Chess is only more popular in the West. Go is extremely popular in Asia--more widely played and followed, I think, than chess is even in the West.
Also, for quite a while a Thai millionaire was offering a large prize to anyone who could write a program that could beat a professional Go player. That millionaire has since died, and the prize offer has expired, but still there is no lack of effort being put toward a solution. As the article pointed out, it's a rather popular topic of doctoral dissertations.
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Nah, it's not circular; it's recursive.
Chess is only more popular in the West. Go is extremely popular in Asia--more widely played and followed, I think, than chess is even in the West.
Also, for quite a while a Thai millionaire was offering a large prize to anyone who could write a program that could beat a professional Go player. That millionaire has since died, and the prize offer has expired, but still there is no lack of effort being put toward a solution. As the article pointed out, it's a rather popular topic of doctoral dissertations.