Xref: utzoo rec.games.go:950 comp.ai:4000 rec.games.board:2065
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!oliveb!sun!hanami!landman
From: landman%hanami@Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.go,comp.ai,rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Computer Go Challenge
Keywords: go, computer games, ai
Message-ID: <100629@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 23 Apr 89 08:45:45 GMT
References: <3724@sdsu.UUCP> <100234@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <28044@cci632.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 27

In article <28044@cci632.UUCP> jf@ccird3.UUCP (Jens Fiederer) writes:
>In article <100234@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> landman@sun.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes:
>>On the other hand, some studies of my pro game database indicate that pros
>>routinely make hundreds of points of errors per game; so the possibility
>>that a program might someday beat them is quite real.

>Apparently, at least one pro disagrees: Kato Masao has stated (boasted?)
>that God (to avoid religious disagreements here, assume that hypothetical
>entity/process that makes no mistakes at Go could give him ONE handicap
>stone  That would put the figure for Kato at about 10 points of errors
>per game.  Is Kato lying, or are the other pros really that much worse?

Obviously, I think Kato is either lying or deluded.  I vaguely recall one
game (I think between Sakata and Shuko) where there was a big running fight
worth about 75 points.  Post-game analysis showed that both players had
made blunders that SHOULD, with correct play, have given the battle to the
other player.  I think there were about 6 such errors in the space of 20
moves or so.  That's 225 points of errors per player.  Not counting all
the other moves in the game.

More typically, it's easy to imagine that many moves in the opening could
be small errors.  At a couple of points per move, it doesn't take very
long to exceed 10 points.  I strongly doubt that Kato could get 50 moves
into a game without making 20 points of errors.

	Howard A. Landman
	landman@hanami.sun.com