Aftermath

Well, THE match is now over, and we're almost back in the right time-zone, so it's time to give an interim view as to the effects on us in the UK.

Obviously our profile has risen just a little! I turned on to the BBC News on Monday towards the end and lo and behold there was an item about Go and the implications for AI, and I wasn't even surprised... If you look at our page of media mentions for the match you'll see what I mean. I haven't counted, but there must be at least 100 in the National Papers, Radio and TV. Did we appear on all channels?

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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AlphaGo completes match 4-1 up

AlphaGo
Seoul

AlphaGo completed the Google DeepMind Challenge Match with a fourth win to Lee Sedol's one.

In a very close fifth game, AlphaGo threatened to get a very large middle that Lee Sedol had to reduce in order to win. After playing a defensive move that also attacked, AlphaGo looked like getting enough, and, despite Lee Sedol's best efforts, AlphaGo was a couple of points ahead with the komi. With just the smallest yose left, Lee Sedol resigned.

At the closing ceremony, thanks were said and plaudits given to both sides. The million dollar prize will go to various charities.


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Detailed game records and notes about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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Alistair Wall new champion in Skye

Skye
Portree
Sat, 5 - Sun, 6 Mar 2016

With thirty-three players attending the fourth Isle of Skye Tournament, numbers are holding up, as did the weather.

Friday evening attracted a number of players for a 9 x 9 board league, which was won by Francis Roads (1k Wanstead).

The main tournament produced a new champion. Alistair Wall (2d Wanstead) won the bottle of Talisker whisky with 5 wins out of 6. The runner up, also with 5 wins out of 6, was Ulf Olsson (3d) visiting from Gothenburg.

Also in the prizes with 5 wins were, Edward Blockley (5k) and Greg Cox (10k Dundee). 4 wins were recorded by Stanislav Traykov, Donald Macleod, Roger Daniel, Alasdair Clarke, John Collins and John Macdonald.

Results

A number of players took the opportunity to extend their visit for a few days and explore the island.

The next tournament is planned for March 2018 - pace yourself Alistair :)

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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Jitka Bartova wins in a sunny Cambridge

Trigantius
Cambridge
Sat, 12 Mar 2016

A total of 54 players turned up at the Cambridge University Social Club for the Trigantius Tournament on a good spring day. The main tournament was won by Jitka Bartova (3d) narrowly beating in the last round her friend Ngoc-Trang Cao (3d), both from the Leamington stable. Bruno Poltronieri (3d Cambridge) gained third place on SOS from Andrew Simons (4d Cambridge).

Apart from the winner, prizes were awarded for those on 3 wins: Jonathan Green (5k Leamington), David Crabtree (7k Manchester), Edmund Smith (8k Milton School). They also awarded encouragement prizes: best 1k Alan Thornton (St Albans), best 9k Richard Scholefield (Milton Keynes) and best 16k Wenzhou Mei (Milton School).

Results

Puzzle Prizes were sponsored by Threedy 3d Printers.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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AlphaGo loses to Lee Sedol in Game 4

AlphaGo
Seoul
Sun, 13 Mar 2016

AlphaGo created a big central area, which Lee Sedol cleverly found a way to take apart to make the game 4 of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match close. AlphaGo played some strange moves when it thought it was behind, seemingly to test Lee. However these lost the machine some points and, despite being in overtime, Lee played very accurately and eventually at about 08:45 GMT AlphaGo resigned. Human and South Korean pride have thus risen!


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Live streaming of the event will continue again for the final match in the 5-game series, on Tuesday at 4am GMT.

Detailed game records and updates about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo wins third game to take the match

AlphaGo
Seoul
Sat, 12 Mar 2016

AlphaGo played very strongly in a desperate ko fight by Lee Sedol to take AlphaGo's big territory and thus win the third game of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match.

This means AlphaGo won the match with two games left to play.

Charities will benefit from the $1,000,000 prize.


Some more detailed commentary and pictures were available on the GoGameGuru website.

Detailed game records and updates about the match can be seen here.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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AlphaGo makes it two in a row!

AlphaGo
Thu, 10 Mar 2016

In the Google DeepMind Challenge Match, being held in Seoul from 9th-15th March, Lee Sedol lost the second game in the match, having been outclassed in some middle-game play in the centre.

Lee (playing White) was in his final period of byo-yomi after the two-hour main time, whereas AlphaGo (Black) was in its first.

The final score was a few points in Black's favour, so Lee resigned, as in the first game.

Comments from the Press Conference:

Lee Sedol: "Yesterday I was surprised by AlphaGo’s play, but today I’m quite speechless. At no time did I feel that I was leading, and I thought that AlphaGo played a near-perfect game." When asked what were AlphaGo’s weaknesses “Obviously I haven’t managed to find them out…” and when asked about his prediction for the third game said “It’s not going to be all that easy for me, but I’m going to exert my best efforts to win at least one game..

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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UK beats Slovakia while the world holds its breath...

Pandanet Go European Team Championship
Pandanet
Tue, 8 Mar 2016

Whilst the world was holding its breath waiting for the start of the Google DeepMind Challenge in Seoul there were some more prosaic games of Go being played - the latest round of the Pandanet European Go Team Championship.

The UK has got off to a poor start in the second division, but with our latest 3-1 win over second-placed Slovakia we're gradually hauling ourselves up the table.

Andrew Simons was our sole loss, not totally unexpectedly to to 1 dan pro Pavol Lisy, but our other three (Bruno Poltronieri, Alex Kent and Charlie Hibbert) all scored good wins to round off the match.

Andrew Simons said: "My game was rather like my first game of the British Championship, a disappointing loss after throwing away a large opening lead in late fighting, though I suppose I should be glad to have outplayed Pavol in the first 100+ moves.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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AlphaGo wins the first game!

AlphaGo
Wed, 9 Mar 2016

In the Google DeepMind Challenge Match being held in Seoul from 9th-15th March Lee Sedol resigned after the 186th move, when he realised that he was about 7 points behind and without hope of winning.

Congratulations to the DeepMind team, although some of the non-UK members may not be so happy about the GB flag being shown for AlphaGo (Lee obviously has a Korean flag).

Aja Huang, 5 dan, was their representative playing the moves on the board against Lee, who had Black.

“#AlphaGo WINS!!!! We landed it on the moon,” tweeted DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis after the game. “So proud of the team!! Respect to the amazing Lee Sedol too.” At a jam-packed post-game press conference, Lee admitted “I was so surprised. Actually, I never imagined that I would lose.

Last updated Tue Jan 05 2021.
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24 hours and counting...

The AlphaGo v Lee Sedol match is now less than 24 hours away. Are you ready? Will you be getting up early? What are you planning for the weekend? Watch our status page here.

At the Press Conference in Seoul this morning, Alphabet (parent company of Google) executive chairman Eric Schmidt said “The winner here, no matter who wins, is humanity”.

Lee Sedol seemed very confident from the various Korean news items, although he's backtracked a little at this Press Conference, being quoted by the BBC as saying "Playing against a machine is very different from an actual human opponent. Normally, you can sense your opponent’s breathing, their energy. And lots of times you make decisions which are dependent on the physical reactions of the person you’re playing against.

Last updated Wed Oct 11 2017.
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