Life In 19x19

If God played Go, always playing the optimal moves (i.e. the moves which would lead to the greatest winning margin if his opponent also plays optimal moves), where do you think He would play Black's first move?

I guess it would either be on the 3-4 point or on the 4-4 point. But which one is more likely to be the theoretical optimal first move?

Why do you think that there is only one? Or if there is one, it isn't the 5-5, for instance?

God wouldn't play Black.

Alcadeias wrote:If God played Go, always playing the optimal moves (i.e. the moves which would lead to the greatest winning margin if his opponent also plays optimal moves), where do you think He would play Black's first move?

Only God (and Chuck Norris) can answer!

fanfan wrote:

Alcadeias wrote:If God played Go, always playing the optimal moves (i.e. the moves which would lead to the greatest winning margin if his opponent also plays optimal moves), where do you think He would play Black's first move?

Only God (and Chuck Norris) can answer!

Chuck Norris can beat any go player by starting at 1-1

When Chuck Norris want to be kind with someone, he wins by playing only pass moves.

That means that pass move is not the best for sure!

Chuck Norris has such superhuman abilities, that when he makes a Chuck-Norris-joke, it's actually funny.

According to http://ps.waltheri.net/ the best moves are 9-4, 8-8, 10-8, 7-4 and 6-5.

He would pass as black.

God plays backgammon

pitirre wrote:God plays backgammon

God doesn't play dice...

But yes, backgammon is nice

I suspect that no god would waste its time on a finite game such as go.

DrStraw wrote:I suspect that no god would waste its time on a finite game such as go.

Well, it has been done before. The norse Gods played Hnefatafl in their free time, as mentioned in the Edda. The game got extinct in the meantime, but survived the gods by a fair amount of time. Unfortunately no game record survived. Smithing was their other favourite pastime.

Zen uses an opening book. But is there a sensible proposition by zen if you switch off the opening book?

bayu wrote:

DrStraw wrote:I suspect that no god would waste its time on a finite game such as go.

Well, it has been done before. The norse Gods played Hnefatafl in their free time, as mentioned in the Edda. The game got extinct in the meantime, but survived the gods by a fair amount of time. Unfortunately no game record survived. Smithing was their other favourite pastime.

Zen uses an opening book. But is there a sensible proposition by zen if you switch off the opening book?

It's a pity hnefatafl didn't survive with a clear ruleset (there are size, corner, placement and movement rule variations) and we are stranded with so many variations of the (essentially) same game. I like tafl.

RBerenguel wrote:
It's a pity hnefatafl didn't survive with a clear ruleset (there are size, corner, placement and movement rule variations) and we are stranded with so many variations of the (essentially) same game.

Compared to other games that died out, the situation about the ruleset is not so bad (we have something that makes kind of sense and let's us play the game. I'm sure there were different rules in different places and different times anyway. Game rules evolve. We don't play Go under the exact rule set they had 1000 years ago. But we still think to be playing essentially the same game. No big deal.). I find it more of a pity that no single game record exists. I don't know the situation about backgammon, but we are spoiled to have as many records of chess and go games dating back a long time.

RBerenguel wrote:I like tafl.

Me too. Norse gods can't be wrong.

Back on topic. Zen anyone? In other threads people ask about a "fair" komi, which I find related to the question of the OP. Does Zen have an opinion about a fair komi? Also, the komi has an influence on the choice for first move. Maybe it is not visible if komi of 6.5 plusminus 1 are considered (those with a database may see something, though), but I expect a different move, if komi is set to 0.