Designing a Go botComputer program playing Go

English Communication Skills for Information Technology

Mika Lemström

Abstract

• Rules of Go• Basic concepts of Go• Basic implementations• More advanced implementations• SGF file format• Conclusion• References

Rules of Go• Rule No. 1 － Go ( 碁 )

Go is a contest for territory.• Rule No. 2 － Two possible Moves:

Play or pass.• Rule No. 3 － Life and Death;

Whether a stone is live or death is verified by removal.

• Rule No.4 － KoKo prevents invariations; Japanese rule set: repetition of the second but last board

position.

Basic concepts of Go

• Ko ( コウ ) － Player must play somewhere else

• Dame ( 駄目 ) － Neutral point for both players

• Seki ( セキ ) － Position to be avoided by both players

• Sente ( 先手 ) － Move that the opponent must react to

Basic implementations

Figure 1, Copied from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Golibs.png/200px-Golibs.png

More advanced implementations

Ko

Figure 2, Modified from http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/ff5/images/cap06.gif

More advanced implementations

Sente

Figure 3, Copied from

http://senseis.xmp.net/diagrams/8/987d7495f0ad387be7e8123083d2bbc8.png

SGF file form

• In Go, Stone becomes Point • Move and Point types are marked with two

lowercase letters.Example of sgf format:(;FF[4]GM[1]SZ[19]CA[UTF-8]SO[gokifu.com]BC[cn]WC[cn]EV[]PB[Meng

Tailing]BR[6p]PW[Jiang Weijie]WR[5p]KM[7.5]DT[2011-11-18]RE[W+R];B[pd];W[dd];B[qp];W[dp];B[fq];W[cn];B[lq];W[qf];B[qh];W[qc];B[qd];W[pc];B[od])

Conclusion

To summarize: Go is considered by many to be the most challenging board game in the world. That’s why it is also challenging to design a computer program that would play Go the best possible way.

Any questions?

A few moments to learn, a lifetime to master. - Ancient Proverb

References (1/2)

Ing's Goe Rules (2006), Ing Chang-Ki, Translated by Dr. Sidney W.K. Yuan, pages 19-24, also [Online]

http://usgo.org/resources/downloads/IngRules2006.pdfAbout Seki: [Online] http://senseis.xmp.net/?SekiSGF file format [Online] http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/Example of sgf file: [Online]http://gokifu.com/f/rqb-gokifu-20111118-Meng_Tailing-

Jiang_Weijie.sgfGo compared to Chess: [Online]

http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Compare.html

References (2/2)

Figure 1; Copied fromhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc /Golibs.png/200px-Golibs.png Figure 2; Modified from http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/ff5/images/cap06.gifFigure 3; Copied from http://senseis.xmp.net/diagrams/8/987d7495f0ad387be7e8123083d2bbc8.png