[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2016-January-28, 17:39, said:

In the 70s, there was a London Pub, with dozens of Go tables. I was taught by a future European Champion. He took me to an exhibition by a 9-dan Japanese master. My friend challenged his beautiful young daughter. He expected an equal game because he was then 1-dan and the daughter was also 1-dan; but the girl insisted on giving him 4 stones, because she was professional 1-dan. She wiped the floor with him.

Nevertheless, on this performance, AlphaGo is a big step forward in AI.

Perhaps she should have given him more stones.

[mgoetze]

 barmar, on 2016-January-29, 10:17, said:

Is the European field really weak?

Yes. Because of the "intuitive" nature of the game, it is really hard to get stronger without outside assistance, and typically you are limited by the teachers available to you. All the best players are in Korea, China and Japan and this is self-perpetuating. (Of course due to the massive popularity of the game there they also have a larger talent pool.)

A typical pattern of improvement in Go is that you learn things that take you to the next level, but are fundamentally flawed so that you have to unlearn them again to get to the level beyond that. This can be avoided by having a very strong teacher available. Children going to Go schools in Asia will make much more rapid progress than anyone else.

Fan Hui chose to be a star in Europe rather than a bottom-tier professional in his native China.