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

Learn to play Go

online-go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 159 posts

Re: Learn to play Go

#131

Post by amcoy37 »

kouru225 wrote: post #129

This has some serious bugs. I just tried to play 2.16 is the group alive. It told me I was wrong for saying black was alive when it clearly had two eyes. Then I tried 2.17 and it showed me a screen of a black formation that has two eyes, but then says "White to play. Make two eyes." This is clearly the wrong prompt for this board. Not only is the color wrong, but the formation already has two eyes so I don't know wha…

Hmm, both 2.16 and 2.17 worked for me. Which of the 6 puzzles in each chapter didn't work for you?

Re: Learn to play Go

#132

Post by zenlot »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #63

Go is a wonderful game. My older brother bought a Go set when I was a little kid and we played together. Now, 65 years later I need to give him a 9 stone handicap (I cheated by taking lessons from a South Korean Go Master and studying several books), but thanks to the wonderful handicap system, games can still be fun even when players have very different skill levels. I randomly tried a few exercises on the linked we…

Out of interest which language you used for that?

Re: Learn to play Go

#133

Post by kouru225 »

amcoy37 wrote: post #131
kouru225 wrote: post #129

This has some serious bugs. I just tried to play 2.16 is the group alive. It told me I was wrong for saying black was alive when it clearly had two eyes. Then I tried 2.17 and it showed me a screen of a black formation that has two eyes, but then says "White to play. Make two eyes." This is clearly the wrong prompt for this board. Not only is the color wrong, but the formation already has two eyes so I don't know wha…

Hmm, both 2.16 and 2.17 worked for me. Which of the 6 puzzles in each chapter didn't work for you?

In 2.16:

3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom

4 Says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with two eyes diagonal from each other, one on the edge.

In 2.17:

2 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes."

3 is doable but it also says "white to play" while showing a black formation.

4 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes."

5 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes."

6 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes."

FYI I'm using firefox

Re: Learn to play Go

#134

Post by kevlened »

kouru225 wrote: post #133
amcoy37 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, both 2.16 and 2.17 worked for me. Which of the 6 puzzles in each chapter didn't work for you?

In 2.16: 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom 4 Says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with two eyes diagonal from each other, one on the edge. In 2.17: 2 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes." 3 is doable but it also…

The lessons are correct, but may be more obvious with better definitions.

"Alive" pieces remain permanent throughout the game. In both 2.16 examples, white can capture black by filling the gaps.

"Eyes" only have one space each and are fully surrounded by a single color. In both 2.16 examples. there are no eyes. Look at 2.17 with this new definition to see where the gaps are not yet eyes.

2.17 (3) is asking you to place a white piece within the black formation. This renders correctly for me in firefox.

Re: Learn to play Go

#135

Post by Izkata »

okkdev wrote: post #43
szopa wrote: post #31

I first learned to play Go back in university, but never got very good (it was competing with learning how to program). Many years later, shortly after the war in Ukraine started, I was looking for an activity to share with my 8-year-old son. Life was chaotic then: everyone was anxious, we were hosting a refugee lady, and I could see the stress taking a toll on him. I wanted something where it would be clear we shoul…

Hikaru no Go manga is super good too. Aged very well as well. Manga/Anime from that time usually has some problematic stereotypes/scenes.

Also, the manga goes a bit longer past the end of the anime.

Re: Learn to play Go

#136

Post by Izkata »

aapoalas wrote: post #96
okkdev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hikaru no Go manga is super good too. Aged very well as well. Manga/Anime from that time usually has some problematic stereotypes/scenes.

Heh, HnG definitely does think all Koreans have slits for eyes.

IIRC that was mostly the adults, or older teenagers, who don't get a lot of screen time so their designs are simplified?

It kind of follows a general trope in manga/anime where characters' eyes are smaller or thinner to indicate age/seriousness/maturity/intellectualism. The Korean kids tended to have the same kinds of eyes as the Japanese kids, like Hikaru's main Korean rival (forget his name) having almost exactly the same trapezoidal design as Akira. Hikaru's eyes also change into this later in the series, changing from his original carefree wide-eyed design.

Re: Learn to play Go

#137

Post by thaumasiotes »

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #125
marcosscriven wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is you can’t just look at a board and know the ko “state” - but yes I’m sure in practice it’s not that important. Just my engineering brain picking up on it.

Chess also has this "problem" thanks to rules like castling and en passant capture.

>> What I mean is you can’t just look at a board and know the ko “state” - but yes I’m sure in practice it’s not that important.

> Chess also has this "problem" thanks to rules like castling and en passant capture.

Chess is intended to be stateful. If you forget whether a castle has occurred (and then the king walked back to its starting position, and a rook repositioned into the corner) or not, chess players will note that you've messed up the game. The castling rule is there to stop you from castling more than once.

Go is not intended to be stateful, and if you forget that a particular board layout may have come up in the past, go players will not note that you've messed up the game. It doesn't matter. The ko rule isn't there to stop you from repeating a board twice. It's there to stop you from having to repeat a board layout an infinite number of times, because things like the need for food and sleep would interfere with the game.

Wrt the implementation concern, this distinction means, for example, that you must always track the castling state regardless of whether a player asks for it, whereas you're fine not bothering to track the history of a go board unless a player asks for it. You can just say "if you want to invoke ko, press this button, and we'll remember that board layout, and if it's already been flagged, the game will draw". That isn't done, but it could be done.

Re: Learn to play Go

#138

Post by thaumasiotes »

jibal wrote: post #72
thaumasiotes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average FIDE elo is 1550; chess.com's average of 1200 elo is much lower because it has many beginner players, including children. Why would that lower the average elo? Elo is a conserved quantity: for you to gain points, your opponent must lose that many points, and vice versa. So there are two obvious facts about the average rating: 1. In a closed system, the average rating can never change, not up or down, no…

> Why would that lower the average elo? Because the average chess.com player is considerably weaker than the average FIDE player. > In the much more common scenario where beginners come in, lose a bunch of games, and then leave, the average rating will go up over time. Weak players come into the chess.com pool faster than they leave.

> Weak players come into the chess.com pool faster than they leave.

By definition, someone entering the pool enters with the average elo (for a closed system). The rate of entry and exit doesn't affect the direction of average (open system) elo. (It does affect the rate of divergence; the faster entry is, the longer it will take for the open average to diverge from the closed average.) What matters to the direction is the elo players have when they leave, not how long they take to leave.

Consider what happens if people enter with 1000 elo at a rate of 10 per day, and leave with 800 elo at a rate of 3 per day:

    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    | day | players | total elo | average elo |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |   0 |       0 |         0 |         0.0 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |   1 |      10 |     10000 |      1000.0 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |   2 |      17 |     17600 |      1035.3 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |   5 |      38 |     40400 |      1063.2 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |  10 |      73 |     78400 |      1074.0 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
    |  20 |     143 |    154400 |      1079.7 |
    +-----+---------+-----------+-------------+
> Because the average chess.com player is considerably weaker than the average FIDE player.

This... is nonsense. That has nothing to do with the average elo.

The situation you describe is mathematically impossible. Please consider that before you repeat the claim.

Re: Learn to play Go

#139

Post by Izkata »

kouru225 wrote: post #133
amcoy37 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, both 2.16 and 2.17 worked for me. Which of the 6 puzzles in each chapter didn't work for you?

In 2.16: 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom 4 Says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with two eyes diagonal from each other, one on the edge. In 2.17: 2 shows me a black formation with two eyes already made and says "white to play. Make two eyes." 3 is doable but it also…

Just an additional clarification in case the other reply doesn't help: Your phrasing of "shows me a black formation" doesn't make sense unless it is rendering the page wrong for you. All the problems you've listed show both white and black stones on the board.

For example:

> In 2.16:

> 3 says I'm wrong for saying its alive. It's clearly alive. It's a big black formation with one eye in the corner and one eye at the bottom

Should look like:

  |
  | w w w w w
  | b b b b w
  |   w   b w
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(I'm also using Firefox and it's rendering correctly for me)

Re: Learn to play Go

#140

Post by ggm »

s1110 wrote: post #94
ggm wrote: post #36

Across years of play, the only game of go I won, was a win by default at inter university go in the UK when my opponent didn't show up. I even lost the game I played with my son, teaching him the moves. It's a great game.

To learn the basics of Go you have to lose your first 100 games

I shouldn't have stopped at 98.

truly, the thing I love about Go is two things. Firstly, the handicap system means you can play a good game between neophytes and high-dan players, it's mutual. Secondly, its built on such simple foundations. No horsey-horsey-moves.

Thirdly, even innumerate people who can't count to 3 can play it. You're playing a game substantively unchanged from before chess

Post reply on HN