Here are the reults of the 1989 World Computer Go Championship held
in Taipei, R.O.C.
Place Programmer Program Country R1 R2 R3 R4
1 (3) Mark Boon Goliath Holland +14 +10 +6 +2
2 (11) Bruce Wilcox Nemesis USA +12 +3 +8 -1
3 (5) Ken Chen Go Intellect USA +5 -2 +11 +6
4 (5) Anders Kierulf Swiss Explorer Switzerland +7 -6 +10 +8
5 Noriaki Sanechika Igo 2.24 Japan -3 +13 +7 +12
6 (4) Janusz Kraszek Star of Poland Poland +9 +4 -1 -3
7 (8) David Fotland Cosmos USA -4 +9 -5 +10
8 Yen Chi Lin Go ROC +13 +12 -2 -4
9 Tadashi Takamoto AISYS King Japan -6 -7 +13 +11
10 (7) Gao Guo Yuan Stone 2.0 ROC +11 -1 -4 -7
11 Lin Guang Jiue Life ROC -10 +14 -3 -9
12 (2) Liu Dong Yue Dragon ROC -2 -8 +14 -5
13 (12) Chang Sheng Shu Magic Go ROC -8 -5 -7 +14
14 Wu Jeng Ru WCR II ROC -1 -11 -12 -13
() shows place from last year's world championship. Codan, the 1st place
program last year, qualified in the Japanese preliminary, but was not
entered in the world championship.
Acer provided Acer 915 (PC-AT) computers, but most of the strong programs
were run on faster machines:
Goliath Acer 1100 (16 Mhz 80386) C
Nemesis Macintosh C
Go intellect Macintosh Modula 2
Swiss Explorer Macintosh Modula 2
Igo NEC laptop
Star of Poland Acer 915 C
Cosmos HP RS/25 (25 mhz 80386) C
AISYS King NEC laptop
Stone 2.0 Acer 915
Dragon Macintosh
Goliath, Nemesis, and Cosmos all devote about 20,000 lines of code to Go
(not counting user interface).
This year there were large improvements in most of the programs. Dragon
was the winning program until last year, when it came in second. Most
of last year Liu Dong Yue has been in military service so he hasn't had
much time to improve his program and this year it came in 12th. Last year's
top program, Codan, could not be at the championship this year, but it did
not finish first in the Japanese preliminary, and the other Japanese
programs came in 5th and 9th. The most improved program was Nemesis,
which came in 11th last year and 3rd in the USA preliminary, but took
2nd place. Swiss Explorer and Go intellect are both derivatives of
Go Explorer, which took 5th place last year. I think that all of the top
9 programs are stronger than last year's top finisher was.
The final game between Goliath and Nemesis was won by 1 point by Goliath,
and the game between Go Intellect and Nemesis was won by 3 points. If
Goliath had lost it would have been 5th place because it played relatively
weaker opponents than the other top programs. The top programs are close
enough in strength that 4 rounds is not really enough to accurately determine
which is best. Next year the contest may be played on 3 days with 8 rounds
to solve this problem.
Goliath had the opportunity to play a 16 play handicap game against a
12 year old 6 dan. (Under Ing rules, Black makes 16 plays, then plays first
so there are actually 17 black stones on the board when white makes his first
play.) Goliath lost, but only by about 15 points, so maybe next year the
computer will be able to win.
-David Fotland