Hello igo:
igo wrote (on behalf of "Making the board bigger would probably make the
game
weaker for humans. I presume the day a computer is world champion,
increasing
board size would give the computer even more advantage."):
I presume exact the opposite way.
Of course, who knows. This is only intuition, but my point
is that 19x19 is the optimal size for human abilities. It is
both complicated and the game can be analyzed very deeply.
It has taken centuries for humans to reach near-perfection
(another intuition). If computers reach humans after, say 40
years of research, all gigantic-search-space related problems
will have been solved. (They are present at much smaller sizes.)
Making the search space 22% bigger won't be a big problem compared
with creating 21x21 human Go theory from scratch. According to
Ikuro Ishigure, professional 8 dan, author of "In the Beginning",
in a professional game of two days, the first day is dedicated
to the first 50 moves. The entire fuseki theory is board size
dependent. Fuseki is based on presumptions and those are founded
on experience. Top humans playing 21x21 may be weaker than a 19x19
world champion computer.
The computer will be probably the champion (as in chess) because
it can search deeper and do error free subdivision of the search
space. The same groups it can overhumanly kill/defend on a 19x19
board may be managed on a bigger board in similar time. (If it
looses its time considering unrelated moves, it won't be a 19x19
world champion either.)
Again, who knows. I hope to see that in my lifetime.
Jacques.
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