Re: [gnugo-devel] "local" Go games

[Evan Daniel]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 18:19:38 -0700 (PDT), Eric <address@hidden> wrote:
> --- Evan Daniel <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > No, there's a difference.  If you cut down the board
> > too much, you
> > can't solve the local game.  You can, however, find
> > moves that tend to
> > be worth considering from a global perspective, or
> > semi-local
> > perspective (eg owl reading), even though you can't
> > get definitive
> > answers.  If, however, you cut down the game only
> > somewhat, you can
> > get correct answers (in some cases, anyway, like
> > some endgame
> > positions).
> 
> Yes, Evan, but you still have not yet defined "too
> much" and "only somewhat" ;-)

Too much is when you start getting wrong answers, only somewhat is
when you don't :)

To be more helpful...  Owl patterns are in the "too much" category,
and so larger-scale reading is needed.  For an example of "only
somewhat" you might look at the active areas in the persistent caches
(though frequently those are a bit on the aggressive side...  usually
they work anyway though, but sometimes there are problems).

The real answer is that it is a non-trivial problem, and a good,
consistent, correct solution would be a considerable contribution to
computer go in general, not just GNU Go.

Evan Daniel