I think I see our misunderstanding. I obviously dont think that smaller boards are more challenging.
I do think that people are better players on larger boards. This is also fairly obvious, even though 9x9 is a much simpler game. You can measure how good someone is at any game by how much he improves with additional practice. A beginner improves rapidly, and an experienced player improves more slowly. This has nothing to do with how challenging the game is. It has everything to do with how much the game has been studied by the community that plays it, and how much it has been practiced by the individual player. No one plays 9x9 go. There is no literature on 9x9 theory, and almost no examples of professional play. The statement that people moved to larger board sizes over time is a myth, or at least somewhere in prehistory. 19x19 board have been used since the first historical recorded game almost 2000 years ago, and all recorded go theory is on 19x19 boards. 9x9 go is only used as a teaching aid for beginners for their first few games. I know I'm a weak 9x9 player because I havent played or studied it. I learned a lot about 9x9 openings just from the few games I played against Mogo. If put the same effort into 9x9 study as I have put to 19x19 study, I would be a much stronger 9x9 player. For analogy, look at chess and arimaa. Arimaa may be a more or less challenging game than chess, but it is certain that people are weaker at Arimaa than at chess, just because arimaa is new, so there is a lot that is unknown about correct strategy. That's why I thought that my best chance to win the prize was to do it the first year before people got strong at it. So, of course 9x9 go is less challenging than 19x19, but also of course people are weaker at 9x9 go than 19x19 go. I agree with you that 19x19 is more challenging for computers an humans. I also agree that humans are better able to deal with the extra complexity of 19x19. I think you are overlooking an add ional factor, that people have studied 19x19 and have not studied 9x9, so the have more practive at 19x19 (and are relatively stronger). David > -----Original Message----- > From: Don Dailey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:52 PM > To: David Fotland > Cc: 'computer-go' > Subject: RE: [computer-go] Sylvain's results > > > On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 17:29 -0700, David Fotland wrote: > > No, humans are much weaker on 9x9 than on 19x19. > > With all due respect, that's absurd. If that were true, then > all we would have to do is move to smaller boards if 19x19 > were not challenging enough. > > I read somewhere that the 19x19 board size was the result of > a lot of experimentation over time. The > idea was that bigger boards are more challenging and that > top players considered the smaller boards too easy. > > So I just can't make sense out of why you would believe that > smaller boards are more challenging. > > > > I'm AGA 3 Dan, and I've > > played thousands of 19x19 games, and hundreds of serious 19x19 > > tournament games. I've studied thousands of 19x19 > professional games, > > and have had dozens of my 19x19 games analyzed by pros. I think > > before I tried playing Mogo, I had played about 3 serious > 9x9 games, > > at a 9x9 tournament at a go congress about 10 years ago. So I know > > almost nothing about 9x9 strategy. Of course my general tactical > > knowledge applies to 9x9 boards, but I'm far stronger at > 19x19 opening > > theory. > > Of course small boards are easier for computers too. Even > if you don't > agree, I believe that bigger boards are much more challenging > for both computers and humans. However, humans are better > able to deal with > the extra complexities. So if you are playing against a > computer, you > would obviously want a bigger board size. Humans are weaker > at bigger > board sizes, but computers even more so. > > > > If someone with equal tactical ability had studied 9x9 as > hard as I've > > studied 19x19, he would crush me in 9x9 games. My 9x9 judgment is > > much weaker than my 19x19 judgment due to lack of experience. > > > > 9x9 is interesting for computer go since it is much simpler than > > 19x19, but people don't play 9x9. > > 9x9 is a good board size for computers. I'm not really sure > if there is anything special about 19x19 (why not 17x17 or > 21x21?) perhaps they thought 17x17 was too hard (if it's > true that smaller boards are harder for humans.) > > - Don > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 17:49 +0100, Jacques Basaldúa wrote: > > > > BTW. There is another stone in the way of 19x19 computer go. > > > > Knowledge. Humans play much stronger and do much > stronger judgment > > > > than in 9x9. > > > _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
