If Go Were Going To Evolve, How Would It, And Why?

A lot of posts were about busywork in the endgame.

If you get bored replay old games with a small margin victory. It turns to be really impressive much beyond the basic knowledge we share. Like playing a pretty gote move letting the opponent squeezing a bunch of points in sente, but then getting wonderful sente from that gote move before. Or not answering a 50 points threat because you have one of 51… Search variants, what if… For one side it’s easier to understand but for the other side it still can be very deep.

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Instead of placing a stone, you could choose to remove (not take as a prisoner) any of your opponent’s stones, except the most recently played one. Your opponent could not immediately replay that stone because it would cause a repeated board position. This could create entirely new types of ko fights, and groups with two or more eyes may no longer be unconditionally alive. Ending the game might be a little tricky and require some additional rules.

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Thanks to computers (for convenience), we can imagine in a extended way that we start from a board fully covered of stones and play the whole game by removing stones.

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I like this idea!

Since the games are likely to be long, you might want to play on a smaller board, like 15x15.

Neat idea but I do have a question: What would prevent players from repeatedly removing opponents stones and stalling the game indefinetely?

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Historically:

  • 17x17 → 19x19
  • No komi → komi
  • Empty board → Chinese opening → empty board
  • Stone scoring → area scoring + territory scoring divergence

The only thing I think is extremely likely is standardized scoring and that people will completely abandon either territory or area scoring.

The game is better on 23x23, but people have less time and are more stressed, so I think it is more likely that the board will be reduced in size.

More than 2 players seems like a good idea but is probably too chaotic.

Maybe a pie rule like in Hex could automatically balance komi.

I think future rule changes will be subtle and that they were more radical historically because people didn’t have as much contact with each other across different cultures as today. So there will be less divergence and more standardization.

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What is your reasoning for skipping over 21x21 straight onto 23x23?

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Exactly, and why does everybody skip the even sized boards? Is Tengen so important to you?

Maybe they like an odd number of points on the board :slight_smile:

Hm but for what reason? Isn’t it because people are accustomed to the star points? I remember this post:

https://forums.online-go.com/t/sign-up-for-the-second-diplomatic-go-game/31032/90

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Well, I really think 27x27 is the next logical step, but 23x23 is inbetween and the star points become sort of uneven on 21x21 (and 25x25). 21x21 is also not that different from 19x19.

Yes, tengen is that important. Need the Great Wall Fuseki, which is the only real way to play the game. Great Wall at Sensei's Library This is also the next obvious step in the evolution of fuseki, AlphaGo just needs to become a little smarter and realize it.

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So there’s an aesthetic preference for odd numbers of empty points between star points? I haven’t thought about it before, but I think I’d agree with you there.

Fair enough. :smiley:

Then what makes 27x27 the next logical step? Because it’s 3 cubed? I would aesthetically prefer prime numbers here, if anything, but I’m sure there’s more reasoning behind it?

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In a couple of years, the new trend will be playing on 1023x1023 boards.

There’s plenty fuseki patterns on even-sized boards that don’t exist on odd-sized boards:

The great even wall

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Go will evolve like a Galapagos sea turtle, not like a gaming desktop.

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I think you would need some extra rules about removing stones.

A player cannot remove stones on two consecutive turns. I think this would prevent the game from going backwards.

The game could end when both players remove one of the other players stones, similar how both players passing ends a game.

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I can’t believe I neglected to address this when it was posted: keeping track of the TMG move order is actually easier manually than with electronic aids. In fact, it’s quite painless once you acclimate to it. I currently use dowel rods with the first, fourth, sixth, and seventh eighths painted Black so that between direction of travel and a finger or string marking a section, a hex digit can be held. The color of the section your finger is on is the color of the next stone to place, whereupon you simply slide your finger to the next section.

However, any method of tracking binary digits will work.

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Counting intersections, 13x13 is twice as large as 9x9, and 19x19 is twice as large as 13x13. I admit that 27x27 is a bit like Dai Shogi though…

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Next step for me is reevaluating the komi. Since IA win more in a specific color. maybe their are a bias in this difference of winning that human don’t have, i don’t know.

And maybe, but it’s beacome a variant, saying that the center area give 1.5 points per intercetion instead of 1.

Sorry for bad english, can you tell me my mistake for i improve it ?

White has and advantage with 7.5 komi and area scoring/Chinese rules.

But with 7 komi and area scoring/Chinese rules, the odds are very close to 50/50 for both colors. Also with 6-6.5 komi and territory scoring/Japanese rules.

See this topic on L19.

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