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The Sword and the Go Stone, Part 8


Sandra K had grown up playing Go, focusing on the mental and psychological world of competition. Sandra K had been trained to get enough exercise to stay physically and mentally healthy, but by no means was she up to Shinamo standards of training.

The cold air was hurting her lungs as she gasped for breath. The ship Sephiroth was due back in two days, and after three weeks of brutal training runs and weight lifting, she didn't feel any more prepared.

Sandra K had mentioned to Michael that if they wanted to keep any Go culture at all, they should bring at least one more go player to Shinamo.

She didn't think Jin W would be interested, but he was the only Pro she knew well who was still on planet by the time she asked around.

So Michael, Sandra and Jin were downstairs in Uno's secure room.


"It's like a ranked ladder," Michael was saying. Instead of general league and tournament play, you challenge players near you in rank, and you have a mentor who is substantially better but not too much better. Most likely you would be mentoring players and receiving and giving challenges.

"There's a series of leveled tiers. I would start at 8-1, you and Sandra would be somewhere in the 7-1 to 7-4 range. It's like those old games that have 8 worlds and 4 levels per world."

Sandra didn't get the reference and neither did Jin.

"It's a Toyota network thing I guess," Michael continued. "Over time, we'd get a solid core of mentors for beginners at around world 4. Mentors for 2 and 3 from world 5. Mentors for 4 from 6. For 5 from 7, and for 6 from 8. World 7 and 8 wouldn't have mentors, but that would be very few players. And we don't call them players anymore, we call them challengers.

"Just as an example from the Sword fighter discipline, I challenged our grand-master repeatedly over a 2 year period, trying to defeat him. I think even he, as perfect as he was, rose to greater ability through the challenges. I got so much better, it was ridiculous. It was adaptive in response to each wrinkle in the fights. So instead of rarely playing the same player twice, you can rise in skill by challenging someone of the next level up, and being challenged by someone just slightly weaker.

"In addition, for the new world 1 challengers, we give them something of a boot camp, challenge them physically as well as mentally. Try to push them past the mindset of just casually playing a game, or just casually hanging out at a dojo. The people who stay will be interested in playing at a whole new level."

Jin W said, "Well I would like to get in a series of games against Sandra, and against you. I've never trained against a neurally maximized player. Do you think you lost your sword fighting ability when you went through that?"

"I would fight like a Go master now. It might be interesting to see, but I wouldn't be as good as I was before," Michael said.

"There's one more thing. Hey Uno! Toyota network is interested in purchasing a Go tournament module like the ones you guys use. Is it possible to adjust the system to work for a ladder / challenge type of system? And what kind of price would you charge. I have access to an extensive amount of funds from Shinamo's colonial account."

Uno's avatar appeared before them. "Google Corporate is interested in a trade. They will provide a Go module modified for use with ladder / challenge systems, if Shinamo or Toyota corporate are willing to provide a 2 person team and a similar module for any form of martial arts."

"The Sephiroth is patched in to Exeter. The Combined AI can respond to your offer when they arrive. I think that would be acceptable."

Sandra said, "Jin, what do you think?"

"I'm interested in the challenge / ladder type of idea, and maybe I can bring it back to Google's network after we've got the program well-developed on Shinamo. I'm in," Jin said.

The three of them discussed plans, worked out, and Jin and Sandra played go at the Go center. Michael sent a message ahead to the Sephiroth, who relayed it back to Shinamo Combined AI. Two days later, when the Sephiroth arrived, they had an approval to make the trade between the two colonies and the two colonial networks.

Finally, Uno invited me to the secure compound alone, to hear about the modified Go module that was being loaded onboard the Sephiroth.

"Sandra K," Uno said. "The module you will be using is already customized to work like Michael has planned. Candidates will be challenged on their physical and endurance prowess during the 1st "world", as requested. Mentoring assignments will be granted in accordance with the plans.

"The module is very customizable, and while Michael has root access to configure it, I have given you super-root access. I still am a bit suspcious of this whole plan from Toyota network's perspective. If anything goes shady, ask the module to do a detailed scan for computer cheating. This will activate a small sub-space receiver for communication between you and I. It will be slow, and the network will eventually notice it once you turn it on, but I can guide you in an emergency."

"I don't think I need to worry, but thank you. I don't get this compatibility thing you mentioned with Michael. I've never been into sword-fighting, and Michael is quickly becoming a good friend, but I just don't see anything more there. I'd much rather spend time with Jin W, and talk Go, if I'm being honest."

"I wonder if the fact that he doesn't know anything about Go explicitly bugs you Its just all implicit knowledge. Now, more about this module. During the early phases of your project, all of the new students will be world 1 level 1. So they won't have anyone to challenge that's just a bit better. In that case, the Module will take the candidates that are better than most of their 1-1s and make them 1-2 after they demonstrate consistent victories. After a while, it will do the same among the 1-2s, picking a few 1-3s, and over time, as the number of candidates grows at the top level before you get to your three, the module will pick the best and promote them.

So over the first year or two, challengers will be spread upward bit by bit until they cover the gap from 1-1 to 6-4, and then 6-4s can start challenging you and Jin."

"OK, I was curious about that. What martial arts is Exeter getting in return?"

"Shinamo is sending an Akido module customized for our style of leagues and tournaments. I have agreed with Shinamo that we will be sister colonies and share information on how each others' projects are going. Good luck Sandra K."

"Thank you for everything, Uno. I appreciate it," Sandra said.

Then she went back to the spaceport, to Sephiroth, and boarded the corvette. Sephiroth was designed for travel speed, primarily. The module took up most of the ship's cargo space, but on the bright side, they were able to activate the module as soon as they left.

The module was embedded inside a small building, technically, it was the building that had barely fit, but in order to run its anti-computer cheating checks, the module had wires and sensors running througout the building.

It was only big enough to support six Go tables, two 80" digital displays on the left and right walls and a few benches for onlookers.

Both displays had a remote next to them for interacting with the module's security and configuration systems.

As soon as they could, Jin and Sandra went to the cargo hold, and activated the module.

The left display showed the rankings.

Michael M - 8-1 * - Grandmaster
Jin W - 7-2 * - Executive Master
Sandra K - 7-1 * - Master

"I wonder how we set up a challenge," Sandra said, looking at her rank relative to Jins. It was fair considering his tournament record, but she wanted to challenge him and test the system out.

"Let's sit down at a table and see," Jin said.

They went to the table marked #1. The go stones were available in two drawers that could be pulled out from the table.

There were three buttons in between their clocks. Practice, Unranked Play and Challenge. Sandra pressed the challenge button.

"Sandra K 7-1, you are challenging Jin W, 7-2, is that correct?"

"Yes," she said to the module.

The clocks were set to 60 minutes each.

"Jin W, as the challenged, you have your choice of color, which do you pick?"

The sound was coming from the table, rather than out of nowhere like Uno talked, it was weird and different than what she was used to.

"Black"

Jin would go first then. They started out much like many of their games had gone. In intricate sections of play, Jin eked out small advantages, bit by bit.

I made the situation complex, and both of our clocks were getting low, when the table announced we had reached the period to get 20 more minutes on our clocks.

Jin used all of that time to maneuver into a winning position, it was a good quality, intense win. I hadn't even noticed Michael come in.

"Just think how much more intricate your matchups will be a year from now," he said after the game was over. "If its anything like my Kenjutsu."

"We've played, what, 15, maybe 16 games against each other?" Jin said.

"How big is that gap between the best sword-fighters and yourself or your 8-1?" Sandra asked Michael.

"I spent 11 years of intense study and challenges to get to where I was," Michael said.

"Think about the first few people who try the Go Master's Challenge. The only thing I can compare to is new players who come from non-go playing cultures and join Exeter's leagues. They're playing against 8 year olds in the Novice division and getting absolutely destroyed. A new Go player is utterly lost. They make moves to put their own pieces in atari. They aren't even aware of eye shape yet," Sandra said.

"That reminds me, can you start teaching me these concepts while we play a game. I mean a real game," Michael said.

"Play Jin first. Jin can concentrate on beating you, and I'll teach you the concepts. I want to see just how much better your neural-programming is then his training," Sandra said.

"Let's go for it."

They set up a challenge between Jin and Michael the same way as before. There was more time on the clocks for this one. Each player had 90 minutes now.

"What's with the clocks?" Sandra asked.

Michael spoke up. "I had your Uno program different clock settings into the module by world. Plus I broke out World 1's settings by level. The clock settings are based on the higher ranked person being challenged.

1-1 is 20 minutes per side, no extensions.
1-2 is 25 minutes
1-3 is 30 minutes
1-4 is 35 minutes

World 2 is 40 minutes
World 3 is 45 minutes
World 4 is 50 minutes
World 5 is 55 minutes
World 6 is 60 minutes
World 7 is 60 minutes with a 20 minute extension after 60 turns.
World 8 is a special grandmaster challenge: 90 minutes, plus a 20 minute extension after 40, 80 and 120 turns.

This way, challengers can enjoy a sense of progress as they understand go more, and the many novice games at the start won't take so long."

Jin and Michael started playing. Michael was very fast with his early moves, but they all looked good.

"So the point of the game is to take territory. What territory is, is any area of the go board that you can protect from enemy intrusion, that you control.

You protect an area from intrusion by having two eyes. Each area is called a group in Go.

A liberty is the spots left, right, up and down of a square. If you place a stone, and it takes away all the liberties of one of my stones, you capture that stone. In addition, if a group of stones are all connected by these orthogonal liberties, and you surround that group, so that the group as a whole has no liberties, then you can remove that whole group.

An eye is an empty space surrounded by stones of one colour, which cannot be occupied by the opponent, unless the surrounding stones themselves are captured in the process.

If you have one eye, your opponent can surround your one eyed group, and then play in the empty space of the eye and take your last liberty, so that you lose all those stones.

If you have two eyes, your opponent can't do anything, because if they try to take one of the eyes, they just lose their stone, since you still have a liberty through the other eye. Plus you aren't allowed to make a self sacrificial play like that.

There are more complexities to the eye situation, but teaching new players about eyes, groups and liberties is crucial beginner stuff.

The group must surround at least one empty point, and it must be a chain. So any stones that are diagonally next to a group are not part of the group, only orthogonal connections count."

"What's orthogonal?" Michael asked.

 "Orthogonal is any set of directions that are all at right angles with each other. In this case it's the up-down and left-right directions on the board," Sandra said.

"I lost some of these things when I got neural programmed," Michael said. "What about bigger strategic questions?"

"Well, I think Go has the best balance between tactics and strategy. You can win the battle in one area of the board and lose the war. Or you can play so removed that you lose too much and your strategic plans can't make up the difference.

You can respond to a tactical move with an establishing move in a different area of the board. After your opponent has taken a Ko, if you can make some large threat on the board, they are forced to respond and you can take that Ko back. It's called a Ko threat"

Sandra watched the two play, and she had a hard time figuring out who had the advantage. She continued to explain to Michael a glossary of Go and some tactics and strategies. I explained white's 6.5 point Komi, and how to score games and figure out who won. Yeah the module does the scoring, but its good to know for the endgame.

It wasn't obvious that Michael was winning until late. Suddenly I saw that Jin was going to lose by a lot.

"Impressive," Jin said. "I had no idea I was being crushed until half way through."

"You figured it out half way? I didn't until near the end," Sandra said.

"I've seen some of the best pros of New London do something like what Michael tried. They didn't pull it off as well, and I couldn't pull it off, but I was able to recognize it."

Sandra took a shot at Michael and lost more quickly than Jin. Then they all went and got some rest while the ship continued trucking along in hyperspace.