how many different groups can you place on a goban?

[lefuet]

they can be in atari but need at least one liberty of course :)

[LeoSanu]

Check this one:
http://senseis.xmp.net/?MaximumNumberOfLiveGroups
for a practical/theoretical dissertation.

But why are you interested about this topic?

If you are looking for “longest, shortest, oldest, youngest, etc “ GO facts… here is a good compilation about that: http://www.gogod.demon.co.uk/NewInGo/Firsts_mass.htm


Leonard Dragomir
www.WarriorsGoAcademy.com

[lefuet]

interesting patterns :)

I was looking not for alive groups, but the maximum number of groups that can be fit on a goban.

Though actually I used this question as pretext to see how much live is in this go forum, as most go threads seem to be several years old. :cool:

to answer my question: an upper bound is 0.8 * 19 * 19 = 288.8
the real maximum is lower, because of the edge.
I found a pattern where only 12 stones had to be removed on the edge: 276 groups.

But as I said, I just wanted to see if there are still go players around here. :)

[Michael-H]

So let't put some life to our little sub forum.


I was looking not for alive groups

Is it meaningful to talk about a group if cannot live? Obviously it is a group as in a collection of stones, but in a game I would never refer to a single stone as a group if it couldn't live. It might be a kikashi stone or just a prisoner but not a group. On the other hand a group that could live, or I thought could live, might still go by that name once they are dead but most often they would be "those stones" when discussing their ability to create aji or something else of importance to the game.

/M

[lefuet]

this question came up in a rules discussion, though I don't know why. ...

I could imagine some relevance of this in computer go.

maybe not relevant to go playing but still an interesting puzzle. And nice patterns arise when trying to maximize the number of groups. :)

btw. i put my 'solution' an senseis (http://senseis.xmp.net/?MaximumNumberOfLiveGroups).

[allan]

Hi Robert,

I don't have any answers to your queries but I do play go (I am a newbie) and try to keep my eye on the discussions here, when anything is actually being discussed that is! Unfortunately I haven't played for several months now. I'll have to get on that.

Regards,