In the first completed go event of the 4th Mind Sports Olympiad, six-year-old Chinese prodigy Liao Xingwen trounced the world computer champion in an even game, then for good measure followed up with a clean-cut victory giving nine stones.
Liao Xingwen takes on Mick Reiss and his computer go program.
Referee Tony Buzan looks on.
(Picture courtesy of Kirsty Healey/BGA) |
The performance, at London's Alexandra Palace on 19 August 2000, was all the more remarkable in that tiny Xingwen had only arrived less than two days earlier, on his first international sortie - on a bumpy flight that made him airsick - and had been hounded by the media from the moment he walked through the arrivals gate at London's Heathrow Airport.
Even on the day of the computer game, scheduled at 3.30 pm, he and his go mother Liu Yajie had to run the gauntlet of several television and newspaper interviews to the extent that they had to miss lunch. |
Fortunately Xingwen had been fortified by suddenly discovering that he loved English breakfasts. After his first huge breakfast, Liu Yajie was aghast and exclaimed that he was eating more than her. He matter of factly replied that he needed to eat a lot because he uses his brain.
Truth to tell, once he is playing go he forgets about everything else, including food.
Xingwen is currently rated at 3-dan amateur by his teacher, Liu Yajie's husband Wang Hongjun 7-dan, but as Xingwen regularly takes only four stones from him now, this would be regarded as a very conservative estimate by most western standards.
Xingwen's go is not without its weaknesses. A Korean 6-dan living in Cambridge, Kim Seong-Jun, said it was fair to describe him as a 5-dan tactically and 1-dan strategically. But he was not greatly tested by the go program.
His machine opponent was Michael Reiss's Go Professional III, running at maximum setting on a 700 MHz computer. Under various guises GP III is the best selling go program in Japan, having won the last Ing world championship. One of its characteristics is that its moves look like those a human kyu player would make, and referee Tony Buzan, who rates himself as 10-kyu, was struck by how often the computer chose the moves he would have made. Mick Reiss himself says his program usually performs at between 7 and 9 kyu.
Xingwen, however, though no stranger to computers, looked startled when the computer made very bad moves. He suspected some sort of trap, and in the first game, an even game, he played cautiously to take an easy win by over 50 points. In the second game, giving nine stones, he became too casual and could easily have lost, but in the end he ran out a comfortable winner by 8 points under Chinese rules.
Both games are given here:
Note that in Game 2, because Chinese rules are used, Black has to return half the handicap to White at the count-up stage. Under Japanese rules the score would have been W+7, not W+16.
Asked what he felt about playing a computer, Xingwen said "nothing", but asked about the computer's moves, he confirmed he was surprised by the very bad moves.
Xingwen's own bad moves do not evade scrutiny. Liu Yajie immediately reviews his games and explains and corrects all the doubtful moves. Two things struck me when listening in to this. One is that she explains the correct way to play in conceptual or strategic terms, since this is where his current weakness lies - he is very, very strong at tactics and life and death. The other is the amazing tenderness with which she does it, and Xingwen responds with total respect and attention, politely asking about follow-up points, and then striving very hard to put into practice what he has just learnt in the very next game.
For Yajie it is a bitter-sweet experience. She sadly remarks that it is not possible to improve while teaching, and playing amateurs actually degrades her go. The compensation of having a pupil like Xingwen is, of course, immense.
Just how much of a prodigy is he?
I have used the phrase "it is like Mozart coming to London" about Xingwen's visit. This had one slight drawback in that a Times photographer was detailed to look out at the airport for "a little Chinese kid with a violin". But, so far at least, it is not an exaggeration to compare him with the sublime musical genius.
The Chinese are aware of his talent too, and he was the subject of a recent television documentary in Beijing. Most telling for me, though, was a little discovery the day he arrived. Yajie brought a mountain of Chinese books for me. One was selected games of Chang Hao, the current Chinese No. 1. I was looking at in bed and sat bolt upright when I noticed the date on the first game. It was 1985. I knew Chang Hao was a Dragon child; therefore I realised at once that he must have been nine years old when that game was played. And it was a four-stone game against a high-dan player...
Xingwen is here for the entire Olympiad. He will play in the Lightning tournament, the youth tournament, and the main tournament. He and Yajie will also team up for the Pair Go. He is also likely to give a simultaneous display (not for the first time - he has already played six boards). Why not come and see him for yourself.
