Go game formal revealing by Ising model

Abstract

Go gaming is a struggle for territory control between rival, black and white, stones on a board. We model the Go dynamics in a game by means of the Ising model whose interaction coefficients reflect essential rules and tactics employed in Go to build long-term strategies. At any step of the game, the energy functional of the model provides the control degree (strength) of a player over the board. A close fit between predictions of the model with actual games is obtained.