A better idea than just 100x100

Continuing the discussion from I would like to see a 100x100 board:

it would not be good to hv a 100x100 because there will be no center piont
id prefer if to hv a 113x113
and if possible can OGS create such a board online I dout it will be hard all they realy need to do is to change the
coordinate system just replace the letter on the y axis this numbers and if this is done one could make a board size what ever they like
finally this is what makes a go a very good board game compared to other
for example chess , chess has a limited size board and therefore there are limited moves where as go whitch can change the scale of board in chess because of its limited size one can in theory know everything about chess by going through all the option witch could make the game more boring in the future where we know all there is to know where as in go there is no such limit so in theory no one can know everything about go

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I think I remember 19x19 being explained as kind of the mathematical and aesthetic point of diminishing returns.

Sounds like an interesting argument :slight_smile: Any clue where you might have read it?

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I want to say Sensei’s library but it was a while ago before I ever started to play.

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https://www.google.de/search?q=why+19x19 gives a few quite interesting hits, including that page on SL:

Why 19 x 19? | British Go Association

Why is the 19x19 board so much more common than other sizes?

Why do all Go board sizes have an odd number of lines? Why is a 19x19 board so much better than a 20x20 board?

Of all the possible sizes, why is 19x19 the standard board size in the game of Go?

Do you know why a Go Board is 19Ă—19?

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Still, it might be interesting to play on a giant 113Ă—113 board at least once. Especially online where we are not inhibited by the impracticality of such a huge board.

What would the time controls for such a variant be if it were played live? Correspondence games could run for years… :scream:

Assuming half the liberties were filled, and playing 30s/move, a 113x113 board would take 50 continuous hours to play.

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Uhm. IIRC some of the very slow correspondence 19x19 games I’ve played did run for over a year :grin:

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I don’t know anything about that, but I’ve heard two reasons for the dominance of 19 x 19 (besides tradition).

Firstly, some people consider(ed) it to be the goldilocks point of the amount of cognition required to play: not too much to keep track of and calculate but not too little either. Oscar Korschelt’s thoughts on the matter can be found at https://senseis.xmp.net/?LargeBoards, where he says:

“[The 21 x 21 board] took on a freer and more deeply involved character, but … at the same time the difficulty of keeping command of the game grew at an extraordinary rate.” He goes on to note that on a 19x19 board, “too many unexpected situations turn up for beginners,” and speculates that if the board were to increase to 23x23, “not even the best players could any longer maintain a comprehensive view of the countless possible combinations.”

The second explanation I’ve come across is that 19 x 19 is the largest square board on which the amount territory to made on the first two lines is more than that available above them. (That said, it should be noted that that territory is not the most efficient to take. See https://senseis.xmp.net/?ClassicalExampleOfCenterVersusSideTerritory for more details.)

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I think you and I are saying the same thing in different ways.

Essentially, 19Ă—19 is about where the fun and cohesiveness of play cease developing proportionately along with the size of the board.

Each iteration beyond 19Ă—19 increases in complexity but does not significantly enrich the gameplay.

19Ă—19 is like Goldilocks for sure.

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Ah, that’s what you meant by “diminishing returns.” I wouldn’t like to say for sure; it might be that the Chinese thought exactly the same of 17 x 17 way back when. Perhaps in another thousand years or so the usual board will have become 21 x 21; we can’t say.

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It looks like 25x25 is the largest board size supported by OGS at the moment. Trying to create a 26x26 game results in an error, while 25x25 is given as a preset option under “Extreme Sizes”.

Some software supports even larger sizes. The SGF (game record format) supports up to 52x52.

Here is an SGF editor (my own free, open-source software) that supports up to 52x52:
https://yewang.github.io/besogo/testing.html?size=52

For those that like having a central point: https://yewang.github.io/besogo/testing.html?size=51

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