Switch to 21*21

Some Go players on KGS switched to larger boards (23x23, 25x25, even 37x37) many years ago (over 10 years ago IIRC I saw them play on huge boards). Also on the LittleGolem game server 37x37 Go is one of the standard Go games there, along with 11x11 Toroidal Go which is Go played on the surface of a Toroid {similar to playing on the surface of a sphere but without the mapping problems we see when we attempt to make a flat (2 Dimensional) map of Earth}. Like @violaine violaine, I would love to see some AGZ vs AGZ games on bigger boards (with no human knowledge training). I would also like to see how AGZ plays on Toroidal-Go games which, due to having no edges or corners, does not have corner joseki.

We live in interesting times. AI is having a big impact on the world (not just the game of Go).

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I am surprised 27x27 isn’t frequently considered as the next logical increment after 19x19 (that is, in 9x9 -> 13x13 -> 19x19 -> 27x27, each size has just a little bit over double the intersections as the previous size).

Granted, I’d be more interested in watching AIs play it than in playing it myself…

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From https://homepages.cwi.nl/~aeb/go/games/games/other_sizes/index.html

21x21 game, Rin Kaiho (Judan, W) vs. Hashimoto Shoji (9p, B), 04 + 05 September 1975
—> https://online-go.com/api/v1/games/15105701/


Sorry:
  1. Embedded SGF viewer doesn’t seem to like 21x21 :confused:
  2. Markdown link syntax doesn’t like it when I have parentheses in the Link description :expressionless:
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Something I’ve been musing is, what if, rather than going to a larger board, we went to a less regular board? Say, something with about the same number of vertices, and the same number of edges, but with a few 5-intersections and a few 3-intersections in the middle of the board, rather than just 4s.

It wouldn’t work with real boards, of course, but it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to randomly generate semi-random go boards. Standard joseki/fuseki wouldn’t quite work, and ladders would be much harder to read.

Boards would probably be either quadrilaterally or rotationally symmetric, and could either be continuous, or else have islands of edge space placed around the board.

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Boards could avoid to have corners a bit more (keeping their physical state) with small repetitive lines patterns on the edge inside a circle.
Not sure it would be popular.

Didn’t read all of this thread so maybe this was discussed already, but I think bigger boards will be more territorial since it’s harder to surround center on a bigger board.

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How is it harder? There is more space at least. But tell me

https://senseis.xmp.net/?KorscheltsSize21Game

Here is a 21x21 game from the 19th century. It was either played by Japanese professionals or possibly composed by Honinbo Shuho. Apparently Oscar Korschelt, (who incidentally was probably the first Western Go player we’d call at least dan-strength today – he took a seven-stone handicap from the world’s strongest player, so make your own judgement) actually made a 21x21 goban and gave it to Shuho. Shuho came back to him with this kifu, which is 57 moves long.

If you want a little of my own insight into the game, moves 1 – 20 are an old-fashioned 5-4 joseki that was popular at the time; and the next ten moves also look perfectly normal for 19x19. To me it’s move 35, an early cap, that first shows at least Black to be valuing influence more highly than normal.

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I would tend to agree with @Gurxtav. You typically extend up to 7 spaces from a wall to build a moyo. More is considered too far, and makes it too easy for an invasion stone to reach a side and make a base. It’s not set in stone, but many openings follow that principle.
https://senseis.xmp.net/?Extension

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On 21x21 the center just turn to be bigger
(Not the case on 19x19)

You have to build a longer perimeter to surround the center on a bigger board = harder.
Your opponent still only has to destroy it once = only a little bit harder.
In total its harder to make territory in the center.
Maybe you say you don’t need all of the center, why not just surround as much as you typically would on 19x19? This requires the same perimeter, but the rest (what you didn’t take in the center) will be bigger and if we assume the majority of it is your opponent’s (reasonable since you spent your moves in the center) then your opponent still wins.
This is only my logic, I obviously don’t know the absolute truth.

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Let’s take this further. Say the board is not 19x19 but 199x199. This means 1,576 edge points and a massive 36,481-point center area. Can we assume because of the larger center area that perfect play on this board does not involve early 3-3 invasions and territorial play in general? I don’t think we can, for reasons mentioned earlier.

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I get that whatever the size, the edges will always help to build quicker and bigger so to get some advantage from that. I am not sure it resumes all of the strategy on a bigger board.
There are deals between what you take there against the influence you give and that influence become more valuable too.

I found astonishing this story about Korshelt. How he had this idea to play on a bigger board and how Shuho did return the favour.
Thanks for sharing

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You would need to explain that. What I and others were saying is that influence, just as a weapon, has a range, and increasing the size of the field doesn’t change the range.

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No worries.

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I may disagree on SL about the range thing.
First SL is a digest of what people think on a 19x19.
On a bigger board you could have a way to build influence so that the range do increase much farther.

I made a wooden GoBan with alcoves in the sides, which made the sides the quickest and easiest place to make a live group and get points efficiently (more points per move). Next I want to make a GoBan with the corners points removed (say 9 of them from each corner, on a 21x21 board, so 405 total intersections / playing points). The board then looks like a big plus sign (+) and you could say 8 corners - 2 in each of the 4 arms of the plus-sign / cross.

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Here is a 37x37 game < Little Golem > played over the last few years (started late 2017 and finished on 2021-05-18) on the Little-Golem-game-server. It was played by an online friend of mine living in Germany, “Bernhard Herwig ★” < Little Golem > and Eönwë of Slovakia < Little Golem > who won the game; but it was a VERY close game —>
White: 170 (area) + 64 (prisoners) + 6.5 (komi) = 240.5 points
Black: 173 (area) + 55 (prisoners) = 228 points

  • thus White won by 12.5 points.
                  • 21x21 is so 19th century! :wink:

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:astonished: That board is HUGE! Oh man, that would be so unmanageable. Fun though :wink:

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