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From: ucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.games.go
Subject: Re: go program prize -- update - (nf)
Message-ID: <1239@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jan-84 03:58:06 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.1239
Posted: Thu Jan  5 03:58:06 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jan-84 03:19:26 EST
Sender: notes@ucbcad.UUCP
Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group
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#R:ittvax:-121200:ucbesvax:38500003:000:1482
ucbesvax!turner    Jan  4 03:19:00 1984

    /***** ucbesvax:net.games.go / ittvax!rlw / 12:01 pm  Jan  3, 1984*/
    We are now prepared to offer a $1000 prize.  But there seems to be little
    interest within this group.

    Where can we find the computer Go enthusiasts?

    Maybe it would be better to offer an annual prize for the best contestant
    in a program-to-program matchup?

    --dick Wexelblay (...decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!rlw)

Who is "we"?  (Does it include a fellow named Dick Wexelblat, who is usually
in less of a hurry? :-)  And how can you (implicitly) define "computer Go
enthusiast" as someone who is going to write a sho-dan program for $1000
This is sort of like offering $1000 to anyone who can design something as
fast as the next Cray machine in his\her spare time.

As for the sort of technical secrecy generated by head-to-head competition of
one program against another, I think that would be counterproductive at this
point.  I would be far more impressed by a 10-kyu teaching program (i.e., one
that could explain--however haltingly--to a 15-kyu what his blunders were)
whose algorithms could be understood by most of us, than by two independently-
developed 5 kyu programs battling over which will get white on the next game.

This newsgroup is about dissemination.  To the extent that it is about
computer Go, we should be talking about strategies, data structures,
algorithms, implementation languages, existing programs and their failures.
---
Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)