kadie@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU (05/22/86)
This might be of general interest: /* Written 8:07 pm May 17, 1986 by chen@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU in uiucdcs:uiuc.ai */ /* ---------- "$1,000,000 for a program" ---------- */ The following was posted in net.game.go. In case you don't know about Go, it is an ancient oriental board game played between two players on a 19 by 19 grid. The best Go program so far is no better than an intellegent novice that has received only one week intensive training. /* Written 1:14 pm May 14, 1986 by alex@sdcrdcf.UUCP in uiucdcsb:net.games.go */ /* ---------- "Millio $ prize" ---------- */ I think this is a big news for the go community. The Chinese Wei Chi(go in Chinese) Association(TWCA) in Taipei, Taiwan and conjunction with one of Taiwan's largest computer company have put 2 million US dollar in trust as prize money of computer go games. The top standing prize is 1 million dollar for any computer go game defeating reigning junior champion in Taiwan. The prize offer is good for 15 years. (BTW, if you are wondering how they raise the prize money, take a look at all the cheap IBM PC clones around.) The prize money is much more interesting the Fredkin's prize. They are other prizes for the computer go champion, etc. The TWCA is the first organization offered prize money for computer-computer and computer-human competition, according to my and the computer go game pioneer Bruce, who appeared in TWCA first computer tournament last January. Bruce lost twice and did not place in top five. That tournament offered 2 to 3 thousand price money to the winner. His first loss was to a go game written in BASIC running on an Apple. Bruce was winning convincingly until the Apple games made a suicide move which is legal under Chinese rule but not under Japanese rule. Bruce game went into loop. The judge allowed Bruce to fix his code on the spot as long as he can make the move before his time clock runs out. (They did not want Bruce to lose because he was the main attraction, and I believe they paid him some appearance fee.) But Bruce did not fix it right within the 30 minutes he had. I did not stick around for his second loss. Bruce game was running on a 8MHz PC clone. If you are interested in entering the next competition which is in November, you better get the rule book on the Chinese rules, which differ slightly from Japanese in area like suicide moves and scoring. Last competition was restricted to personal computer, although I find big disparity in computer power between a MacIntosh and an Apple II. However, I don't think computing power is the main bottleneck right now. If there are enough people interested, I can get additional detail about the tournament. Also, a junior champion in Taiwan is about 1 dan in Chinese amateur rating, which is about 5-6 dan in US and Japanese amateur rating. Bruce's game was last rated to be 19Q in Japan human tournament. He said he may push it to 11-12Q by November. I think Bruce's got a good technique but his potential is limited by his knowledge of go. But at any rate, you got your work cut out for you. Alex Hwang /* End of text from uiucdcsb:net.games.go */ /* End of text from uiucdcs:uiuc.ai */