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Tech and Japan

Cho Trounced DeepZenGo in Match 3

By November 26, 2016 at 6:39 am

It was a lopsided match, folks - the Match 3 between Japan's AI Go machine DeepZenGo and Grandmaster Cho Chikun of Japan. DeepZenGo surrendered to a thunderous attack by Cho from A to Z that made the developer Kato admit "it was a complete defeat".

The 3-match contest started on November 19. The grandmaster managed to grab Match 1 and the AI Go machine swept Match 2 for the first time to win against a human. That evened up the contest leaving one last showdown slated a few days afterward.

Match 3 was staged on November 23. As I trace the moves from the start, Grandmaster Cho dominated the match all the way to the endgame, allowing no chance for DeepZenGo to reverse the tide.

According to NHK, Hideki Kato, the developer of DeepZenGo commented:

"It was a complete defeat - there was little we could do to reverse the tide. But, then, one has more to learn from a defeat than a victory.
"Meaning, we now have a fine material to gain knowledge from."

After the final match, Grandmaster Cho  had this to say:

"You know, DeepZenGo made me feel as if playing with a human. 'He' was tough and he'll go on improving. The tougher he gets, the tougher we have to get, see. 
"I must say I'm thankful to DeepZenGo to have grown this strong."

A while ago, a computer software was thought to take at least a decade to fairly vie with a human, as the game of Go has far more points for the computer to play than chess and shogi. An earlier version,  "Zen", challenged a professional Go player two years ago on a board with fewer points but lost 4 matches without a win. What a progress!

Cheers to grandmaster Cho - but don't be too sure the match is over - yet. (Nathan Shiga)

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