Can man defeat machine once again in the game of Go?

Do you remember when the world watched IBM’s ‘Deep Blue’ supercomputer challenge grandmaster Garry Kasparov across the chess board?

It was almost 15 years ago now, but it was big news at the time, shocking news for some, because the computer won.

The era of the machine?

Many believed that it marked the beginning of the era of machine supremacy in the realm of board games.

After all, chess is one of the most difficult and elegant board games known to man and the machine defeated our world champion.

The bet

But John Tromp, computer scientist and avid fan of the board game Go, disagreed.

What’s more, Tromp boldly put his money where his mouth is, saying:

“I would happily bet that I won’t be beaten in a 10 game match before the year 2011.”

He then put $1000 down on the table to prove he was serious. The game? Go.

 

The board game Go: Ancient, addictive, unsolvable?

The game

But what is Go? It’s an ancient game of strategy which originated in China thousands of years ago and is still played by millions throughout Asia today. It also has a growing following throughout the rest of the world.

Tromp’s challenge proved too tantalizing for Darren Cook, who agreed to what became known as the Shodan Go Bet.

Go uses the same grading system that martial arts do and shodan is basically the Japanese term for black belt.

And John Tromp is a black belt of this mental martial art.

The game was on, but that was way back in 1997, so what happened?

The score

Cook wisely waited as long as possible, to give the machines more time to improve, politely refusing whenever Tromp cheekily offered to raise the stakes.

The dust finally settled at the end of 2010, or did it?

It was no sure thing, but Tromp put on a good showing, destroying the computer four games to nil. Cook coughed up the money.

However, the story doesn’t end there.

Just like the machines challenged Kasparov (who also won his first match) to a rematch, they are now challenging Tromp to one.

This time the challenge comes from Japan, where top Go players can earn millions of dollars playing in the professional leagues.

A new challenger

The challenger is Hideki Kato’s Zen19 computer program and the games will be held from Friday, January 13 – Wednesday January 18, 2012.

When asked whether he was nervous about starting the match on Friday the 13th, Tromp replied “not at all, I was born on Friday the 13th.”

 

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More about the game of Go

As you’ve gathered by now, Go is a fascinating board game that’s been played for thousands of years. It’s also one of the few traditional games that still defy computers.

The rules of Go are simple, and you can learn the basics and start having fun in just a few minutes. However, it takes many years to become a master.

This website is all about Go. If you’d like to find out more about the game you can visit this page. And if you’re interested in learning Go, just click here.

Match schedule

If you’d like to join in the fun, you can watch the games live on the K Go Server. Just enter a name and click ‘Guest’ to login and observe.

Here’s the schedule for the games:

• Fri, Jan 13, 8pm US Eastern Time
• Sat, Jan 14, 8pm US Eastern Time
• Sun, Jan 15, 8pm US Eastern Time
• Mon, Jan 16, 8pm US Eastern Time
• Wed, Jan 18, 8pm US Eastern Time.

This is a ‘best of five’ match and games will continue until the winner is decided.

Technical details

For those of you who are interested in the hardware, Zen19 is sporting a dual 6-core Xeon X5680 (overclocked to 4.2Ghz). The approximate cost of the machine is 350,000 yen (about $4375 USD).

Zen19 uses a Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm, which is now common among all leading computer Go programs.

Thanks to Darren Cook for providing details and quotes for this article. You can find out more about the Shodan Go Bet on Darren’s website.

 

Хорошая весчь!

Following on from his victory over Lee Sedol (9p) earlier this week, Iyama Yuta (9p) has done it again, defeating Gu Li (9p) of China and winning the Chongqing invitational for Japan.

Iyama has been a rising star in the Japanese Go world for the last five or six years. Many have speculated that he might one day rekindle Japan’s success in international Go. Has this day finally come?

A solid opening by both players

via gogameguru.com

На турнир "Chongqing invitational" были приглашены 3 игрока - Ли Седоль (Корея), Гу Ли (Китай) и Ияма Юта (Япония). Они сражались между собой.
И в итоге победу одержал Ияма Юта.

Теперь все задаются вопросом, будет ли это возвращением Японии или это только одинокая звезда японского Го?