tactical (i.e., chesslike) one, unless you are talking about
reading _all the way to the endgame_, a highly impractical enterprise.
> The width or depth of a look-ahead tree has nothing to do with the
> strategic depth of the game.
Absurd hyperbole. Of course strategic depth is not _solely_ determined by
size of move tree, but to claim that there is no relationship...
>
> : the meaning of each move in go
> : is far more complicated than the meaning of a move in chess
>
> The meaning of some moves in go are less complicated that the meanings of
> some moves in chess, and vice versa.
Obviously. I stand corrected. Moves in the late endgame of go usually
have very restricted meanings. However, I would contend that for, say, at
least the first hundred moves, it is clear that the average go move has a
more complicated meaning (whatever that means) than the average chess move.
> : > In chess, long term strategic thinking is required.
> :
> : Wrong again. There are strong computer chess programs that do
> virtually no
> : strategic thinking at all. They think only of material, and they can
> beat
> : grandmasters in blitz.
>
> No, *you* are wrong, The strong computer chess programs that can beat
> grandmasters in blitz do *extensive* strategic thinking. They are weak
> in the planning department, and do not understand *certain* strategies,
> but they definitely pay attention to strategy.
Of course their heuristics consider strategic issues. My point is that
their play is dominated by tactical combinations to win material, and that
is how they generally win their games against human players. Ask any GM
who has been beaten by one. Further, I think the authors of such programs
would agree their strength is in brute reading ability.
>
> : Chess is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
> : rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freedom and
> : opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
> : presented by go...
>
> Go is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
> rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freed and
> opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
> presented by ches...
Tell you what. Make friends with the regulars at your local go club, and
then do the same at your local chess club (if you can). Then tell me which
of the above two sentences makes more sense.
>
> By the way, how good are you at chess?
I'm a patzer. But then, a 2300-rated chess program is stronger than you,
but probably has very little of interest to say about the game...
> --
> David Forthoffer (1k* 2260 USCF)
Roy Langston (5d AGA, 1??? Elo)
Chris Goringe
> Chris Sanderson (cis...@gamma.std.com) wrote:
>
> : The consequenses of a bad move in go are far smaller than in
> : chess. A person ahead tends to stay ahead even after a weak
> : move. A person ahead would have to *keep on blundering* to lose.
>
> This may be true for people who don't really know how to
> play, but becomes less and less true as you become stronger.
Even at my humble 20k* level it is clear that a single bad move in, say, a
life/death situation can be enormous.
> : Chess is still better than go.
>
> I personally feel it is the height of folly to consider
> any game better than any other unless you state up front
> a rigorous set of criteria. Chess and Go are both fine
> games, but so are football, strip poker, and mumbly-peg.
Lots of people enjoy playing chess. Lots of people enjoy playing go. Thats
enough for me.
Chris
Roy Langston
Sullivan) writes:
>
>
> In article <watanabe.775754112@asimov>,
> Larry M. Watanabe <wata...@asimov.cs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> >to the standard game of chess?
>
> inaccuracies, I came up with 12x12. 13x13 I was quite sure had more
> possible positions than chess. 9x9 had many fewer. But chess has many
> more restrictions on legal positions than does go, of which I only took
> into account some of the most obvious (There can't be a pawn on it's own
> first rank... etc. positions with more than 8 pawns of one color or more
> than two rooks etc...) In go the only thing to discount for is
> symettry.
I'm afraid you missed one teeny tiny little thing: in a legal go position,
every unit (i.e., solidly connected group) must have at least one liberty.
This means that only about one in a billion (trillion?) combinatorically
possible 19x19 go positions is actually a legal position (for smaller
boards, it is of course a higher proportion of a lower number). I'd be
interested to see if anyone has attempted a mathematically credible
estimate of the true proportion.
One AI researcher (sorry, I forget the name) estimated that on a pure
move-tree level, chess is comparable to 11x11 go.
Like a lot of the discussion on this thread, talk of combinatorics and
computer programs is a bit beside the point. Go's charm is that it has this
unrivalled complexity and diversity in a form that is uniquely congenial to
the human mind. Maybe 12x12 fairy chess has a move tree as big as 19x19
go. So what? It's all but unplayable.
In a sense, there is only one datum to consider: of those who know both go
and chess well, the overwhelming majority (at least 90%) prefer go. If
chess players who don't know go feel threatened by this, that's their
problem.
-- Roy
Joongul Lee
Langston) wrote:
> In article <31kio4$7...@pnet1.pnet.com>, m...@pnet1.pnet.com (Michael
> Sullivan) writes:
> >
> >
> > In article <watanabe.775754112@asimov>,
> > Larry M. Watanabe <wata...@asimov.cs.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >
> > >Question 2 for mathematicians: what size go board is equivalent
> > >to the standard game of chess?
> >
> > I worked this out once, very roughly. Allowing for some gross
> > inaccuracies, I came up with 12x12. 13x13 I was quite sure had more
> > possible positions than chess. 9x9 had many fewer. But chess has many
> > more restrictions on legal positions than does go, of which I only took
> > into account some of the most obvious (There can't be a pawn on it's own
> > first rank... etc. positions with more than 8 pawns of one color or more
> > than two rooks etc...) In go the only thing to discount for is
> > symettry.
>
>
> I'm afraid you missed one teeny tiny little thing: in a legal go position,
> every unit (i.e., solidly connected group) must have at least one liberty.
> This means that only about one in a billion (trillion?) combinatorically
> possible 19x19 go positions is actually a legal position (for smaller
> boards, it is of course a higher proportion of a lower number). I'd be
> interested to see if anyone has attempted a mathematically credible
> estimate of the true proportion.
[some stuffs deleted]
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. Do you mean that I can't play
ponnuki if my opponent ignores my atari? While it is true that the stones
can't stay that way on board, I still believe that it should be counted. I
agree with you that suicide is illegal, so should be excluded, but my
feeling is that it can be ignored for rough estimation.
Back to the issue, someone mentioned about the pattern recognition in go.
I think this is a very important skill in go, and probably one of the
reason why computer go programs are so poor tactically.(I would imagine
that this is VERY hard to implement, if not impossible.) Is there a
similar concept in Chess? I know almost nothing sbout chess and always had
the feeling that in chess the analytical ability in reading plays a much
greater role than in go, where pattern recognition, which seems more
intuitive, can sometimes guide you.
> -- Roy
--
Joongul Lee
(jlee on igs)
Richard Resnick
> compare with oranges"' compare with `"how does chalk compare with cheese"
> compare with "how does go compare with chess"'?
Perhaps there is not a soul in the entire world who could have more
effectively communicated the nature of this thread. Mr. Shaw, you have
gained my professional respect.
Richard Resnick
---
Richard Resnick Center for Genome Research
ric...@genome.wi.mit.edu The Whitehead Institute, MIT
All opinions expressed within belong solely to Richard Resnick.
Olli Lounela
subject, and then into kill file with it unless this arguing in "not!"
"yes!" "not!" style stops. In particular, I find the quoted writer
actively useing blindfolds or not reading any responses (or perhaps not
understanding them).
In article <31jhu5$q...@hubcap.clemson.edu>,
Chris Sanderson <cis...@gamma.std.com> wrote:
>Go is a more complex game than chess in the sense that go has
> (...)
>Yet the argument that says go is a better game for this reason
>is spurious. This has been discussed in this thread for a while
Yes, this is very true. However, I have not seen many claim it better
(which, IMHO, it is :-) for this reason.
>now. Now the question is to decide if a game is "enjoyable" or
>not. Now this is too subjective, it comes down to preferences
> (...)
>I will use the concept of "diversity" to help make the question
>less subjective.
But then, you use the 'diversity' in a wholly subjective manner, which I
find disturbing from point of view of attempted objectivity. Also, you
give claims that I see as having little common with reality.
>* Go has only one kind of piece, again little diversity. But the
>objective is to take territory, which gives it another
>dimention. The game is large and complex by computational
>standards, but not diversity standards.
Isn't this self-contradictory? Adding another dimension does not
increase diversity? I expect anybody with any training in mathematics
above basics to disagree. That the pieces in go ("stones") *look* alike
and nominally are equally valuable (until played, that is) has nothing
to do with diversity.
>* Chess has the square board like the others. In chess, the
>different parts of the board add to its diversity: the center,
^^^^^^
Yes, add to, but in a manner I find hard to approve. From another point
of view this can be seen as an _attempt_ at adding another dimension(*),
and IMHO this attempt is poorly successful. It only adds some
complexity of calculative nature, since you need to keep tally on the
potential move destinations of each piece, and while this adds strain to
brain, I regard this a genuine kludge-type solution: ugly but sort of
(almost) works.
(*) I define dimension broadly as in "another aspect that does not
directly affect the others". This makes the diversity of possible moves
by different pieces in chess a discrete dimension of not much depth.
>the wings, the corners. Go has this as well. Chess also has six
>separate kinds of pieces, go only has one. Chess is far more
>diverse than go, but go players probably don't care about that.
I can see you claim this, but I find it hard to credit. Perhaps you use
different definition for word "diversity" than I or my dictionary do.
If it means "more possible moves per piece" you definitely are right,
since go stones don't move, but if you mean "a move has more effect on
position" you are plainly wrong(**), and if you mean "choice of move
makes more different games", you are still plain wrong. And, to mention
the definition "more different places to put the piece into"...
(**) Professionals regard 19x19 board small, and a move in one corner
can have non-tactical effects as far as the corner diagonally opposed
(i.e. on the whole board). Any player of dan level should be able to
see this, and most high kyus too. One cannot get to (high?) dan level
without taking this effect into account.
>A similar way to say it is to ask "What is a shortest possible
>way to describe the rules of the game?" Go would talk about the
>board, the one piece, the atari rule, not a lot. Chess would
>have to describe all six pieces, the en passant rule, castleing,
>two move pawns, fifty move draws, etc. By this standard, chess
>has a longer description and is more diverse.
Hm, does this mean that you define word diversity as "requires more
complex explanation"? In that case I believe many RFC's are more diverse
than chess.
But actually you miss one of the best parts of go by requiring the rules
be complex and long-winded: the rules of go are simple enough that most
anybody can learn them in a single sitting of at most half an hour. Yet
this does nothing to reduce the complexities of the game.
>Do the go players have something better? I would like to here
>more about how the chess players exposed to go start playing go,
>and go players exposed to chess keep on playing go. If I
>expanded the go board, from 19x19 to 23x23 (the next prime
>number) would that make it better or just bigger?
Expanding or reducing the board is not a taboo in go the way it seems in
chess. I have heard even professionals playing on extra-large boards
(23x23?) to see what it would be like. And it is a standard tool to
reduce the board and hence the complexity of the game when teaching
beginners: start at 9x9, next go to 13x13, then to full board. This
does not cripple game, it just shuts out some aspects and thus makes it
easier for the beginner to fathom the basics. And, indeed, it is not a
different game from go the way chess on another board would be from
chess.
And all this does not still claim that go would be a better game, just
that this "objectivity" is not. That some love chess means that it must
have some appeal, which I cannot see, but still it must be there. But
please do not claim go to be a worse game before you learn something
about it.
(And yes, I have refrained from joining this thread before since my
understanding of chess could be deeper -- I changed to go over 10 years
ago when I reached the level that it required excessive lookahead.)
--
Olli, 3 dan
E-mail: Olli.L...@Helsinki.FI ! .sig still under construction.
Blame me only for any opinions expressed. ! Never you mind, I don't either.
Peter W Gousios
>> How does `"How does go compare with chess" compare with "how do apples
>> compare with oranges"' compare with `"how does chalk compare with cheese"
>> compare with "how does go compare with chess"'?
>
>Perhaps there is not a soul in the entire world who could have more
>effectively communicated the nature of this thread. Mr. Shaw, you have
>gained my professional respect.
>
>ric...@genome.wi.mit.edu The Whitehead Institute, MIT
I like this statement too.
Point 1.
On the other end of the spectrum Go and Chess are instances of the same game!
That is finding the best path through a graph of legal board configurations
where each valid move is an arc, and each node a .
All other discussion is due to human inability to comprehend
the games in their entirty.
I like phrasing the apples to oranges comparison as follows:
Point 2.
To say something is better than something else begs the question
Better at what? You can define the what in whichever manner
leads to the point you wish to make.
This makes it extremely easy to get into arguments.
As a philosopher I find this discussion interesting, but limited in
use by the above points.
As a player of both games I enjoy both.
As a computer programmer I realize both programming tasks are very difficult.
Happy Playing. Enjoy both games.
Pete Gousios
AGA 8kyu
pe...@mail.csh.rit.edu
pwg...@cs.rit.edu
Alan Graham
: My recently renewed interest in GO comes from reading Chung Kuo, a
: plays Wei Ch'i all the time. Any other good titles about Go or Wei Chi?
: -KIP-
:
I've never heard of Chung Kuo. More details please!!
Shibumi (mentioned previously in this thread) is an excellent thriller/
martial arts piece of airport fiction which mentions Go extensively.
I.m afraid I cant remember author, etc.
Regards
Alan Graham
David Forthoffer
: dav...@lpd.sj.nec.com (David Forthoffer) writes:
: > In go, you have *fewer* good moves to choose from the deeper you look.
:
: It is hard to imagine how this could be true, if you are in fact saying
: what your words appear to mean. In go, tenuki is usually a possible good
: move. How on earth can the exploding possibilities of tenuki lead to fewer
: good moves the deeper I look? Your notion of lookahead in go seems to be
: an extremely tactical (i.e., chesslike) one, unless you are talking about
: reading _all the way to the endgame_, a highly impractical enterprise.
In a local area, each go play reduces the number of remaining choices.
In a global sense, the relationships between different local areas doesn't
change that much.
In chess, each play can increase the number of remaining choices.
: > The width or depth of a look-ahead tree has nothing to do with the
: > strategic depth of the game.
:
: Absurd hyperbole. Of course strategic depth is not _solely_ determined by
: size of move tree, but to claim that there is no relationship...
OK. Tell me how the width or depth of a look-ahead tree affects the
strategic depth of the game.
: > : the meaning of each move in go
: > : is far more complicated than the meaning of a move in chess
: >
: > The meaning of some moves in go are less complicated that the meanings of
: > some moves in chess, and vice versa.
:
: I would contend that for, say, at
: least the first hundred moves, it is clear that the average go move has a
: more complicated meaning (whatever that means) than the average chess move.
I can see why a patzer like you might think so...
: > The strong computer chess programs that can beat
: > grandmasters in blitz do *extensive* strategic thinking. They are weak
: > in the planning department, and do not understand *certain* strategies,
: > but they definitely pay attention to strategy.
:
: Of course their heuristics consider strategic issues. My point is that
: their play is dominated by tactical combinations to win material, and that
: is how they generally win their games against human players. Ask any GM
: who has been beaten by one. Further, I think the authors of such programs
: would agree their strength is in brute reading ability.
Their strength is in brute reading ability to reach positions with
favorable material and strategic aspects. The bulk of the effort spent
evaluating positions is devoted to analyzing strategic aspects.
I have studied the games you're talking about. I have programmed chess
professionally. The authors of such programs do *not* agree that the
strength of their programs is brute force reading ability to reach
materially-favorable positions.
: > : Chess is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
: > : rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freedom and
: > : opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
: > : presented by go...
: >
: > Go is certainly better for people who like a narrow, rigid, highly
: > rule-bound environment and are uncomfortable with the freed and
: > opportunities for self-expression, self-discovery and self-disclosure
: > presented by ches...
:
: Tell you what. Make friends with the regulars at your local go club, and
: then do the same at your local chess club (if you can). Then tell me which
: of the above two sentences makes more sense.
Neither make sense to me.
: > By the way, how good are you at chess?
:
: I'm a patzer.
That explains some of your misconceptions about chess.
: But then, a 2300-rated chess program is stronger than you,
: but probably has very little of interest to say about the game...
So what? My point is that it takes considerable understanding of chess
to reach a 2260 chess rating.
Similarly, you reaching 5-dan AGA means you have considerable understanding
of go, even though a pro player is stronger than you. And I, with a go
strength of 3 or 4-dan AGA also have considerable understanding of go.
: > David Forthoffer (1k* 2260 USCF)
:
: Roy Langston (5d AGA, 1??? Elo)
--
Adrian Mariano
>Alan Graham (graham@cleo) wrote:
>: Shibumi (mentioned previously in this thread) is an excellent thriller/
>: martial arts piece of airport fiction which mentions Go extensively.
>Was that by Van Lustbader?
No, it's by Trevanian.
Wayne Folta
>out some of the games in his "My 60 Memorable Games" in which the play
>*and* the annotations are breathtaking.
I have one book by Fischer which really excited me in Jr. High. I'll have to
get this one.
>My recently renewed interest in GO comes from reading Chung Kuo, a
>science fiction series in which a cunning political/military operator
>plays Wei Ch'i all the time. Any other good titles about Go or Wei Chi?
My favorite GO book is _The Treasure Chest Enigma_ (I think, can anyone help
here?) I got it signed by the author when he was in the US. It's funny, and
full of GO puzzles and interesting stories. (I just now looked for it, and I
can't find it! I won't be able to sleep until I do.) The author is a modest
and humorous guy, and the book is excellent.
--
Wayne Folta (fo...@cs.umd.edu)
David Forthoffer
: David Forthoffer wrote:
: >Even well-trained players fall for go traps and swindles.
: >Do *you* know the avalanche joseki well enough to avoid its traps?
:
: Maybe I'm not advanced enough in GO, either. But would my not understanding
: this joseki mean that the game is over at the point I fall for it? Or might
: I redeem myself in another area of the board? Like I said, I've played chess
: games where it was over, checkmate, in minutes.
The game would be "dead" lost at the point you fall for it.
You would have be opportunity to continue playing, and your opponent
might make a similar mistake.
: You might say that Chess has a more concrete ending condition, checkmate, so
: it can be stopped, based on the rules, much earlier than a GO game. A GO game
: might be over after 15 moves, but stopping at that point would be done because
: strong players can see that the game is, baring horrible mistakes, headed for
: a certain outcome. A poor player just doesn't see that they have lost after
: 15 moves in GO.
True.
: It is true that no Chess rule determines what part of the board will be
: controlled by which player, at all times during the game. But surely, it
: determines it at the beginning of the game, and that influence is felt
: throughout the entire game.
You're right. But note that the piece configurations and their influence
are decided by the two players and their skill level, not by fiat.
: In GO, the two of us negotiate (play) territory. Territory claimed at the
: beginning of the game surely influences the rest of the game, but the
: organization of the claims and the influence of the claims are decided by
: the two players and their skill level, not by fiat.
: >The two kings don't polarize Chess strategy any more than getting territory
: >polarizes Go strategy. Chess strategy is ultimately based on capturing the
: >opposing king. Go strategy is ultimately based on capturing more territory
: >than your opponent. In both cases, this "polarization" limits the
: >sub-strategies at your disposal.
:
: Certainly in terms of piece movement, the locations of the two kings does
: polarize Chess, doesn't it? Do you mean to say that you move pieces in Chess,
: not caring whether your opponent's king is castled, whether your king is
: castled, what sides they are castled? And if both are castled, is it to the
: same side or not?
*Of course* king position polarizes strategy. I thought I said that.
My point is that the need in Go to capture territory polarizes Go strategy
in a similar manner.
: >In Go, there *is* a game-long main target. It's called territory.
: >Although the current area of play continually changes, the focus of the
: >play is concerned with present and future territory.
:
: It still seems to me that we are not communicating here. In GO, territory is
: where I find it, maybe even underneath an opponent's group. Gaining territory
: is a goal, which is an ephemeral target. Unlike a king, which sits in one
: place on the board, or slowly lumbers around.
OK. I'll agree that chess has a single geographic target, while Go does not.
But looking at the actual target from a strategic depth, breadth, and focus
point of view, I think it doesn't matter whether the target is in a single
geographic spot, or in several.
: Chess sets *can* be beautiful. The entire game was not designed to be so.
: GO is designed, from the ground up, to be aesthetically pleasing.
: We're talking everything from look and feel to sound here.
: There's a fundamental difference between "can be beautiful" and
: "is designed in every way to be beautiful".
:
: (I'll admit again that my original article indulged in hyperbole. Chess is
: not inherently ugly. It is just that Chess is not inherently beautiful
: either.)
I'm not enough of a chess historian to know whether chess sets/games
were designed in every way to be beautiful.
: >OK. So in what way is chess unbalanced?
:
: I'm still thinking on this one. It just strikes my intuition (these are
: opinions, remember) that handicapability is just a surface indication of
: deeper balance.
I think that if Go has a deeper balance, it will be manifest by more
than easy handicapability.
: And I think of the many contrasts (balances) of GO:
:
: * Attack directly, attack by moving in the other direction
: * Take territory, take opposing pieces
: * Gaining territory by chasing a group, spoiling territory by being chased.
: * etc.
I think these are balances between techniques and counter-techniques.
When I think of "balance" in a game of go, I think of the tactical and
strategic resources available in all the local areas that reinforce
the influence (in sente or gote) of each local area. For example, if you
have a man on the star point in the opening, your man *is* beneficial to
your game. You may not have any choice as to whether the benefit will
manifest itself as territory in the corner, territory along one side,
or influence that affects someplace else on the board. And the more
reading skill you have to analyze these different aspects, the more
you will see that this balance exists with a tangible benefit to you.
: Will you not allow that GO's larger board and smaller, duplicate pieces does
: not allow more scope for strategy? If only from a purely real-estate view.
I don't see how the size of the real estate affects the width or depth
of strategy.
: And if only because GO *is*, in some sense, more abstract and strategic. I
: mean, Chess pieces embody certain movements, which generally define capture
: and defense. GO pieces, as individuals, have no real power to capture, and
: have no movement. It is the agregation of GO pieces that creates groups
: and the expansion/relationship of groups that defines capture, defense, and
: movement.
It is the aggregation Go pieces that effectively shrinks the size of the Go
board, while effectively increasing the number of different pieces.
: >What might be a Go comparison to the Chess concept of creating a powerful
: >passed pawn?
:
: The pawn changes from a weak, in-the-way piece to a strong piece. And not just
: a strong piece, but one that is on the opponent's side of the board.
: ("Your side", "My side" again.)
:
: My feeling is that a successful invasion which utilizes a dead group, has
: much the same theme. Or maybe where you squeeze a group from the outside,
: killing it before it can kill a previously-dead group inside of it. The weak
: ("I'm not dead yet") group inside suddenly turns into a powerful attacker,
: on your opponent's "side".
That sounds reasonable.
However, I don't think there needs to be a one-to-one correspondence between
strategic concepts.
: >There are three main reasons why I prefer Go over Chess:
:
: You could add a fourth:
:
:4.You can kick the butt of the best GO-playing program in the world. And unless
: a breakthrough occurs, you will be able to do so for many years to come.
Thanks for the thought, but I don't really enjoy whomping some weak program.
Maybe I'll write a Go-playing program that *will* provide competition! ;-)