Computer chess includes both hardware and software capable of playing chess. Computer chess provides opportunities for players to practice even in the absence of human opponents, and also provides opportunities for analysis, entertainment and training. Computer chess applications that play at the level of a chess master or higher are available on hardware from supercomputers to smart phones. Standalone chess-playing machines are also available. Stockfish, GNU Chess, Fruit, and other free open source applications are available for various platforms.
Computer Go is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to creating a computer program that plays the traditional board game Go. The field is sharply divided into two eras. Before 2015, the programs of the era were weak. The best efforts of the 1980s and 1990s produced only AIs that could be defeated by beginners, and AIs of the early 2000s were intermediate level at best. Professionals could defeat these programs even given handicaps of 10+ stones in favor of the AI. Many of the algorithms such as alpha-beta minimax that performed well as AIs for checkers and chess fell apart on Go's 19x19 board, as there were too many branching possibilities to consider. Creation of a human professional quality program with the techniques and hardware of the time was out of reach. Some AI researchers speculated that the problem was unsolvable without creation of human-like AI.
LG Cup World Baduk Championship is a Go competition.
Sjeng is a chess engine written by Gian-Carlo Pascutto based on Faile, written by Adrien Regimbald. There are two major versions of Sjeng: the original open source version called Sjeng and Deep Sjeng, a closed source commercial version.
Stockfish is a free and open-source chess engine, commonly used to calculate the optimal move in various chess scenarios needed for a checkmate. It is available for various desktop and mobile platforms and can be used in chess software through the Universal Chess Interface.
Yang Dingxin is a Chinese professional Go player.
AlphaGo is a computer program that plays the board game Go. It was developed by the London-based DeepMind Technologies, an acquired subsidiary of Google. Subsequent versions of AlphaGo became increasingly powerful, including a version that competed under the name Master. After retiring from competitive play, AlphaGo Master was succeeded by an even more powerful version known as AlphaGo Zero, which was completely self-taught without learning from human games. AlphaGo Zero was then generalized into a program known as AlphaZero, which played additional games, including chess and shogi. AlphaZero has in turn been succeeded by a program known as MuZero which learns without being taught the rules.
Fan Hui is a Chinese-born French Go player. Becoming a professional Go player in 1996, Fan moved to France in 2000 and became the coach of the French national Go team in 2005. He was the winner of the European Go Championship in 2013, 2014 and 2015. As of 2015, he is ranked as a 2 dan professional. He additionally won the 2016 European Professional Go Championship.
Mi Yuting is a Chinese professional go player. As of Oct 2018, he is ranking 1st in Go ratings with an Elo rating of 3645.
Lian Xiao is a Chinese professional go player. As of January 2017, he is ranking 5th in Chinese Weiqi Association official ratings with and Elo rating of 2660. Lian was promoted to 8 dan on 16 January 2017, and 9 dan in October 2017.
The Future of Go Summit was held in May 2017 by the Chinese Go Association, Sport Bureau of Zhejiang Province and Google in Wuzhen, Zhejiang, the permanent host of the World Internet Conference. It featured five Go games involving AlphaGo and top Chinese Go players, as well as a forum on the future of AI. It was Google’s biggest public event in partnership with the Chinese government since Google China's search engine was moved out of mainland China to Hong Kong due to the government censorship in 2010. It was seen as a charm offensive launched by Google toward Chinese officials, being part of effort to reopen China's market.
AlphaGo versus Ke Jie was a three-game Go match between the computer Go program AlphaGo Master and current world No. 1 ranking player Ke Jie, being part of the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, China, played on 23, 25, and 27 May 2017. AlphaGo defeated Ke Jie in all three games.
AlphaGo Zero is a version of DeepMind's Go software AlphaGo. AlphaGo's team published an article in the journal Nature on 19 October 2017, introducing AlphaGo Zero, a version created without using data from human games, and stronger than any previous version. By playing games against itself, AlphaGo Zero surpassed the strength of AlphaGo Lee in three days by winning 100 games to 0, reached the level of AlphaGo Master in 21 days, and exceeded all the old versions in 40 days.
AlphaGo versus Fan Hui was a five-game Go match between European champion Fan Hui, a 2-dan professional, and AlphaGo, a computer Go program developed by DeepMind, held at DeepMind's headquarters in London in October 2015. AlphaGo won all five games. This was the first time a computer Go program had beaten a professional human player on a full-sized board without handicap. This match was not disclosed to the public until 27 January 2016 to coincide with the publication of a paper in the journal Nature describing the algorithms AlphaGo used.
Leela Zero is a free and open-source computer Go program released on 25 October 2017. It is developed by Belgian programmer Gian-Carlo Pascutto, the author of chess engine Sjeng and Go engine Leela.
AlphaZero is a computer program developed by artificial intelligence research company DeepMind to master the games of chess, shogi and go. This algorithm uses an approach similar to AlphaGo Zero.
Gian-Carlo Pascutto is a Belgian computer programmer. He is the author of chess engine Sjeng and Go software Leela, and the original author of the free and open-source Go software Leela Zero. Gian-Carlo also authored many core components of the foobar2000 media player.
Shin Jin-seo is a South Korean professional Go player. He has won four major international championships: the LG Cup in 2020 and 2022, the Chunlan Cup in 2021, and the Samsung Cup in 2022. As of November 2022, he is the number one ranked Korean player in the Korea Baduk Association's official rankings, a spot which he first reached in November 2018 and has held continuously since January 2020.
Xie Ke is a Chinese professional Go player.
KataGo is a free and open-source computer Go program, capable of defeating top-level human players. First released on 27 February 2019, it is developed by David Wu.
