An Open Boundary Safety-of-Territory Solver for the Game of Go

This paper presents SAFETY SOLVER 2.0, a safety-of-territory solver for the game of Go that can solve problems in areas with open boundaries. Previous work on assessing safety of territory has concentrated on regions that are completely surrounded by stones of one player. SAFETY SOLVER 2.0 can identify open boundary problems under real game conditions, and generate moves for invading or defending such areas. Several search enhancements improve the solver’s performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the solver can find good moves in small to medium-size open boundary areas