Zen, sold as Tencho no Igo (, literally Zenith Go) in Japan, is a

closed source Proprietary software is software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing the software or modi ...

Go playing engine developed by Yoji Ojima (尾島陽児), a Japanese Go programmer.

History to 2016

Zen won a gold medal in 14th

Computer Olympiad The Computer Olympiad is a multi-games event in which computer programs compete against each other. For many games, the Computer Olympiads are an opportunity to claim the "world's best computer player" title. First contested in 1989, the major ...

in May 2009. It won the Computer Go UEC Cup in 2011, 2014, and 2016. In 2011, Zen19D reached 5 dan on the

KGS Go Server The KGS Go Server, known until 2006 as the Kiseido Go Server, is a game server first developed in 1999 and established in 2000 for people to play Go. The system was developed by William M. Shubert and its code is now written entirely in Java. In ...

, playing games of 15 seconds per move. The account which reached that rank uses a cluster version of Zen running on a 26-core machine. In 2012, Zen beat

Takemiya Masaki is a professional Go player. Biography Masaki Takemiya was born in Japan. He became one of the many disciples of the Minoru Kitani school. His rise to fame began when he was only 15 years old. He earned the nickname "9 dan killer" because he ...

9p by 11 points (it received five handicap stones), followed by a 20-point win (receiving four handicap stones) in the 6th E&C Symposium in Japan. Zen defeated

Kobayashi Koichi is a Japanese Go player. He is one of the 'Six Supers' who championed Japanese Go in the last three decades of Japanese Go. Biography Koichi Kobayashi was born in Asahikawa, Japan. In 1965, he came to Tokyo to be a disciple of Minoru Kitani. ...

(Zen receiving three handicap stones) in the 4th Densei-sen on 23 March 2016. Zen's first commercial version was released in Japan on 18 September 2009. Zen 2 was released on 27 August 2010, Zen 3 on 30 September 2011, Zen 4 on 27 July 2012, and Zen 5 on 13 December 2013.

2016 onwards: DeepZenGo

After the

AlphaGo AlphaGo is a computer program that plays the board game Go. It was developed by the London-based DeepMind Technologies, an acquired subsidiary of Google. Subsequent versions of AlphaGo became increasingly powerful, including a version that c ...

AI defeated professional players Fan Hui 2p and

Lee Sedol Lee Sedol (; born 2 March 1983), or Lee Se-dol, is a South Korean former professional Go player of 9 dan rank. As of February 2016, he ranked second in international titles (18), behind only Lee Chang-ho (21). His nickname is "The Stro ...

9p in 2015 and 2016, Yoji was inspired to upgrade Zen with

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

algorithms. In November 2016, “DeepZenGo” played and lost a three-game match against

Cho Chikun Cho Chikun ''25th Honinbo'' ''Honorary Meijin'' (; born June 20, 1956) is a professional Go player and a nephew of Cho Namchul. Born in Busan, South Korea, he is affiliated to Nihon Ki-in. His total title tally of 75 titles is the most in the ...

9p; the AI won one game and lost the other two. Its win in that match made it the second Go-playing computer program (after AlphaGo) to win against a top human player without receiving handicap stones. In March 2017, DeepZenGo played games against

Mi Yuting Mi Yuting (; born 8 January 1996) is a Chinese professional go player. As of October 2018, he is ranking 1st in Go ratings with an Elo rating of 3645. Promotion record Titles and runners-up Head-to-head record vs selected players ''Pla ...

Park Junghwan Park Junghwan (born 11 January 1993) is a South Korean professional Go player of 9-dan rank. Biography Early career Park became a professional Go player in 2006. He won the Fujitsu Cup in 2011. Park defeated Lee Chang-ho to advance to the f ...

, and

Iyama Yuta is a Japanese professional Go player. In April 2016, he became the first player in Japanese history to hold all seven major titles simultaneously. In January 2018, Iyama became the first professional Go player to be awarded Japan's People's Ho ...

, losing to Mi and Park, but defeating Iyama. Around the same time, DeepZenGo participated in the 2017 Computer Go UEC Cup, coming second behind

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

. Both programs then won their exhibition matches against Ichiriki Ryo, 7-dan Japanese professional.

Example game

DeepZenGo (white) v. Ichiriki Ryo (26 March 2017), DeepZenGo won by resignation; Black's bottom left group is dead.

References

{{Go (game) Go engines