Re: [gnugo-devel] The Module Formerly Known As Endgame

[Xavier Combelle]

> Next, we relax the search goal. Instead of saying "Win
> the game for black", we could say something like "Take
> prisoners". This is entirely reasonable. Surely some
> Go games must exist in which taking prisoners leads to
> winning. These are the games that the planner will
> look for.
The point is it's no more go, but what is called ponnuki-go or atari-go.
If the rules are clear, I want to say that the both opponent agree, is it
a game very close to go. It is often used to teach go. Until now,
I see only one program which play at this game and it is pretty week.
I think your project can succeed and can be a great improvement
in the programming go field.
But be careful, this kind of game as simpler rules, however, if
you go to a biggest size than 9x9, it will be become harder in an 
exponential way.

> With all of the above being said, I would like to make
> a final comment: One suggestion I got from this list
> is that there is more to playing Go than just taking
> prisoners (I believe it was Gunnar's, but I could be
> wrong).
>  
I full agree. For exemple, you can give some stones to take more stones,
for exemple when you kill an eye.

> So that's my whole idea. Seriously folks, this idea
> just needs a little bit of work to make it elegant.
> The foundation is sound. In fact, I claim that if we
> can get even this naive strategy implemented, then it
> would knock the socks off of an exclusive pattern
> matching GNU Go.
>  
I'm not sure of this point. Because with pattern matching you can take 
count of
throw away some stones.

Definivly, ponnuki-go is not go. Nevertheless, if you succeed in 
creating a strong program,
that would be cool. I hope I would play against your program soon. If 
your program
becomes nearly perfect, a good thing would be to implement a diffculty 
level,
so the beginners can have fun in taking stones to a weak version of your 
program.
For stronger player, we could simulate komi by autorizing a number of 
pass for white.

Xavier