Design and Implementation of 9×9 Computer Go Program GoKing

The studies of computer game have a long history. Since a computer chess program, Deep Blue, defeated human’s world champion in 1997, computer Go has become the next challenge of computer game.
The designing of computer Go program is a long and strenuous road which requires comprehensive and detailed planning in advance. However, many details cannot be easily and completely analyzed in advance, without the assistance of experts in Go. Therefore, we started from the thinking of professional Go players to figure out a correct direction of computer Go designs. The expert experiences were analyzed and induced to derive effective algorithms before we started to design and compose the program. So this research is full of the concepts of expert systems and knowledge engineering.
The 9 by 9 Go program, GoKing, was designed in 2003, and the structure of GoKing 3.0 was completed in April 2006. No matter in software engineering or performance, this program is one of the most outstanding programs in the present time. This research would focus on the integral and local designs of GoKing and analyze the specialties of the design to prove our edge. Now, the performance of GoKing is about 5-8 kyu. If it could be further modified and improved, it is very likely to break through the 1-dan grade in the future.