Chess Vs Go

A lot of people I know say that Go is a more Complex game than Chess and even though that is technically true in the mathematical sense I.E. there are more moves possible in Go than there are in Chess. I really don't think a game like go is really more complex. Go is just played on a bigger board than Chess is. it is played a 19x19 board, If chess had as many Squares and more pieces to fill in two rows on each side I guarantee it would be a much more complex game. Go was weakly Solved on a 7x7 board size in 2015, I bet Go will be solved on an 8x8 board sometime in the future, which means it is definitely less complex of a game than Chess. To me saying Go is more complex than Chess would be like saying If you played Tic Tac Toe on a 30,000x30,000 board size it would be more complex than Chess, it is still the rules of Tic Tac Toe though, so it isn't really more complex, it is just being played on a really big board with more possible moves. Anyone else agree? Disagree? I'm not trying to put Go down or anything it is still an incredibly complex game by any standard.

I have a program for GO. I can play on one variant on a 9 x 9 board, which is the one I try bearing in mind my lack of experience. The computer wins against me on a lower level. It's a good game.

"I bet Go will be solved on an 8x8 board sometime in the future, which means it is definitely less complex of a game than Chess. "

Even that it might be solved on 8x8 does not mean that it can be solved on 19x19. That is a huge (!) difference. Your conclusion seems to be flawed.

" it is still the rules of Tic Tac Toe though, "

That is wrong. The rules of Go have nothing to do with Tic Tac Toe.
Are you perchance confusing it with "Gomoku"?

"Gomoku narabe" means "five in row" (Japanese).

Go is totally different, you have to win areas (you have to surround them), and the area points are counted. Go is not Gomoku.

I have played some Go (and Shogi, Japanese chess). Both are very interesting and complicated. I#M not good at them, but i can understand that some people are fascinated.

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@Jenot I was not saying Go has the rules of tic tac toe, it was a Metaphor, If IF Tic Tac Toe was to be played on a 30,000x30,000 board instead of a 3x3 square board with the same rules as regular tic tac toe It would have more possible moves than Chess does but it is still Tic Tac Toe, it is just being played on a bigger board. 

When Go is played on a chess sized board size it is easier to solve than chess which means that the only reason Go is considered more complex is because of the Board size, not because of the rules of the game itself.

OP says that "even though [the fact that Go is more complex] is technically true in the mathematical sense" and then continues that he still doesn't think Go is more complex.

So if you're gonna argue that Go is more complex in another way, you're gonna need to define what you mean by "complex".

Otherwise, OP's question is meaningless.

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For those interested in the numbers, I did a Google;

The possible number of legal positions on a 19x19 Go board is 2.08168199382 * 10^170. Estimates of possible chess positions are generally around 10^50, give or take a few orders of magnitude; not even close.

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Go is way more complex than chess. But I support chess anyday. (I don't know how to play GO btw)

Very interesting. I knew that Go was weakly solved on a 5x5 board in year 2002, but not that 7x7 was solved too (2015). But it seems there is only a Chinese article about it, which does not solve it in a mathematical sense but concludes what the best first move, the winner and best komi is based on smaller board sizes.

> I bet Go will be solved on an 8x8 board sometime in the
> future, which means it is definitely less complex of a
> game than Chess.

For the same board size this would be true, but you noticed that Go is played on larger boards? No one would say chess is much less complex because if you replace the pieces by a single type which is allowed to move one field in every direction, it can be solved weakly. By the way mini chess with 5x5 squares (which can contain at least one piece of each type) is weakly solved too. The chess endgame was solved for 7 pieces. And the reason for variants like Chess 960 is that the opening in chess can be deeply analysed.

> If you played Tic Tac Toe on a 30,000x30,000 board size
> it would be more complex than Chess, it is still the rules
> of Tic Tac Toe though, so it isn't really more complex […]

What is the rule to win on such a big board size? Do you need a line of 30,000 marks to win or do you need only 3 marks? For 3 marks you have a lot of local positions which do not effect each other. This is totally different to Go where each local position has an effect on the global position (ladders, ko, influence, sente/gote).

If your point is that chess rules are more complicated (which does not depend on the board size): that’s true. But this does not say anything about the complexity.

Chess is played on 8x8 and has pieces of different types and with different movements; shogi is played on 9x9, and pieces can be put back in the game; Go is usually played on 19x19 (and 13x13 and 9x9) and has only stones that cannot move.

The pieces, their movement and the board size are what makes chess to be chess, and the same is true for Go. It is as it is, and if you change the rules, you can make a game more or less complex and change its character.

Japan developed many variants of Shogi up to and exceeding the board size used in Go. No one plays those because chess-likes suck at that size. Go, however, plays very nicely at that size, which is why it took off like that. There's more than just a "bigger = better" mechanism to this, which is why it's irrelevant to pull the "but at the same size..." argument. Go might be easier than chess if played at 8x8... but it doesn't mean anything, because it's officially played at 19x19.

Taikyoku shogi is the largest known shogi variant and has a size of 36x36. Each player has 402 pieces of 209 different pieces. Even dai and chu shogi are quite big and are variants which where commonly played.

Shogi is also nice. With Go it is black plays and wins on this 19x19 board thats why white is given compensation pionts. With chess it will be more like white play and black can draw on any more on several ways. Thus only a win by mistakes is possible. 

if Go masters were to play chess, quickly master the game and then dominate all the top players, then that might mean something.  Or if the opposite were to happen, it would say something.  I bet neither go nor chess players would find it easy to switch, chess is complicated enough for human minds and so is go.   It's the computers that are ruining everything, Fischer was exactly right about that.

Go tactics: 58

Chess Tactics: 68752345678179879862197361924518

what more proof do you need?

It has been awhile guys, no one seems to quite understand what I was trying to say, here was my intention in this post: Go on a 19x19 board is OBJECTIVELY more complex than chess, there is no debate there, it has been proven. But Go can be played on various board sizes. I Think the rules of Go are not as complex as Chess's Rules. I believe that Go only has more possible moves because it is played on a board that is over twice the size of a chess board, IF (keyword here is IF) chess and go were both played on an 8x8 board then Chess would likely be considered more complex. Likewise if Chess and Tic tac toe were both played on 8x8 boards, Chess would be more complex. Chess and Checkers are played on 8x8 boards and Chess is more complex. ect. ect. ect. Therefore Go is only more complex because of board size alone, unless someone has some math that suggests otherwise I am pretty confident in this conclusion.

I wasn't trying to say Chess is better or worse than Go, all I was wondering was IF Go was more or less complex on an 8x8 grid, and I found the answer outside of here. It is not more complex on an 8x8 grid because it's rules are much less complex than chess's rules.