Zen
Zen is a strong Go engine by an individual Japanese programmer Ojima Yoji. A bot running this engine played on KGS in April and May 2009 as Zen19. Recently, it resurfaced and plays from time to time on KGS. According to its Author, this is to test new features. Zen was the first bot to hold a KGS 3d rating for more than 20 rated games in a row. It was also the first to hold a 2d and 1d rating for more than 20 games, respectively. Hardware used to run Zen19 on KGS: Mac Pro 8 core, Xeon 2.26GHz.
It won the 2009 Computer Olympiad in Pamplona, Spain, running on the slowest hardware among the competitors.
Zen was released commercially under the name Tencho no Igo Zenith Go on 18 September 2009.
Website to the software (Japanese) http://soft.mycom.co.jp/pcigo/tencho2/index.html
An english version will hopefully follow soon (written october 2009).
There seems to be a version 2 for sale at amazon jp
See latest go software updates for current version information.
- Late in May 2009, Zen19's rating at KGS drifted to 2d (it had not played any games since May 8).
- On June 8 2009, Zen19 returned and is holding a 2d rating.
In July 2009, several different levels of Zen started playing on KGS:
Name | Rating | Playouts |
---|---|---|
ZenLv1 | 4k | 500 |
ZenLv2 | 3k | 1000 |
ZenLv3 | 1k | 2000 |
ZenLv4 | 1k | 4000 |
ZenLv5 | 1d | 8000 |
ZenLv6 | 1d | 16000 |
Zen19 | 2d | Full strength uses full byo-yomi period |
Zengg19 | 3d | Zen on a (mini) cluster of four Intel quad-core handcraft computers. |
Zen9 | 6d | Only 9x9 |
Links