SLUGGING IT OUT: Your next opponent may be three feet tall, bright yellow and named after a slimy invertebrate. David Doshay’s SlugGo program was one of two go-playing computer programs playing in the 2005 Cotsen Open (Anders Kierulf’s SmartGo was the other). Named after the Banana Slug because it’s the mascot of the University of California at Santa Cruz, where Doshay is a Research Associate in computer science and physics (his students wrote the original version according to his specifications). SlugGo also earned its moniker “because it plays so slow,” Doshay told the E-Journal yesterday.
Powered by 24 Mac minis and a dual G5 Mac tower, SlugGo is a portable version of Doshay’s main cluster, which boasts 72 powerful CPUs. The slimmed-down version weighs in at a hefty 200 pounds, with the computers housed in a 3-foot tall bright yellow plastic cart that squats next to the table on which Doshay and SlugGo’s opponents play out the games. The Cotsen was SlugGo’s debut performance and human opponents had the choice of not being paired with either computer program (AGA rules stipulate that games with computers are not rated), although most agreed to play; SlugGo competed at 9k and SmartGo at 10k. After Saturday’s three rounds, the score was Humans 6, Computers 0; on Sunday SlugGo scored one victory so the final result was Humans 9, Computers 1.
“We didn’t come here to win,” said Doshay cheerfully, “playing in the tournament was just a statement of our existence.” Doshay, who says “there’s a chance this is the strongest go-playing computer program,” hopes to try it out soon against Go Intellect, the Chapel Hill NC-based program that won last year’s Computer Olympiad. He’s also considering bringing it to this year’s U.S. Go Congress in Tacoma, Washington.
The SlugGo SL page, founded the following year, specifies that “SlugGo is a shell over GNU Go that adds global search to GNU Go’s local evaluations.”
Also, in the same issue was this announcement:
AGA MEMBERSHIP PASSES 2,000: Marking a major milestone, membership in the American Go Association topped 2,000 for the first time ever last month. Membership rose in nearly every category, from both Full and Limited members to Youth, Sustainers, Life Members and Chapters. AGA President Mike Lash credited the April membership drive – which offered a free copy of the 2004 American Go Yearbook to new or returning members – with helping boost membership to a record 2,017. The April increase also extended to five months a recent streak of membership increases.
Interestingly, at the time the E-Journal was claiming to “reach over 7,000 readers every week”. This suggests that the AGA thought that there were 5,000 non-members reading the publication.