Estimating the possible omission number for groups in go by the number of n-th dame

Abstract

This paper describes a new method for estimating the strength of a group in the game of Go. Although position evaluation is very important in Computer Go, the task is very complex, so good evaluation methods have not yet been developed. One of the major factors in evaluation is the strength of groups. In general, this evaluation is a difficult problem, so it is desirable to have a simple method for making a rough estimate. We define PON (Possible Omission Number) as a precise measure for the strength of groups, and present a simple method for the rough estimation of PON by calculating n-th dame (liberties). We report some experiments indicating the effectiveness of the method.