I personally believe that there is nothing particularly ideal about 19x19 and that the size of the board is based on the preferences of the masters of years gone by.
I get the impression that the only reason it's not bigger than 19x19 is due to practical considerations, it just takes longer and longer to play a game as the board gets bigger. One thing I don't like about go is that you must play each move very rapidly to have a game that does not take all day. So it's more of a right brain game. Bigger than 19x19 just adds even more emphasis to the strategic nature of the game and that is what the top players wanted. But one thing that I have come to appreciate is that even 7x7 is non-trivial. 7x7 is too small to have a good game that will not always end with the same score but you can construct problems that are profound. 9x9 is already big enough to present a game that cannot be mastered. My personal favorite size is 11x11, a size nobody cares about. After getting a little experience focused on 9x9 for go programming I can see that 11x11 is a nice step above 9x9 and chess and would present a nice balance between strategy and tactics. It's actually a huge jump up from 9x9 and I prefer economy. 19x19 is just too much and it takes forever to play a game unless you play blitz speed. This is why they have had to invent convoluted and complex time controls to accommodate this game. Don On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Michael Alford <m...@aracnet.com> wrote: > On 1/7/13 12:08 AM, "Ingo Althöfer" wrote: > > Go is traditionally played on boards of odd sizes (9x9, 13x13, 19x19, ...) >> and almost never on even ones (10x10 or 18x18 ...). What are the reasons >> for this? >> >> Ingo (has observed something and wants to put it in context). >> > > Interesting discussion and links. I remember reading, although I cannot > name the source, that board size was set at 19 due to extensions from the > corner to the point under the side hoshi, only one player can extend to any > side point, the other player is left with a less than optimal extension, if > the board is larger, both players can make a proper extension, so 19 is the > size which preserves the competition for that extension. > > Michael > > ------- > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Pale_Blue_Dot<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot> > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Computer-go mailing list > Computer-go@dvandva.org > http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/**mailman/listinfo/computer-go<http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/computer-go> >
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