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Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu rec.games.go:6210 news.answers:5233 Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: adrian@u.washington.edu (Adrian Mariano) Newsgroups: rec.games.go,news.answers Subject: The Game Go -- Frequently Asked Questions Supersedes: <games/go-faq_725522529@athena.mit.edu> Followup-To: rec.games.go Date: 13 Jan 1993 06:02:34 GMT Organization: University of Washington Lines: 518 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: 12 Feb 1993 06:02:16 GMT Message-ID: <games/go-faq_726904936@athena.mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pit-manager.mit.edu X-Last-Updated: 1993/01/01 Archive-name: games/go-faq rec.games.go Frequently Asked Questions by Adrian Mariano adrian@u.washington.edu Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of the article. This FAQ is archived as games/go-faq. If you do not have ftp, you can request messages from rtfm by using the local mail server. Send mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing the line "send usenet/news.answers/games/go-faq" to get this file. Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the mail server. This FAQ is also available on the go archive site: ftp.u.washington.edu (128.95.136.1) You can log into the archive site with the username 'ftp' and any password using the 'ftp' command. The files are in various subdirectories under public/go. The file public/go/README (posted on the first of each month to rec.games.go) contains a description of all files. Filenames which appear below are relative to public/go. If you don't have ftp, send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com containing the single line "help" to get information about ftping by mail. If you absolutely cannot get the mail server to work, send an email request to adrian@u.washington.edu and I will mail you the files. The go archive site is mirrorred on ftp.pasteur.fr in the pub/Go directory. The mirror site is maintained by fmc@cnam.cnam.fr. Questions, comments, and corrections should be sent to adrian@u.washington.edu. 0. Table of Contents 1. What is go? 2. What are the differences between different rules? 3. How does the ranking system work? 4. What public domain programs can I get to play go? 5. What commercial programs can I get to play go? 6. How strong are the commercial programs? 7. What computer go tournaments exist? What are the prizes? 8. What are the different game record formats and how can I display them? 9. What programs can I get to display go game records? 10. What is the IGS? How do I use it? 11. How do I play games by computer? 12. Where can I get go equipment, books, etc? 13. What are the dimensions of a go board? 14. What books should I read? 15. Is there a go club in...? 1. What is go? Go is a two player strategy board game. Players take turns putting black and white pieces (called stones) on a board. Stones are placed on the intersection of the lines on the board, and can be placed on the edge or in the corner. Once played a stone can not be moved, but may be captured by the other player. A player can pass at any time. Go is generally played on a 19 by 19 board, but smaller boards such as 9 by 9 or 13 by 13 are used by beginners or for shorter games. The object of the game is to surround territory and/or your opponent's stones. The game ends when both players pass. Under Japanese rules, each intersection surrounded and each prisoner counts as a point. The player with the most points wins. An empty intersection adjacent to a stone (orthogonally) is called a liberty. For example, a single stone in the middle of the board has 4 liberties. Stones that are adjacent form groups. Every group must have at least one liberty. When a group's last liberty is filled it is captured and removed from the board. It is illegal to make a move which recreates a preceding board position (to prevent loops). The simplest repeating position is called a ko. A brief introduction to the game in Smart-Go format is available on the archive site as RULES.SG. Beginners can also get comp/igo.zip from the archive site. This is a stripped down version of Many Faces of Go for the IBM PC which includes play on the 9 by 9 board and some instructional material. 2. What are the differences between different rules? Under Chinese rules, handicap stones are given as free moves whereas with Japanese rules they are placed on the star points. Under Japanese rules, score is calculated by counting points of territory and subtracting the number of captured stones. Points in seki are not counted. With the Chinese rules, the score is calculated by counting both points of territory and the number of stones left on the board. The number of captured stones is not counted. Points surrounded in seki are counted as territory and points shared in seki are counted as 1/2 point for each player. Because the sum of the scores is always 361, only one color needs to be counted. In handicap games, the Japanese system makes no adjustment, but the Chinese system deducts half the handicap from black's score and adds it to white's. Komi under the Chinese system is counted in stones instead of points. A typical value is 2.75 which corresponds to the standard 5.5 komi with the Japanese system. 3. How does the ranking system work? The ranks are "kyu" and "dan". Kyu means pupil and dan means master, but there is no qualitative difference. The ranks are like positive and negative numbers (with no zero). A beginner starts out with a high kyu rank (20-30 kyu) and advances to the strongest kyu rank of 1 kyu. The next rank above 1 kyu is 1 dan (shodan), and the dan ranks proceed upward to 7 dan. On the 19x19 board, the number of handicap stones is the difference between the ranks. A 3 kyu gives seven stones to a 10 kyu. A 2 dan gives 2 stones to a 1 kyu. The professional go players have a separate dan scale which goes from 1 dan to 9 dan. The professional scale has finer gradations than the amateur scale: the difference between 9 dan and 1 dan is about 2 stones. Statistical analysis of a large number of games (over 2000) by Jos Vermaseren suggests that the probability of winning an even game is given by: P(x) = (1/2)*(2/3)^(2*x) in which x is the positive difference in rank and P(x) is the chance that the weaker player wins. You can determine your strength only by playing aginast others with known strength. There are books like "Test Your Rating", but those tests are very unreliable. On a 13x13 board, if the rank difference is "diff", then the following table gives the handicap and komi: diff Handicap Komi diff Handicap Komi diff Handicap Komi 0 0 8.5 7 3 5.5 14 5 2.5 1 0 5.5 8 3 2.5 15 5 -0.5 2 0 2.5 9 3 -0.5 16 6 5.5 3 0 -0.5 10 4 5.5 17 6 2.5 4 2 5.5 11 4 2.5 18 6 -0.5 5 2 2.5 12 4 -0.5 19 6 -3.5 6 2 -0.5 13 5 5.5 20 6 -6.5 4. What public domain programs can I get to play go? Very few public domain programs exist. Those that do are extremely weak. On the archive site, you will find comp/wally.c, which can be compiled anywhere. If you think wally.c is too strong, you can get the even weaker gnugo from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu/gnugo-1.1.tar.Z. If you have X11, you can get xgoban from the archive site (prog/xgoban-1.0.sh.Z) to act as a graphical interface to either wally or gnugo. Macintosh users can try MacGo or Dragon Go (available on the archive site). Amiga users can get Amigo (comp/amigo.lzh on the archive site). Amigo has been ported to X11 (comp/xamigo.sh.Z). If you have access to an HP9000 either 680x0 based or HP-PA risc based, you can get Many Faces of Go for X11 from ftp.uu.net in games/hp-xgo.shar.Z. 5. What commercial programs can I get to play go? The information in this section may be somewhat out of date. Prices or version numbers may be wrong. The Many Faces of Go, $59.95 (add $2.25 for shipping; in CA add sales tax) ISBN 0-923891-28-5 (Version for MSDOS) Ishi Press International Ishi Press International 76 Bonaventura Drive 20 Bruges Place San Jose, CA 95134 London England NW1 OTE Tel: (408)944-9900 FAX: (408)944-9110 071 284 4898 Ishi Press 1301-5 Yabata Chigasaki-Shi Kanagawa-ken 253 (0467)83-4369 (0467)83-4710 (fax) Japan Star of Poland, Version 3.1, $110 OPENetwork 215 Berkeley Pl. Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 638-2266 Nemesis Go Master is at version 5. Aparently version 4 is stronger than version 5, though. Version for Microsoft Windows 3.x is vailable from Ishi Press, for $66.93, plus $3.50 shipping. Version for DOS, and Mac (?) are available. Call 1-800 TOYOGO9 for details. Go Intellect 1990 Computer Olympiad 1st place; 1990 International Computer Go Congress world championship tied for 1st/2nd place. Go Intellect version 2.98 can be ordered directly from the author. An reduced cost upgrade from 2.0 to 2.98 is also available (Version for macintosh) Dr. Ken Chen 4407 Oak Lane Charlotte, NC 28213 Go Explorer runs on top of Smart Go and is available from Anders Kierulf. (For macintosh) Anders Kierulf Smart Game Board P.O. Box 7751 Menlo Park, CA 94026-7751 Many Faces of Go, Nemesis, and Contender (Mac) are available from Ishi Press. Ishi Press International Ishi Press International 76 Bonaventura Drive 20 Bruges Place San Jose, CA 95134 London England NW1 OTE Tel: (408)944-9900 FAX: (408)944-9110 071 284 4898 6. How strong are the commercial programs? It's difficult to rank the programs because they are all very inconsistent in their play. They may play a sequence of moves that look dan level, or solve a dan level problem during play, but then a few moves later they will make a move that a 20 kyu would never make. Since none of the current programs can learn from their own mistakes, when the same situation comes up they will make the same bad move again. The top program in the world (Goliath) claims to be around 8 or 10 Kyu. Many Faces of Go and Nemesis claim to be 13 Kyu. Poka claims to be about 17 Kyu, and Dragon Go is about 17 kyu as well. These claims are generally based on games that are the first game the human has played against a computer. Nemesis has played in AGA rated tournaments for its rating. David Fotland (Author of Many Faces of Go) says, "I know someone who was having trouble beating Many Faces at 13 stones until I suggested he could beat it at 29 stones. He spent a few weeks trying odd moves and found some weaknesses, and now he has no trouble beating it at 29 stones. Each of the programs has different weaknesses, but they all tend to collapse tactically in a complicated position, so if attach and crosscut a lot you can usually win big." Results of 1991 North American Computer Go Tournament 1st: Many Faces of Go, By David Fotland 2nd: Go Intellect, by Ken Chen 3rd: Stone, by Kao 4th: Contender, by Lynn Beus and Jim Logan 5th: Nemesis, by Bruce Wilcox 6th: Swiss Explorer, by Martin Mueller and Anders Kierulf Swiss Explorer forfeited two games, to Many faces and Nemesis, because it was late and missed two rounds. Swiss explorer lost to Contender due to an unrecoverable crash, but Contender was ahead at the time. Nemesis lost two games, to Contender and Stone, due to unrecoverable crashes. The game between Many Faces and Go Intellect was exciting - both programs killed large enemy groups, and the score swung over 100 points each way in the middle game, then the programs left a very large ko on the board until the last dame was filled. Many Faces beat Stone by about 20 points and Nemesis and Contender by about 140 points each. Results of the 1992 World Computer Go Championship, held in Tokyo, Japan on November 11 and 12. 1 - Go Intellect, Ken Chen USA 5-1 2 - Handtalk ZhiXing Cheng China 4-2 3 - Goliath Mark Boon Netherlands 4-2 4 - GOG 5th gen project? Japan? 4-2 5 - Star of Poland Januz Kraszek Poland 4-2 6 - Many Faces of Go David Fotland USA 3-3 7 - Nemesis Bruce Wilcox USA 2-4 8 - Great Hon-in-bow Takeshiro Yoshikawa Japan 2-4 Go Intellect lost to Handtalk. Handtalk lost to GOG and Goliath. Goliath lost to Go Intellect and Star of Poland. GOG lost to Go Intellect and Many Faces of Go. Star of Poland lost to Go Intellect and Handtalk. Many Faces of Go lost to Go Intellect, Goliath, and Star of Poland. The top programs were very well matched this year. The top 6 finishers each beat at least one program that finished above them. Star of Poland had the bad luck to be paired with Rex and Great Hon-in-bow in early rounds, which hurt it in the tie breaker. Any of the top 5 finishers could have taken first place, but Go Intellect has been among the top programs for several years and deserves the title. The three top programs earned the right to challenge 6-dan amateur human opponents at 15-stone handicaps. The humans, age 11-13, won all three games. 7. What computer go tournaments exist? What are the prizes? There is a North American Championship every year at the Go Congress the first week of August. Plaques and the title of North American Computer Go Champion are the prizes. There is a similar competition at the European Go Congress. There is a Computer Games Olympiad every year in London in the summer that includes Computer Go. The Usenix conference used have a computer go competition every year, and may still - no prizes. The big money is in the World Computer Go Congress, sponsored by Ing Chang Chi and Acer in Taiwan. They have a preliminary competition every August (formerly held in Europe, USA, and Japan, but now held in Taipei with programs that are mailed in by their authors). If you do well in the preliminary (defined as beating two of 3 benchmark programs - this year the benchmarks were Stone, Friday, and Goliath) you will be reimbursed for 1/2 of your air fare to the Congress. The congress is held on November 11 and 12 in various places. In 1990 it was in Beijing. In 1991 it was in in Singapore. First prize for the best computer program is about $8,000. Second is about $1,000 and 3rd is about $500. The winning computer program plays a 3 game series against the Taiwan youth champion (usually a 12 year old 5 Dan) and gets another $8000 if it wins. This prize went unclaimed for five years, but in 1991 Goliath beat all three human challengers, so the handicap has been decreased to 14 moves. The top prize if for winning a 7 game series against a professional (of unspecified rank) is about $1.6 Million. The contest only runs through the year 2000 so the top prize will go unclaimed. 8. What are the different game record formats and how can I display them? There are several different formats for game records. The two most popular formats are Smart-Go and Ishi "Standard" Format. Definitions for these two formats are on the archive site in info/smartgo.def.Z and prog/standard.sh.Z respectively. The Smart-Go format can be read by mgt, Pon Nuki, xgoban, NeXTGo and the Smart Go program. Ishi Format can be read by Many Faces of Go, Goscribe, Goview, Contender, Smart Go Board (version 4.0 or later), and Nemesis (version 5 and above). Smart Go Board cannot write Ishi format. Ishi publishes games regularly in Ishi format. The Liberty format is a binary format which is not common. Many of the files on the archive site are presently in this format. They can be converted to other formats with prog/convert.tar.Z. 9. What programs can I get to display go game records? The program mgt will display game records under Unix, MSDOS or Atari ST. The Unix and MSDOS versions do not use graphics, however. An X11 version of mgt is under development, but has not been released yet. The mgt program was created originally by Greg Hale at the request of rec.games.go readers who wanted an interactive program that would read a series of tutorial files posted to the net. The program was expanded by Adrian Mariano to edit and save game records. The purpose of mgt is to display and edit game records in Smart-Go format. It can be used to display a game board. Pieces can be placed and removed, and games can be scored. Mgt is in prog/mgt22.sh.Z (Unix), prog/mgt22.zip (MSDOS) and prog/stmgt.zoo (Atari ST). The program xgoban by Antoine Dumesnil de Maricourt (dumesnil@etca.fr) can display and edit Smart-Go under X11. It can also communicate with wally to provide a graphical interface to this program. The program Pon Nuki for the Mac is being developed by Greg Anderson (greggor@apple.com). He is willing to send individuals beta test copies. Pon Nuki can display either Ishi or Smart-Go format. NeXTGo (prog/nextgo-2.2.2.tar.Z) is available for the NeXT and can display Smart-Go. Many Faces of Go can display only Ishi format. The Smart-Go program itself is available for the Mac. Also, Goscribe for MSDOS is available through Ishi press (address above) for $59.95. It can display and edit Ishi format. Goview, able to display but not edit, is available for MSDOS for $20. Goview is free with a subscription to Go World on disk. Smart Go Board, version 4.0.2, $40 (version for Macintosh) Anders Kierulf Smart Game Board P.O. Box 7751 Menlo Park, CA 94026-7751 10. What is the IGS? How do I use it? The Internet Go Server (IGS) is the most popular way of playing realtime interactive go games by computer. You can connect to the IGS and look for opponents to play or just watch a game. To connect directly to the IGS from a unix machine, type "telnet icsib18.icsi.berkeley.edu 6969". The IP number is 128.32.201.46. When you connect for the first time, you must pick a login name and password. You should be told that "Player does not exist." If not, you have picked a login name that is already in use. When connecting to the IGS, you must connect to telnet port 6969. Be SURE to use the port number 6969. If you are on a VMS system, the port is specified with "/port=6969" after the tenet command. Once connected to the IGS, you will need to use the help command to learn how to use the interface. A brief, outdated introduction to the go server is available for ftp on unmvax.cs.unm.edu in pub/go. In addition, the LaTeX and Postscript versions of the server's help files are available from the archive site as prog/igs.ps.Z and prog/igs.tex.Z. These files are slighly outdated. The IGS interface is quite awkward, so seven client programs are available to ease your interaction with the server. They are prog/igc060.sh.Z, an ascii client for unix, prog/xigc_v2.0.sh.Z and prog/xgospel.sh.Z, X11 clients for unix, prog/gs042.sit.hqx, a Macintosh client, prog/pcig44z.exe, an IBM PC client, prog/stigcbin-1.2.zoo, a client for Atari ST, and prog/nextgo-2.2.2.tar.Z, a client for the NeXT. All of the programs are available on ftp.u.washington.edu. In order to use the IGS, you must be able to use telnet. You can pay to get this capability through Holonet. To find your closest number for a free demo, conneect by modem to 1-800-NET-HOLO. For more information, send email to info@holonet.mailer.net. 11. How do I play games by computer? Since computers make poor opponents, we use them to connect us to other humans. There are two types of computer games: email, and interactive. Email games can be handled manually, by creating a board in an editor, or only exchanging move coordinates. The other option is the use the unix program 'mailgo' which is included with mgt (prog/mgt22.sh.Z). It sends Smart-Go records of your game back and forth, and invokes mgt for moves. There are several ways to play interactive games. Probably the most popular is the Internet Go Server (IGS) which was described in the previous section. Another interactive options is the internet go program, available on the archive site as prog/inetgo72.sh.Z, which allows BSD Unix users to play interactive games with ascii text screens. The xgosh program (prog/xgosh17.sh.Z on the archive site) allows people with X-Windows to play interactive games with a graphical board. The two interactive programs are NOT compatible. To help find suitable opponents, check out the go players email address list, available on the archive site as go-players, and also posted monthly with this FAQ. There is a standard go modem protocol which is used by go programs for modem play. It is implemented in Many Faces of Go, Nemesis, Smart Game Board and Telego (a shareware go modem program for the IBM PC). The protocol spec and sample code are available from the archive site as info/protocol.Z. Fotland's program, Many Faces of Go for X Windows on HP machines supports two players on two screens. An electronic Go club is present on NovaNet, a Computer-Aided Learning system that is installed in schools. NovaNet uses a special terminal program, with color graphics, mouse and sound support. To find out more, contact Dietrich Schuschel at schuschel-dialup@nova.novanet.org or schuschel/dialup/nova. NovaNet accounts are available from Bill Strutz, (217) 244-4300. Cost is $2.50/hour usage and $10 for the terminal program (spec Mac, IBM, Sun, X format). The lesson name is goclub. 12. Where can I get go equipment, books, etc? Ishi Press International Ishi Press International 76 Bonaventura Drive 20 Bruges Place San Jose, CA 95134 London England NW1 OTE Tel: (408)944-9900 FAX: (408)944-9110 071 284 4898 Ishi Press 1301-5 Yabata Chigasaki-Shi Kanagawa-ken 253 (0467)83-4369 (0467)83-4710 (fax) Japan 13. What are the dimensions of a go board? The official size according to Nihon Ki-in is 45.45 x 42.42 (cm). Measurements of an Ishi board indicate that the lines are 0.8 mm thick and the hoshi points are 3 mm in diameter. Stones are supposed to be 20-21 mm in diameter. 14. What books should I read? A list of books is on the archive site: info/books.Z 15. Is there a go club in...? Before asking the net, you should consult the two lists of Go clubs which are on the archive site. They are info/clubs.aga.Z and info/clubs.ishi.Z.