[computer-go] 9x9 games wanted and the next big challenge

[alain Baeckeroot]

Le dimanche 8 juillet 2007 11:51, chrilly a écrit :
> If it would be really a big challenge, there would be some money.
There was a computer challenge with 1 million dollar prize during
many years, for a program abble to beat one professional choosen by the
sponsor. I don't know if it is still valid offer.

> In chess  
> nowadays there is also no money. But once it was a good business and there 
> was some considerable money for Deep Blue and on a smaller scale also for 
> Hydra, there was Don's project at MIT, one got a big Cray for Cray-Blitz, 
> Ken Thompson build a chess engine....
> Its like some hobbyst engineers and hobby-pilots would try to fly to the 
> moon.
Titanic was build by professionals, and Noah's arch by an amateur ;-)
(Kon Tiki is a more recent and scientific exemple of incredible amateurish
 success)

> Its probably only good for to write some academic papers. In this case its 
> even an advantage that everything is so amateuristic. The general level is 
> low and one can be the one-eyed king under blind ones.
If i remeber, last year you said something like "As a professional 
programmer, i don't want to ruin my reputation with a poor go program" :-)

And the state of the art is: go programs are just dumb on 19x19, lots
of research are needed, but more engeneering power would probably do nothing.
> 
> Its clear to me that things are as they are in the West. Go is played only 
> by a small freak community. But if it is so important in China/Korea/Japan 
> why is'nt there something like Fritz and ChessBase? Or does it exist and we 
> are living in a completly other Go-world?
Some dozens of 9x9 pro games are at http://gobase.org/9x9/
There are databases of nearly 50000 pro games on 19X19, this should be good
 enough for some years in computer go. 9x9 is a teaching tool, or a fun tactical
exercice, but it is not Go because of lack of strategy.

Alain