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Mysterious Tartrate Conquers All At Go

Posted by simoniker on from the who-is-that-masked-man? dept.

Rubyflame writes "As noted on the Sensei's Library resource for the ancient Chinese boardgame Go, Tartrate, a very strong and mysterious Go player, has recently returned to the Kiseido Go Server (KGS) after a long absence. The game records can be found here. Tartrate first appeared in March, and has yet to be defeated - his identity is unknown." This intriguing story is a little reminiscent of Bobby Fischer's online chess appearances - the Go players on KGS even log their Tartrate number: "tartrate has a tartrate number of 0. If you have played a game with tartrate, your tartrate number is 1. If you have played a game with someone whose number is 1, your number is 2, and so on."

5 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Re:sgf by Deternal · · Score: 5, Informative

    you can download his games as SGF files and view them from the KGS archives if you want :)

  2. AI? by torpor · · Score: 5, Interesting


    How feasible is it that its an AI being used to play tartrates games, anyone know?

    I've seen some amazing Go games in my life (while I lived in Tokyo) and I know that the Go mojo is not something you're going to just up and code without being really, really good yourself ... but it is interesting that since we know nothing much about tartrate himself, the first thing that came to my mind is 'someone is running a good Go bot' ...

    Not to detract from his skills, mind. I'm just interested if any of those who have played him could not have been defeated by some of the various Go-playing algorithms which are floating around out there. Some of them are too good.

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    1. Re:AI? by fstrauss · · Score: 5, Informative

      Go has a rating system which briefly is explained as follows:

      Begginers start at about 30kuy, as you get better your kuy rating decreases. 1kuy is better than 2kuy. Better that 1kuy is 1dan, dans count upwards to about 7dan. Better than that you start with pro ratings which are not easy to come by.

      AI is far from beating pros at Go
      The best go playing software is rated about 12kuy.

      In otherwords, there are people in my local go club who would beat the best go playing ai :)

      --

      ----
      Some people are good with words, others, .... erm..... ....
    2. Re:AI? by edbarrett · · Score: 5, Funny
      'someone is running a good Go bot'

      Is he a mighty Go bot?

      Is he a mighty vehicle?

      Am I an idiot?

  3. Nominations by scrytch · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mysterious Tartrate Conquers All At Go

    I nominate this article title for "Most Surreal Slashdot Title Ever".

    --
    I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.