The Real Go Championship Starts Here

Last night, AlphaGo struck first in a best of 5 match of Go against world’s top player, Lee Sedol. But the idea that AlphaGo is superior to the human player might be a bit premature.

In Go, there’s a rule called Komi: The player to move second gets 7.5 points at the end of a match to compensate, as statistically, the player to go first has an advantage to win. Why is this interesting?

In game 1, AlphaGo won by 4.5 points, the difference between winning and losing was the 7.5 points given through handicap. In real terms, this means the game played as as close as can be. Without komi, AlphaGo might have lost. This is not to be a #teamSedol apologist. The crucial point is to recognize how close the game between AlphaGo and Lee Sedol actually was.

With the initial game is over, they are to play again tonight. This is where it gets really interesting. Now the real question becomes: who learned more from last night’s game: the computer or the human 9-dan? If last night’s game is an indicator that AlphaGo can be as strong as the world’s top player, can it return tonight and handily beat the human player by analysis of last night’s game? Or is it Lee Sedol who will synthesize more than the computer could to win the second match?

With a relative dead heat, all eyes should be on tonight’s game to see who learned more from their initial meeting. The real Go championship starts here.

#teamSedol

Update: Lee Sedol is predicting 5–0 (nope!) or 4–1 in his favor. Perhaps that one loss as a period in which he will evaluate his opponent.

Update 2: komi is 7.5 points, not 6.5 as stated earlier.