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From: robison@eosp1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games,net.wanted
Subject: Re: go?
Message-ID: <283@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-Nov-83 00:21:49 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.283
Posted: Sun Nov 13 00:21:49 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Nov-83 23:32:40 EST
References: <140@cae780.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 16

In Japan, there are programs that play GO endgames.  (That is,
there is a tricky position late in the game, and you can play
against the computer to try to finish the game and be ahead.)

Although to human beings, there is subjective evidence that GO and
Chess are of roughly equal difficulty, the situation looks
different to a computer.  In chess, most positions have
30 to 40 possible moves.  In go, the first move is one of 361, the
next one of 360, and so on (most of the time).  As any experienced
GO player will tell you, there are no simple symmetries to reduce
this incredible count to a manageable number.  Almost all of the
possiblitites must be analysed, in the same sense that all of the
chess possibilities must be analysed.

Good luck finding a GOplaying program; it will be very weak.