Re: [gnugo-devel] 9x9 go

[Evan Berggren Daniel]

On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Dan Stromberg wrote:

>
> On the subject of 9x9's, my father is trying to learn go and would like
> to play gnugo, but if he cranks up the handicap to 4 or 5 stones (this
> is hearsay, I haven't checked it myself) as needed, gnugo immediately
> resigns.  Is there some way gnugo could be made less inclined to give up
> for beginners?
>
> I believe he's using the gnugo version that comes with Goban, the Mac OS
> X program.  If this is improved in later versions, that's great info to
> see.

I think this problem still exists in current versions.  I would suggest
using igowin, which is somewhat better.  However, I've seen it pass in
places where the beginners didn't understand why its groups were dead.
But realistically, there aren't any good programs at that high a handicap.
I would suggest turning gnugo down to level 3 or so and reducing the
handicap; it will probably be a more interesting game.  I don't know how
to do this with Goban, but you need to add the option --level 3 to the
command line.

Evan Daniel