Chapter 1128

Chapter 1128: Found its weakness!

Translator: Legge Editor: Legge

At night.

“The Americans are too arrogant!”

“Damn, you even claimed that that was all Teacher Zhang could do?”

“That’s because you people haven’t witnessed how he awesome he can be when he’s in form!”

“When Teacher Zhang was out there slaughtering everyone, was he not better than you?”

“You only scored a victory over Teacher Zhang in Go! What’s so great about that! Do you have to get this arrogant? If you’re so great, why don’t we compete in other categories! Teacher Zhang was not a pro Go player to begin with anyway!”

“That’s right!”

“Do you dare compete in math?”

“Do you dare compete in calligraphy?”

“Do you dare compete in piloting a plane?”

“Face-smacking Zhang would be able to demolish you people in any other aspect! Fuck!”

There was a heated discussion about this topic and all kinds of noisy chatter in the news.

Some of the people who were angered by the foreigners gradually started cheering for Zhang Ye.

Others were still as pessimistic as before regarding the match. Whatever reason there was now, it could not erase the fact that Zhang Ye had indeed lost the first game.

…

At home.

Zhang Ye ate three bowls of rice in one sitting for dinner.

His father said, “Eat more to replenish your stamina!”

His mother said, “Right, you still have to fight it out with Peter tomorrow!”

His eldest younger sister scooped some food for him. “Brother, have more meat.”

“Thanks.” Zhang Ye did not refuse whatever they offered.

His fighting spirit had been reignited. Wasn’t it just a lousy computer? He always believed that this was just something that was created by humans. No matter how good it was, it wouldn’t possibly have the same wisdom as humans did. Even if it was better in many aspects and possessed a computational and analytical ability that humans could never reach, it would definitely still have a weakness somewhere. So all he had to do was find out what PeterGo’s weakness was and score a victory in tomorrow’s game. He could not afford to lose and had to at least even the score tomorrow so that he would stand a chance of winning!

Weakness?

What was it?

What was the weakness?

After dinner, he received a few calls from his friends.

Yao Jiancai: “Zhang’er, finish off that Peter!”

Zhang Ye: “I will.”

Yao Jiancai: “You can do it, we’re all standing behind you!”

There were also some friends who tried to persuade him to throw in the towel. They told him that since he was not a part of the world of Go, it was nothing disgraceful even if he had lost the game. It was already a very great result that he could play against PeterGo as well as he did!

But Zhang Ye did not say anything.

Throw in the towel? There was no such phrase as “throw in the towel” in his vocabulary!

Back in his bedroom, Zhang Ye turned on his computer and again studied the day’s game against the artificial intelligence. He recreated the entire game three times over! From the looks of it, there were indeed some inaccuracies in his moves that ought to have much better alternatives to handle Peter’s play. Of course, it was useless to say all this in retrospect since whatever mentioned wouldn’t change anything. It was impossible for humans to have a foolproof plan while playing under such intense circumstances.

Besides, there was no such thing as a foolproof plan in Go since the game was just too complicated. There would be times when you think that a move would be great after taking everything into consideration. But a dozen moves later, it might turn out to be a bad one. Conversely, you might have played a bad move earlier which would turn out to be a good move by the middlegame when you suddenly realize that it had a decisive effect on the overall board state. All of it was possible due to the complexity of Go!

He studied the game for a full two hours.

The more he analyzed it, the more he could not find any weakness in Peter’s game. It seemed like every move it made was done to restrict Zhang Ye’s play. It always held a slight advantage over him across the whole board and was always a step ahead of Zhang Ye. With the exception of one move made early in the game, which was the only time that Zhang Ye had managed to restrict PeterGo’s play. Hence, Zhang Ye focused on this move for a very long time.

Why did I go into the lead at this move?

Why couldn’t Peter predict this move?

The more that Zhang Ye thought about it, the more he wondered why. Logically, it shouldn’t have happened. The AI’s computational power was so strong and could predict so many moves ahead, shouldn’t it be able to predict that move of his as well?

Zhang Ye’s keen sense of awareness told him that the breakthrough might lie right here!

After some thought, Zhang Ye called Wu Changhe’s house.

It was Li Qinqin who answered the call. “Hello?”

“Auntie, it’s Little Zhang.” Zhang Ye said: “Is Uncle home?”

Li Qinqin said: “He’s around, let me get him.”

A moment later, Wu Changhe’s voice sounded: “What do you want?”

Zhang Ye immediately said: “Uncle, there’s something I need to discuss with you. I was analyzing the ‘knight’s move’ I played against Peter in the corner during the opening. Do you remember it?”

When Wu Changhe heard that it was about proper business, he said with a rare showing of patience: “I remember that. It was your only move that allowed you to gain an advantage in the game. Even Peter could not predict that.”

Zhang Ye asked: “Why wasn’t Peter able to see it?”

“Why?” Wu Changhe was a little taken aback. “Actually, none of us could predict those moves of yours during the opening as they were all very unorthodox. It was only after you made that knight’s move that we realized the intention of your opening sequence, but we’ve never seen anyone use that joseki 1 before. That was probably why Peter fell for it since it was unable to predict that you would make such a move. You could basically consider that a surprise move.”

“No one has used it before?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I’ve played Go for many years.”

A nonstandard joseki?

How is that possible!

After hanging up, Zhang Ye immediately went through a lot of game records online. Indeed, he really could not find any similar josekis to the one he had played! As everyone knows, Go has many types of josekis and sayings 2 . There are so many kinds of them that they had long been agreed on and analyzed thoroughly by everyone. When Wu Changhe told Zhang Ye that no one has seen that joseki before, it surprised him greatly. That was because this joseki was a very standard way of playing and was commonly seen in games played in Zhang Ye’s previous world. If he did not remember wrong, it should have been first played by a Go master some time during the ’90s. After many years of trial and error, as well as being played in many different matches, a fixed pattern of play had been formed.

But in this world, no one had seen it before?

Due to the lack of such data, PeterGo couldn’t calculate and predict the moves?

After being stunned for a few seconds, Zhang Ye banged his desk and stood up!

I got it!

I know what Peter’s weakness is!

Zhang Ye laughed, “Hahahahaha!”

His mother opened the bedroom door and went in. “What’s the matter? Have you gone crazy?”

Zhang Ye immediately put on his clothes and said, “Mom, I can’t talk now, I need to go out for a while!”

Zhang Ye went out to his car and drove straight to China Qiyuan.

Why did he head there? Why did he head there? Because this place kept the most complete information on Go!

…

At China Qiyuan.

It was past 9 PM.

Compared to the crowd during the day, it was a little quiet at the Qiyuan at night. Most of the lights were already off!

When Zhang Ye arrived, there were only a few employees working in the Qiyuan. Seeing that it was Zhang Ye, they opened the door and let him in. He quickly went to the Go association and pushed the door open!

There were still some people in there.

They were Chen Ying 7-dan, Xu Han 8-dan, and five other professional players. They were grouped together and looked like they were discussing the day’s match between Zhang Ye and Peter.

Xu Han: “It’s really too strong.”

Chen Ying: “How can we beat it?”

When they heard the noise behind them, they turned around.

“Eh?”

“Professor Zhang?”

“What are you doing here?”

The several of them were stunned.

Zhang Ye immediately yelled out, “Quick, give me a hand! I need all the pro Go players’ past game record information and josekis of this world!”

Xu Han was stunned. “All the matches? All the josekis?”

Chen Ying said in a daze, “Why do you need them?”

A 5th dan player said, “All the matches? That would be more than several hundred thousand or millions of games!”

“I need to learn them! Quick, give me a hand!” Zhang Ye looked around and asked, “Where is the library? Hurry up, bros! We don’t have much time!”

The several of them got even more shocked!

Learn them?

Learn them right now?

Damn, it is already too late! The second game of the match will begin tomorrow! Even if anyone were to give a last-minute push, they would not do it as last minute as you are doing now!

1. https://senseis.xmp.net/?Joseki

2. https://senseis.xmp.net/?GoProverbs