It's fun to see Lee Sedol reinvigorated in his pursuit of the game. These results are a great example of why we always clamor for successful players to play other top competition; sometimes a rival or other obstacle inspires a person to new heights in their own game.

From an earlier, related article (http://www.tygem.com/news/news/viewpage ... &findword=)



I suppose the time has come for me to get over my grumpiness from the whole AlphaGo thing.

Might as well accept the new world - it's the only way to learn from it.

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be immersed

Here is an article in English about lessons Lee Sedol has learned from his match against AlphaGo: http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view ... ode=710100

Also, Hajin Lee gave a talk about AlphaGo and professional players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rDSnAb ... e=youtu.be

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Patience, grasshopper.

Interesting that you mention it - I watched it, too. I found two parts of her talk to be particularly interesting:

(1) It appears she might have had some experience in playing AlphaGo, based on the way she answered one of the questions. Maybe she helped the AlphaGo team in testing out AlphaGo's strength. Fan Hui also played such a role, if I recall. I'm not really sure, but the way she answered the question was somewhat cryptic, and made me curious.

(2) Her discussion on the ecosystem of Go:



She described the ecosystem as shown above: fans buy Go books, Go lessons, and watch pro tournaments. The interest from fans provides incentive for Go tournaments, teaching by professionals, etc., and these in turn provide support to professional players.

I agree with her that, with AlphaGo in the picture, there is potential for this ecosystem to be destroyed. For example, if Go fans have access to AlphaGo-like software at home, which provides better insight into the game than professionals or tournaments, maybe professional players and tournaments have less of a place in the world.

Her proposed solution was to maintain "balance" in the Go ecosystem by providing tools to each party:



The general idea was, if pros, tournament organizers, and Go organizations have tools to supplement what they do now, they can remain a part of the ecosystem - people can still retain interest in professional players, for example, because a pro+computer combination might provide more than either computer alone or human alone can offer.

My personal feeling is that a balanced ecosystem may be desirable, but it will take effort by the interested parties to achieve. With something as disruptive as AlphaGo, it's not unfeasible for an "unbalanced" ecosystem (this diagram is not from her presentation):



It'd be a pity, but it's not an impossible outcome, in my opinion.

But I suppose that there is at least one comforting aspect of the uncertain future which awaits us: all of these potential ecosystems are fueled by Go - the game we are interested in.

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be immersed

Kirby, why do you think AlphaGo would destroy professional Go players, when DeepBlue/Rybka/Fritz etc haven't destroyed professional chess players?

As a go fan and a part of kibitzer culture I'd love to see AlphaGo vs. pro more than I play with it myself, so Elite players are still in needed

Well, I don't really think that. It's just a possibility - Hajin's idea of a "balanced ecosystem" is an optimistic view. This is a pessimistic alternative. Even being pessimistic, I don't think that professional players will likely be "destroyed" - perhaps just less relevant.

It's kind of like the advent of Internet Go. It increased people's playing ability, spread interest in Go, and made people stronger. But some of the magic of the face-to-face Go clubs was lost.

I don't know what the future will be for Go, but I hope that it can retain its "magic".

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be immersed

Another game from Park Junghwan feature an AlphaGo game 5 based opening, but he played black (Lee, with the big lower right corner) against Shi Yue, whereas before it was Mi Yuting as black in the lower right corner. I was interested to see Park play the 2 rather than one space extension at the bottom right, as I had wondered if this would be more efficient (but with more aji) once the trade happens. Park didn't play Mi's s10 attachment though, and then the top right had a resistance to the crosscut like the Shin Jinseo vs Heo Yongho game.

This is why it's so sad that Japanese players relatively isolated. How can they improve and catch up with Korea and China when they play so little internationally?

4 of the 8 games in the LG cup round of 16 featured the AlphaGo game 5 opening or variations on it:









Also Lee Sedol's 8 game win streak came to an end with a loss to his old rival Gu Li in the previous round with a similar opening (note the 2 rather than one space extension in the lower right which tries to make a more efficient territory if white goes for the trade like in AlphaGo game 5, but white can resist with the o4 peep):

This game from Zhou Ruiyang, who was one of the 9ps who worked with DeepMind to comment the Alphago games, against Shi Yue looks very much inspired by AlphaGo to me. Black's (Shi's) active Chinese opening with the turn instead of cut after 3-3 was like the AlphaGo self-play games. The most notable single move though has got to be Zhou's attachment on the Chinese 3-4 stone which was trumpetted as an innovation of AlphaGo in it's third self-play game. That's actually an exaggeration as it's not a new move and pros have played it quite a few times before (even in quiet positions), but if AlphaGo thinks it should be considered a joseki and standard way to play against the Chinese then that would be new, but it's played/released so few games we can't make such a conclusion. Anyway, that move and the subsequent tenuki were rather interesting, as was the way Zhou settled his group in a rather AlphaGo-esque way (whilst making another weak group and counterattack with the p9 cut).



The similar AlphaGo game is below. My understanding of why Shi (black) ignored the kick to atari the attachment is because if you stand then white plays the outside hane like in the AlphaGo analysis and builds a sente wall and then pincers below the hoshi and the kick becomes a good exchange because it stops the attachment and counter-hane to settle. One query I'd have with that line though is can white really hane in sente building that wall, if you have kicked then maybe black would ignore that and extend to the side hoshi, as the atari is not so big.