A Go Legend

I was quite happy to see that the author of "Go Dream" has started a new book on Longkong. The latest chapter was released all at once, and I feel the writing style is much better than "Go Dream." However, given the current setting of a spirit behind a character similar to Hikaru no Go, it's unlikely that it will be able to completely dominate the fandom.

Nowadays, humans can achieve the highest win rate by learning dog tricks, and can maintain a near-constant win rate in the first forty or fifty rounds. However, after the opening moves were completed, the game still collapsed. In the middle game, all sorts of unbelievable blunders instantly broke the human player's game. The question of whether a dog's judgment can be learned is a complex one.

On January 3, 2017, Master (AlphaGo v18) played against Maker (Park Yeon-hwan) on FoxGo. The game record can be found on FoxGo, and there are also commentaries by professional Go players. Master, playing white, decisively defeated Park Yeon-hwan's Chinese-style opening. Park Yeon-hwan failed to connect his pieces mid-game and was ultimately defeated by a flying move followed by a pressing move.

Let's start with talent. While Shi Xiangxia is undeniably gifted, Gu Li is also a once-in-a-decade genius. Does that mean Gu Li is necessarily inferior to Shi Xiangxia? Okay, let's assume Shi Xiangxia's talent surpasses Gu Li's. There are essentially four ways for a Go player to improve: instruction from a master, studying game records, practicing against opponents, and self-study.

It's well written. Don't listen to those people's nonsense. How many people who read novels actually understand Go? How can an amateur Go player become a legendary player without a cheat code? As long as the novel is well-written, that's fine. Also, don't create a harem indiscriminately!

Complaints from readers who have subscribed to the entire book I hope the author will stop bringing up other things. Are there really people who read this book to see the protagonist living a carefree life in the city as a time traveler? First, he wrote about real estate, and since the author works in real estate, I tolerated it.

Aside from the Go-playing scenes, all other descriptions of non-Go-related content, especially the protagonist's mindset and inner thoughts, are incredibly jarring. Even the phrases "schizophrenic" and "childish" fail to adequately describe this sense of incongruity.

To be honest, I plan to continue reading this book, but there are some issues I really need to address. I haven't seen the later chapters yet, but in the first 30 chapters, up to the LG Cup qualifiers before the match against Kobayashi, the protagonist is just a lazy bum without any dreams. Calling him a lazy bum is being kind; to put it bluntly, he's a despicable scoundrel.

Many people only have a superficial understanding of Go AI, so here's a brief explanation: First, the area that humans can calculate is limited; in this respect, the computing power of supercomputers has long surpassed that of AI. This is the fundamental reason why we lost the game. But similarly, if you don't give AI enough computing power, even a god-like program is useless.

Keep writing about Go simple; there's no need to flaunt your connections in Beijing and act like a Beijing slicker.