The Game Of Go

Go is a wonderful game. The rules are very simple, but the play can become extraordinarily complex. To learn more about the game itself, follow the links to other resources on the Internet. I won't try to duplicate all that information here, but instead just give my own unique perspective.

Go-related things I've done

Learned to play in 1967. Bob High taught me.
Made my first stab at programming Go in 1973. In FORTRAN. Using punched cards.
Wrote a computerized opening library program, GoDB, in 1983.
Built a Go Games and Fuseki database using HyperCard, starting in 1986. It now contains over 300,000 moves.
Extended GoDB into Poka, a program that could actually play, in 1988.
Applied combinatorial game theory to Go. Discovered quarter eyes.
Won the 1-dan band of the U.S. Open in 1993.
Poka tied for 5th (out of 7) in the 1993 US Computer Go Championship
Lectured at the special Workshop on Combinatorial Game Theory at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI, pronounced "emmissary" or "misery" depending on your mood) in Berkeley in 1994. Wrote the lecture up as a paper for the proceedings, which was published in Silvio Levy (ed.), "Games of No Chance: Combinatorial Games at MSRI, 1994", Cambridge University Press.
Poka took 3rd place in the 1995 North American Computer Go Championship
Am now AGA 3.5 dan.
Visited the Nihon Kiin (Japan Go Association) in Feb. 1997. (Thanks to Michael Redmond for his gracious hospitality!)

Other Go resources on the Internet

Last updated 2004 Feb 9