“Programming other board games has been a relative snap. Even chess has succumbed to the power of the processor. Five years ago, a chess-playing computer called Deep Blue not only beat but thoroughly humbled Garry Kasparov, the world champion at the time. That is because chess, while highly complex, can be reduced to a matter of brute force computation.
Go is different. Deceptively easy to learn, either for a computer or a human, it is a game of such depth and complexity that it can take years for a person to become a strong player. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player.”
And here is another article on Go from today’s BBC
“It was popular in Japan for more than 1,000 years, but in recent decades the ancient board game of Go went into sad decline.
Some 80% of regular players were over 60 and the numbers were dwindling. But everything changed when a children’s comic featured a story about a boy inspired to take up the game.”
