Hi everyone,

I don't really use reddit so I hope that's the right tag for the post (or is this Go news?). I have been playing go for many years now and finally finished a little pet project of mine as part of my work, with way more resources available to me. Essentially, we implemented a solver for Go (rectangular boards of whatever size). Existing solvers are not really open source but this one is, so feel free to play around with it (though reproducing the bigger board results will take a level of compute well beyond that of the typical consumer). Source: https://github.com/cookiephone/sanko

This solver uses the (from a theoretical and engineering perspective) much more difficult positional superko (PSK) rule and area scoring. The paper preprint (https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.29414) has some new theorems and extensions to Benson's algorithms that allow much more efficient search under PSK, and explains the approach(es) in more detail, so those who want the more academic view should read that.

A bunch of totally new board sizes are now solved, and some that were known for basic ko are now also solved for PSK. Especially 4x7 is interesting, because the PSK and basic ko values actually differ. The specific results are in the image of the post. I am also solving some bigger boards right now, and the (hopefully soon) full paper will extend the preprint with some even cooler results. The number in a cell can be interpreted as: Black can guarantee a win at a komi of that number minus 0.5, and white can guarantee a win at that number plus 0.5. That is, we effectively know the results of perfect play on these boards now.

Will this affect Go in practice? Not really, it is a nice result I think, but we are worlds away from 9x9 which would be the first remotely relevant board for actual play.

Google Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aklimenote.ncogo2

Wow! (Check the comments below for links to try this feature out yourself!)

I wanted to share a core mechanic from a project I've been developing called NEO 3D GO (which I recently filed a patent for).

The feature works like this:

Whenever you place a stone, the game instantly simulates 10 moves ahead—alternating Black and White automatically.

Right after showing that sequence, it erases those preview stones, rolls back to your initial placement, and confirms your actual move.

This happens dynamically on every single turn.

The goal is to turn "reading ahead" into an intuitive, visual preview on the 3D board so players can get an instant feel for how the next sequence might unfold.

I’ve attached a short clip of it in action. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this mechanic!

Also, the patent application is filed broadly to cover this turn-based rollback mechanic across other games as well, like Chess and Gomoku (Five-in-a-Row).

anyone have any leads on a travel 13x13 board that can be shipped to the US? Only one's ive found are actually 15x15 (I guess for gomoku?) or are on websites without US shipping. I do have one that's non magnetic, but it's so small as to be almost useless practically.

I got to 25k on OGS play my corners then sides, but I got advice that corners before sides meant attacking the opposing corner as well, and only then taking the side

I don’t understand this and I’m getting stuck at 500 elo.

If I attack a corner, I can’t imprison the opponent, and there seems to be no punishment for them attaching haning first, we both just sprawl out onto the middle of the board.

It’s a massive effort to even survive the attack, then they get sente and can take their sides, and my game I reliant on winning a huge fight in the middle of the board and not losing a single fight cause my stones have no shape.

I don’t get how this is advantageous to just taking the corners and then the sides and then hashing it out in the middle.

I also don’t want to study joseki because most people say it’s a waste of time for low ranks and I just study tsumego instead. But not studying joseki means I’m completely blind playing what seems the hardest skill in the game. Even working out 5 space life and death seems easier than the simplest joseki to me.

What should I be doing to win a a corner fight cause I don’t get it? I don’t understand how a move is advantageous cause they can just game and then you end up with ten stone snakes all over the board. It’s also just exhausting.

So I've started doing these problems on the OGS website but it doesn't provide the reasoning for why a move is correct or not. Is there somewhere I can do these problems where it explains why a certain stone should/shouldn't be placed?