SPA

Superhuman Performance Analysis

A new method for determining the strongest player in the history of Go has been developed. Two simple equations of Go skill, in terms of performance (%) and move strength, were created and the well-validated superhuman Go bot was employed to assess the top professionals' performance at their peaks. Results reveal both the known facts (e.g., AlphaGo Zero is the strongest player) and the facts that have long been unknown for sure for several centuries, such as the name of the actually strongest human player in the history of Go. The best games of the top players were selected for this analysis. The top of the top Go players from 1667 to 2019 were the samples of this study. In this way, it is clear who is the strongest and what are the relative strengths among them. If you are not sure who is the strongest player among Honinbo Dosaku, Honinbo Shusaku, Honinbo Shuwa, Sakata Eio, Go Seigen, Kato Masao, Cho Chikun, Takemiya Masaki, Otake Hideo, Koichi Kobayashi, Cho Hunhyun, Lee Changho, Lee Sedol, Yata Iyama, and Ke Jie, when they were at their peaks (or in their top forms), this book can help. New insights and solutions to difficult questions about Go performance that cannot be found elsewhere are also reported. This book, if widely published, might cause a paradigm shift in Go rating, from results-based rating (Elo) to the quality-based one, which will allow more accurate performance comparisons across the times and the tournaments without needing prior knowledge of the player's rating or rank.

Superhuman Performance Analysis: The Strongest Player in the History of Go