[computer-go] An interesting Go variant?

[Don Dailey]

I am wondering if anyone has ever considered an interesting
simplification of the GO rules that says captures cannot occur more than
once on any intersection.   

One way to play this is to veto any points where a capture takes place.
So if a chain of 10 stones is captured,  those 10 points must remain
completely empty for the rest of the game.     Of course all the stones
that participated in the capture would now be unconditionally alive
since it would be impossible to surround them.

Some versions of some of my programs have elements of this (heavily
conditioned) in them as a simplification in the search to save search
effort.    Although this is obviously NOT Go,  is it an interesting
variant?    What do you think?

It's far simpler than real go of course.   It takes some interesting
elements out of the game such as ko fights.   In fact there can be no KO
since each position is guarantee'd to be unique if you assume veto
points are not the same as empty points.  The total length of a game
cannot exceed 81 moves and it should be possible to build somewhat
"stronger" programs since the game is more tactical and simulataneously
easier to search.

I believe this variant would still be extremely interesting, definitely
non-trivial and challenging for humans to master.   For the purpose of
the physical apparatus to play,  a red marker could always be placed on
any point that get's vacated by a capture move to mark the fact that the
big hole surrounding the marker is off limits.

In such a game, captures would be deadly, since even the capture of a
single stone would guarantee life for the chain(s) that participated in
the capturing move.


- Don