Oooh, another of my favourite topics. I realized pretty early on, and haven't seen any counter-evidence over the past decade of study: go skill is transitive to almost all board sizes, and that is why 9x9 computer go is so important. (IMHO :-)
> Call me picky if you want, but I spend a lot of time processing > go knowledge and none of it is board size independent. > ... > but I constantly repeat the idea that in a two day professional > game the first day must be dedicated to the first 50 moves. ... My feeling is they spend so much effort in the opening (trying to get a 1 or 2 pt advantage) because they have nothing better to do with the time. The gap between a professional and, say, a 1-dan amateur is all to do with tesuji knowledge, life/death knowledge, and (to a lesser extent) tactical reading skill, accurate endgame counting and joseki knowledge. All except joseki-knowledge is board-size independent. And the same applies even between top professionals: look at how many really top-class players claim their endgame is the strongest part of the game. Darren -- Darren Cook http://dcook.org/mlsn/ (English-Japanese-German-Chinese free dictionary) http://dcook.org/work/ (About me and my work) http://dcook.org/work/charts/ (My flash charting demos) _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
