🚀 go-pugleaf

I suppose that this could go in rec.games.misc, but since I expect the
answers to be likely folklore anyway, this is probably the best place.
;-)

We have all heard that computers can play a pretty good game of chess
lately, (BTW, anyone know which program has the highest rating right
now), but what about other games?  In particular, how about the game
of GO?  At first glance, it would seem to be a much harder problem.
There are no standard openings, the board is much larger, one must
look much farther ahead to see potential consequences of a given
move....  Yech.  Yet how far can one get with heuristic techniques?  I
would imagine that some sort of very flexible tree structure might be
used for the various regions.  I can visualize different nodes of the
tree combining as the different regions on the board do likewise.  I
really don't know much about the problem, as you can probably tell.
What are the best efforts that have been achived so far?  Can the
program beat a beginner, a journeyman, a master...?
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