Subject: Mathematical GO Book

From: [email-masked] (Barney Pell)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 11:20:36 PST

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 18:15:41 -0800
From: David Wolfe <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked],
        [email-masked],
        [email-masked]
Subject: Mathematical Go complete

	Mathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point
		by Elwyn Berlekamp and David Wolfe

is now available.  And we're holding book signings Feb 2 in Palo Alto,
March 1 in Boston, and early April in Berkeley.  Details follow.
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	This book reveals the 'secrets' to turn the late stage Go
	endgames into tractable exact science. It is really a treat to
	any serious Go player, mathematican, and computer scientist.

Ken Chen
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Author of "Go Intellect", 1992 world champion Go-playing program:
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	To get the correct solutions for problems [presented in this
	book] is not easy, even for professional players.  However,
	from an analytical point of view of Mathematics, these endgame
	problems can be tackled from an entirely different approach
	which is simple, clear, complete and sequential.  Being able
	to offer a systematic fashion of analyzing the end-game of Go
	is the most valuable point of this book.

Jujo Jiang, 9-dan
Highest rank attainable in professioal Go
Foremost Go player residing in the west
Translation from Chinese by Sidney Yuan, Yutopian Enterprises
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	This book is a wonderful addition to any game player's or
	puzzle solver's library. By analysing the last point in Go,
	the authors, open up, in a clear and concise fashion, a whole
	world of mathematical techniques and concepts for analysing
	games.  These techniques and concepts can be applied either in
	a rigourous fashion or more intuitively as a help in
	evaluating the possibilities. Either way, they help sharpen
	one's problem solving abilities.

Richard J. Nowakowski
Dalhousie University
Coach of outstanding Canadian Math Olympiad Teams
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	It is rare that substantial mathematics is relevant to any
	aspect of a popular game.  Berlekamp and Wolfe are to be
	congratulated on a remarkable achievement.

John McCarthy
Stanford University
Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence
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Books can be ordered from Ishi Press, A K Peters, or your bookstore
(let them know the publisher, A K Peters, Ltd.):

A K Peters, Ltd.                    Ishi Press
289 Linden Streen		    79 Bonaventura Drive
Wellesley, MA 02181		    San Jose, CA  95134
(617) 235-2210			    (408) 944-9900
(617) 235-2404 (fax)		    (408) 944-9110 (fax)
[email-masked]         [email-masked]

$29.95 for hardcover book plus	    $24.95 for soft cover book plus
$2.50 Postage and handling to U.S.  $1.50 shipping to U.S.
5% sales tax for MA residents	    8.25% sales tax for CA residents
Mastercard, VISA, or check	    VISA, mastercard, or personal check
________________________________________________________________

Book signings are at:

Printers Inc. Bookstore           BU bookstore in Boston, MA
310 California Ave		  March 1, 1994
Palo Alto, CA
(415) 327-6500			  Black Oak Books in Berkeley, CA
Wednesday, February 2, 8:00       early April
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 From the back cover:

In this unique book, the authors, both only amateur Go players
themselves, develop the mathematical techniques for solving late-stage
endgame problems that can stump top-ranking professionals.  As a
typical game of Go approaches its conclusion, the active regions of
play become independent of one another, and the overall board position
may be regarded as a sum of disconnected partial board positions.
Combinatorial game theory, a branch of mathematics Berlekamp helped
develop, has long been concerend with such sums of games.  Here, it is
applied to solving Go-related problems with a bewildering choice of
similar-looking moves and subtle priority relationships.  The theory
presented in this book assigns each active area on the board an
abstract value and then shows how to compare them to select the
optimum move or add them up to determine the ideal outcome.  Some of
the values are familiar number or fractions, but most are bizarre
objects quite unlike anything in the existing Go literature.  From
these abstractions, the reader learns that positions seeming to have
the same numerical value can be crucially different while positions
that appear completely different can be mathematically identical.  A
Go player with an interest in mathematics or a mathematician
interested in Go will not want to miss this book because it describes
substantial connections between two subject which have been, until
now, largely unrecognized.
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