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Comment by hunterp | Hacker News Reader

As a 1 dan in igo aka baduk aka wei-qi, I can attest it is an excellent skill to make asian friends and just friends in general. Chess offers you access to the western world...which is a declining commodity. Also, go is a more computationally interesting problem at the moment. The strongest computer is far weaker than even top amateur players....let alone professional players who are even far stronger.

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As only a 5 kyu, I like Go, but I think it's extremely silly to claim that a game is more interesting for humans because computers are worse at it. Computer chess has made the game more fun for humans, not less; it's as if you have the world champion sitting next to you helping you review every game, point out your mistakes, and evaluate alternative choices. Computer analysis frequently unveils interesting possibilities in games that humans don't find.

I don't think he was claiming that Go is more fun for humans because computers are worse than humans at it. The statement was: "computationally interesting problem". I think he was thinking in terms of the challenge it posed to computing science, not whether or not humans found it enjoyable to play. But he also does seem to enjoy Go for its social benefits.

4kyu player myself. I enjoy how Go allows for extremely complex play with far simpler rules.

That's true, I made a bit of a straw man up there, but in my defense it's one I have encountered in non-straw form over and over.

I agree that the notion that chess is "less complex" than go for humans because it is more amenable to algorithmic play under current computing limitations is silly. Both games are, for all practical purposes, infinitely complex when played by people. Logic, creativity, intuition, structural thinking, they all have to come into play.

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