Play Computer-Go Online at 361points.com
Monday, December 24th, 2007I just added a new feature at 361points.com: the capability of playing computer-go online, against the GnuGo engine.
You can try it out here and please let me know what you think.
I am using the wonderful, recently released open-source library EidoGo for the user interface. I coded the server side myself - while EidoGo does come with integrated PHP scripts for GnuGo interaction, my website is based on Django, which is a Python web development framework, so I had to write the equivalent functionality in Python.
Also, the first 9×9 game I tried on the EidoGo website, I realized that after both players pass there is no ending of the game: I found that frustrating so I added an “Estimation” button which makes a special call to GnuGo to retrieve a score estimation. That is pretty accurate in the end of the game, provided GnuGo can understand the status of all stones on the board.
I also added the possibility to select the color one wants to play with, and the GnuGo level.
I know GnuGo has interfaces in most of the popular SGF viewers - but being able to play against it online makes it so convenient. Myself I haven’t tried playing computer-go in a couple of years I think - and now that I’ve played several games against it while testing my website I was surprised of how well it does in many close fights. I got captured a couple of times very unexpectedly so be warned to count your liberties twice :-).
