Hello! I am new here and this is my first post. I want to ask a question: is there a free go engine with a human style of play? I want to use it under drago gui just for training.
Thanks for your reply...

A human style go engine? Free?

First you have to specify at what level of play. The pre MCTS programs, an AI based on "go knowledge" were up to about 5-6 kyu before MCTS came along. They don't play unlike an overly conservative human; their main fault is not being aggressive enough. Down to the upper single digits can be useful. A free example would be gnugo.

But also you might reconsider what you mean by "human like". Do you really think if you were presented with 20 game scores, ten where it was human vs human and ten human vs say fuego, you would be able to identify the games played by fuego?

You perhaps also should specify more clearly what you mean by "free". Free as in free software (ideological) or free as in "free beer". Especially as relates to "level of play" the distinction could be important (particularly if you were willing to contact developers who have dropped out of the game)

Who cares if they play human-like or not? If you set the correct handicap, it will be hard for you to win, and you will have to think very hard and exercise all of your imagination, apply all of your willpower. In the end, you can say it played unnatural moves, but because of the handicap stones you still enjoyed the contest thoroughly.

That being said, I'd recommend getting Pachi. It is free. Also, there is GNU Go, but it's not nearly as strong.

If you want, there is a free computer opponent at http://www.cosumi.net/en/ no installation or download required.

I got pachi, implemented it on GoGui and I also implemented the pattern files like its described (but there is no message it's successfully implemented), but it still plays like alomost a DDK. I have a laptop, so maybe not the strongest machine, but still....

From the Pachi website - "On 19×19, assuming a higher-end (e.g. four-way Intel i7) machine, it can hold a solid KGS 2d rank."

Thanks for your reply! I am a beginner (14 kyu on kgs) so i ask for an engine just for fighting go not an engine to count territory (gnu go is very dry for this, pachi plays the opening not as a human)...

or, instead of handicap... give it a high komi to overcome, then if it thinks its behind (but not over its resign threshold), then it should come out fighting... hopefully.

pros say that training is best achieved, not by playing whole games, but by study.

Pachi can handle Fuego opening books. Do a google search for Fuego opening book (EDIT: http://gnugo.baduk.org/fuegoob.htm), put it into the Pachi executable directory and configure the Pachi arguments like this (so book name is book.dat):


Threads is # of CPU cores. Also did you notice you can make Pachi stronger with pattern files? http://pachi.or.cz/pat/

Thanks for your reply Sneegurd...