The 1994 World Computer Go Championship was held in Taipei Taiwan,
on November 18th and 19th. Participants included last year's top 3 finishers,
3 programs that qualified by beating 2 of 3 benchmark programs in
the August preliminary tournament, and 3 other invited programs. Several
other programs that were invited could not participate.
The top 3 programs were very closely matched, all finishing with 5 wins
and one loss. Go Intellect beat Many Faces of Go, which beat Handtalk, which
beat Go Intellect. Go Intellect took first place on sum of defeated
opponent's scores since it had played a weak program that got two
points for bye's. Many Faces and Handtalk were tied on both SDS and SOS,
but Many Faces had beaten Handtalk in their match, so it took second.
The top 4 programs are unchanged from last year, but finished in a
different order:
1994:
1) Go Intellect
2) Many Faces of Go
3) Handtalk
4) Star of Poland
1993:
1) Handtalk
2) Star of Poland
3) Go Intellect
4) Many Faces of Go.
In 1994, the game between Many Faces and Star of Poland was won by Many Faces
by only one point. In 1993, Go Intellect and Many Faces were tied for
3rd on all 4 tie breakers, and a special, extra game was played, which
Go Intellect won by one point. These 4 programs are all essentially the
same strength.
As the winner, Go Intellect collected $NT200,000 (about US$6000), and played
3 games against top youth players at a 15 play handicap for an additional
prize. Go Intellect lost all 3 games, so the 15 play handicap prize is
still available next year.
There were two new programs this year, one that is being developed in Japan
for Nintendo, and was started last December, and one that was written
in Taiwan by 3 high school students.
Full results:
1: Go Intellect, by Ken Chen, USA
2: Many Faces of Go, by David Fotland, USA
3: Handtalk, by Zhixing Chen, China
4: Star of Poland, by Janusz Kraszek, Poland
5: Stone, by Kuo-yuan Kao, USA
6: Modgo, by Alfred Knoepfle, Germany
7: Sason, by Choong Ho Lee, South Korea
8: Hwa Hsia, by Yi-Jun Chang, Shen-yang Lo, Wei-hsiang Chang, Taiwan
9: by Toshikazu Sato, Japan
Wins SDS SUDS 3rd tie break
1: +8 +4 +2 -3 +5 +6 5 16
2: +9 +6 -1 +4 +3 +5 5 15 5 30
3: +7 +9 +6 +1 -2 +4 5 15 5 28
4: +5 -1 +7 -2 bye -3 3 6 15
5: -4 +8 +9 +7 -1 -2 3 6 13
6: bye -2 -3 +8 +9 -1 3 3 15
7: -3 bye -4 -5 +8 +9 3 3 11
8: -1 -5 bye -6 -7 bye 2
9: -2 -3 -5 bye -6 -7 1
-David Fotland