Re: [gnugo-devel] 3x3 point never played

[Gunnar Farnebäck]

Alain wrote:
> On a 9x9, gnugo 3.6 against himself
> The 3x3 point is not played until the end game,

That is certainly too late. It seems more appropriate to do it at move
10, or maybe move 8. Relevant code is around line 355 of fuseki.c:

  /* On 9x9, only play open corners after the first move if nothing
   * else useful is found.
   */
  if (board_size == 9 && stones_on_board(color) > 0)
    empty_corner_value = 5;

I remember that it was necessary to be careful not to just blindly
occupy corners on 9x9, but this seems way conservative. Maybe an empty
corner value of say 12 or 15 would be more appropriate.

> and then is considered as dead, whereas it can live !!!

Well, lets say that I have no difficulty seeing how GNU Go might go
wrong in reading this. With such a strong position black has all sorts
of nasty moves available which could normally quickly be ruled out.
Try "gnugo -l SanSan-is-Alive.sgf -L 26 --decide-owl G3 -o vars.sgf"
to see what moves were actually considered.

/Gunnar