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A comment on The Game Of Go: A Programmer's Perspective. Parent comment

Re:The Game Of Go: A Programmer's Perspective by hosh on Thursday April 19, 2012 @12:59PM (#3863972)
Depends on how you want to play. Some people try to win by a certain amount of points. Some people try to lose by a certain amount of points. Some teachers move in a way to call attention to certain shapes or tactical sequences. Sometimes you just want to stick to beautiful moves. When you throw in handicap stones, komi, and reverse komi, how much you win or lose by is arbitrary. You can win by 0.5 points, but that's largely dependent on komi you agreed to. The losing player still has half of the board.

All fluid objectives during a game of chess between strong players are still subordinate to the ultimate objective: capture the king. There's only one king on each side, so there is not much give. There are 361 empty space to choose from in Go.

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Re:The Game Of Go: A Programmer's Perspective by asynchrony on Thursday April 19, 2012 @01:31PM (#3864156)
I don't understand what you're trying to say.

There's only one king, but both sides have 15 additional pieces. One extra pawn is often enough to win, and in the majority of games between competent players one side resigns long before an actual checkmate is on the horizon.

If you want to exchange off the pieces and make a draw, you can. If you're only interested in playing surprising/paradoxical/beautiful moves, so be it.

In go, regardless of the handicap, or whether you want to win by more or lose by less, the objective is still to surround more space than your opponent.

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Re:The Game Of Go: A Programmer's Perspective by mquander on Tuesday April 24, 2012 @04:54AM (#3883050)
Like asynchrony, I don't understand this argument at all. You can play however you want in chess. It doesn't change the actual victory condition, nor does it in Go. The sub-objectives during a game of chess appear to me to be equally deep and important as the sub-objectives during a game of Go; namely, they are the whole point. Like in Go, you win by conceding some sub-objectives and pursuing others.
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