[gnugo-devel] Answer on Go and computers

[Gabor Urban]

Dear Mr. Rasmussen,

as an active though weak go player and a software developer taking some
interest in Gnu Go I might give you some information.

You did not mention the game of chess and chess programs, so let me
write a short comparison. 

The chess board has 8*8 fields, it means 64 positions. The standard go
board (goban) has 19*19 intersection points, which is 361 positions. So
it is more than five times larger, than the chess board. For teaching
game go players use 9*9 boards. The average chess game is about 70-80
moves while in go games the average is somewhere beyond 200. The
sophisticated rules of chess limit the number of possible legal moves,
in go we have less rules.

I do not want to tell you, that chess is not complex, but I would like
to make clear for you, that the complexity of go exceeds it. I am quite
sure, this is the reason why go programs are weaker than chess programs
at the moment.

(Guys on the list could add more technical explanation.)

Regards,

Gabaux