What is Go?

The game of Go originated in China around 3000 years ago. The rules of the game are simple as follows:

• Go is a two player game
• The default board size is 19x19 lines
• One player places a black stone, while the other player places a white stone
• The goal is to surround the opponent's stones and cover most of the empty spaces on the board

The following is a default board size, which is of 19x19 lines:

19x19 Go board

Even with those simple rules, the game of Go is highly complex. There are around 2.08 x 10¹⁷⁰ possible moves in a 19x19 Go compared to 10⁸⁰ atoms in universe and 10¹²⁰ possible moves in chess. Thus, the intellectual depth required to play the game of Go has captured human imagination for ages. 

Go versus chess

In 1997, IBM's DeepBlue defeated the then world champion Gary Kasparov in the game of chess. Almost two decades later, Google DeepMind's AI program AlphaGo defeated the 9-dan Go player and former world champion Lee Sedol. In order to understand the giant leap and achievement...