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From: g2jdr@cdf.toronto.edu (Rootham James Douglas)
Subject: Re: State enumeration
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Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 19:48:25 GMT
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In article <D731tB.J4D@mv.mv.com>, Steven J. Edwards <sje@mv.mv.com> wrote:

>
>I measure game complexity based on a game's influence and perfusion
>through human culture and by the amount of interest it stimulates in
>the research community over time.
>
>Rhetorically:
>
>Where are all the go programs?  Why is it that the topic doesn't
>attract more than a very small fraction of researchers as compared to
>chess?  Why is go, a much older game than chess by far, mainly
>isolated in a few countries?  Where is the corpus of go literature in
>culture and in programming that even remotely compares to that of
>chess?
>
>Subjectively:
>
>Go is completely lacking in the crispness and decisiveness that
>characterizes chess.  Go doesn't have the near-escapes, the surprise
>thrusts, or even the swindles seen in chess.  Chessgames end in life
>or death while go games end with an accounting tally.  Playing over a
>go game is like watching two different spore molds fighting it out in
>a Petri dish; fascinating for some, but of doubtful holding power for
>most.
>
>-- Steven (sje@mv.mv.com)

Reply to rhetoric:

There are lots of go programmes.  The simple ones don't do anything at
all and the complicated ones aren't very good (relative to good human
players), so they don't get reported in the literature.  There is go
literature, I think even more go literature than chess literature, it
is written in Japanese (there is probably a bunch more in Chinese that
I don't know anything about).  Don't be quite so narrow minded.

Reply to subjectivity:

Go contains everything that you say chess has and go does not.  If you
don't think so I must simply assume that you don't know enough about
go to be competent to comment on the game.

Jim Rootham
g2jdr@cdf.utoronto.ca


-- 
Jim Rootham   g2jdr@cdf.utoronto.ca

