After reading the paper on solving go on small boards, I am curious about the use of euler numbers as a simple evaluation element.
I implemented a little euler number test program and it works correctly from a sample of about 50 positions of various types. I'm using the fast version where you scan 2 lines at a time with a lookup table. However, it calculates holes inside of groups and this does not detect eyes or "holes" on the edges of the board. It's not clear how to deal with this. I'm experimenting with a version that wraps a border around the whole board so that even the empty position looks like a 1 group with one big hole. This causes a lot of silly anomalies - for instance if you surround a big chunk of safe opponent stones it looks like a big hole. If you own half the board and the opponent owns the other half, his half contributes favorably to your euler number (it looks like a big hole of yours.) Of course I realize that this is just a quick and dirty calculation but I was curious about any tricks that others use to deal with it. - Don _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
