Go4++ FAQ

Go4++ by Michael Reiss - FAQ

When did you start working on your go program?

1983.

What made you decide to write a go program?

I saw a computing magazine in a shop advertising a computer programming contest with a one thousand pound prize. I decided I would like to enter the contest whatever the task was. So I bought the magazine and looked inside and saw that the task was to write a program to play Go. I had never played before.

The front cover of "A&B computing" July 1983

I then found a club in London and went along to it and asked "Please teach me how to play Go because I want to write a program to play it". Some people at the club said it was impossible, but they taught me anyway. By the time of the contest in January 1984 about 10 or 12 people had submitted programs to the organisers. They then selected eight of them to compete in a knock-out tournament. On the day of the contest I was incredibly excited. I thought I had a good chance of winning, but I was knocked out in the first round! However, I was not deterred because I figured that a major factor in my failure was that I personally could barely play the game. I guess I was 25kyu and my program was 35kyu!

Do you have anyone helping you?

I have had advice from many stronger players over the years. Most recently Soeng June Kim 6D. I have not had any help with the actual programming.

What is your profession?

Go programmer - I have no other source of income! I live off the royalties from sales, mostly in Japan. I have been full time since 1995.

What is the strength of the program?

On IGS it varies between 16k* and 17k*. IGS grades are very different from other gradings systems and I don't know how this translates.

What is your grade as a human player?

Somewhere around 1 or 2 kyu on the british scale, far weaker than my main opponents.

What programming language is it written in?

Just "C", (not C++).

How big is the program?

In May 2001 the source was about 2.7Mb comprised of around 110,000 lines of code. There are 7000 hand crafted josekis/patterns and 300,000 patterns that were automatically generated from professional games.

What have been your results in tournaments?

My recent results are.

CGF 1999 Japan, Winner.
FOST 1999 Tokyo, Second. Ing 1999 Shanghai, Winner.
Ing 2000 Guiyang, China, third.
Garosu.com cup 2001, third.
21st Century cup 2001, USA, Winner.
Computer Olympiad 2002, Maastricht, Winner.

How can I buy it?

In the west it is sold under the name "Go Professional". It can be bought online at Purple Software.