Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

gogameguru.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 90 posts

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#61

Post by Jach »

mrob wrote: post #58
shultays wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While scoring go uses area you control + number of stones you capture right? Somewhere I read about go it makes no sense to put stones on the area your opponent control because they will be captured. however wwwww w w w b w w w wwwww in this case white has to put 4 stones (thus reduce area by 4) just to get 1 point. am I missing something

This is why I much prefer Chinese (and similar) rules with area scoring. In area scoring you get one point for each space you surround, and one point for each stone on the board. It's immediately obvious and simple. In Japanese rules you lose points for playing in your own territory. The black stone in your example is dead, and a reasonable player would allow it to be removed, but there's nothing stopping them from c…

I still prefer Japanese counting since it takes a lot less time to count (at least for me) a full 19x19 board. The only way white loses points (relative to black) by being forced to "play it out" is if black passes -- but the AGA resolves that by requiring you to give up a pass stone as a prisoner when you pass, and if the game has ended and you have to play it out, passes aren't allowed.

The next AI challenge is to have the AI make an argument that will convince everyone to adopt the One True Most Elegant Ruleset for Go. (http://warp.povusers.org/go/RulesElegance/ is an interesting page, along with his proposal: http://warp.povusers.org/go/MyRulesProposal/)

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#62

Post by mfoy_ »

mrob wrote: post #58
shultays wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While scoring go uses area you control + number of stones you capture right? Somewhere I read about go it makes no sense to put stones on the area your opponent control because they will be captured. however wwwww w w w b w w w wwwww in this case white has to put 4 stones (thus reduce area by 4) just to get 1 point. am I missing something

This is why I much prefer Chinese (and similar) rules with area scoring. In area scoring you get one point for each space you surround, and one point for each stone on the board. It's immediately obvious and simple. In Japanese rules you lose points for playing in your own territory. The black stone in your example is dead, and a reasonable player would allow it to be removed, but there's nothing stopping them from c…

But in practice there usually ends up being no difference in score under either ruleset, or by at most 1 point difference.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#63

Post by mrob »

Jach wrote: post #61
mrob wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I much prefer Chinese (and similar) rules with area scoring. In area scoring you get one point for each space you surround, and one point for each stone on the board. It's immediately obvious and simple. In Japanese rules you lose points for playing in your own territory. The black stone in your example is dead, and a reasonable player would allow it to be removed, but there's nothing stopping them from c…

I still prefer Japanese counting since it takes a lot less time to count (at least for me) a full 19x19 board. The only way white loses points (relative to black) by being forced to "play it out" is if black passes -- but the AGA resolves that by requiring you to give up a pass stone as a prisoner when you pass, and if the game has ended and you have to play it out, passes aren't allowed. The next AI challenge is to…

Chinese counting is just as fast once you're used to it. Remember that you only need to count one player under Chinese rules. And the AGA rules are a nice hack to Japanese rules to make them always give the same result as Chinese rules and avoid trolling/unreasonable plays, but it's still more complicated to explain to beginners than Chinese rules.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#65

Post by Jach »

ideonexus wrote: post #53
romaniv wrote: post #49

While we're here, does anyone know a good Go app for Android? A lot of them look like spyware, judging by permissions.

I use "Go Free." It has permissions to USB storage and network access. The unpaid version allows a 13x13 board (19x19 requires upgrading). It has 10 levels of difficulty, of which I can only beat up to level 3. The ads are a little annoying, but no worse than any other free games I have for android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactor...

They recently upgraded their engine to a stronger one, so are you still at 3? Also the full app is available for free on Amazon Underground, I use that for playing 19x19 games.

The big lacking feature of the app for me is that it doesn't let you save your game as an SGF. At least https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mco.prj.app.bw... lets you do that.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#66

Post by rveeblefetzer »

lucb1e wrote: post #2

Slightly off topic perhaps, but I've been looking to buy a Go game. Dutch sites don't seem to have it for a reasonable price; this site sells it for $9.99 but with $18 shipping. Any Europeans here who can tell me how to get it to either a German, Belgian or Dutch address for about €20 or less?

have you tried a Chinatown gift shop? The kind of place that sells baoding balls, incense and kitschy porcelain?

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#67

Post by jonbarker »

panglott wrote: post #8
chrisherring wrote: post #7

I've started playing Go against a computer (SmartGo iOS on a 9x9 board) but I find the hard part is determining where you're making mistakes, what is a better move, why the computer did what it did etc. For instance the computer may ignore a capture to play elsewhere and it can be hard to work out why. I learnt to play Chess when I was young so I can't make a fair comparison but it feels like Chess is much easier to…

I took up Go about six months ago, after many false starts over the years. The secret for me was to stop playing computers and start playing humans online (I like online-go.com). Computers at lower difficulty settings make a combination of very strong moves and very weird moves, which are difficult for beginners to interpret. And the game is just a lot more fun when playing against people of similar skill level or a…

The 12k bots on pandanet are good for learning how to make large groups live against a relatively good opponent, large group deaths are usually the most damaging thing to a beginner's results.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#68

Post by niij »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #57
blubb-fish wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's essentially a pyramid system ...

Pyramid systems involve exponential (or at least superlinear) growth which was not implied by the parent post.

Why was the top player there all along? In a financial "pyramid scheme" it is because money streams to the top. In a teaching ladder, what malicious incentive does the person at the top have to where leaving would cause the whole system to collapse? Most likely, the other players at the top would be happy to take on the role as top player in the league and would continue to self-teach to maintain their place.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#69

Post by ideonexus »

Jach wrote: post #65
ideonexus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use "Go Free." It has permissions to USB storage and network access. The unpaid version allows a 13x13 board (19x19 requires upgrading). It has 10 levels of difficulty, of which I can only beat up to level 3. The ads are a little annoying, but no worse than any other free games I have for android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactor...

They recently upgraded their engine to a stronger one, so are you still at 3? Also the full app is available for free on Amazon Underground, I use that for playing 19x19 games. The big lacking feature of the app for me is that it doesn't let you save your game as an SGF. At least https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mco.prj.app.bw... lets you do that.

I just got the notice about the upgrade. I'm probably going to do worse at 3 now since my wins there were tenuous. Go has been an easy game for me to learn, but a very difficult game for me to get any good at. I just don't know how to think about it the way I think about chess.

Re: Go Game Guru – Learn all about the board game Go

#70

Post by jdietrich »

blubb-fish wrote: post #60
JeremyBanks wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pyramid systems involve exponential (or at least superlinear) growth which was not implied by the parent post.

well, they promise you to be teached - but (and here's the catch) you have to teach yourself - but then at some point the upmost teacher leaves with his knowledge and the whooooole ladder starts to crash - so obvious

A teaching ladder is a linear system, not a pyramid. I get a lesson, I give a lesson, one for one. Reciprocity is used purely to prevent the free rider problem. Participants freely barter their expertise rather than paying for lessons. This is a perfectly stable arrangement - the ladder in the first link has been running continuously since 1994.

The person at the top of the ladder is essentially performing a public service, because they don't get the benefit of learning from a more experienced player. If they leave then the ladder doesn't collapse, the second strongest player simply becomes the leader.

Ladders are commonly used as a competition format in many sports. They provide an excellent way of giving players a challenging but enjoyable game. Teaching ladders are simply an elaboration on this format.

Post reply on HN